“If destruction be our lot, we will ourselves be its author” – Abraham Lincoln, 1838
“Politics and violence must never mix” — Michael Beschloss, Historian, July 13, 2024
When voters elect their President, they also elect a set of policies they want enacted. This election makes clear what Americans can expect from another Trump presidency. The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing activist think tank, has provided a 920 page blueprint for the next Trump administration. Project 2025 (www.project2025.org) is a conservative nightmare of epic proportions for all who value freedom and the Constitution. It’s also known as the Presidential Transition Project, in anticipation of a Trump win. Project 2025 is a step-by-step action plan that attacks personal freedoms and outlines widespread changes, especially in economic and social policies and the role of the federal government and its agencies.
The following is a small sample of summaries of the objectives of Project 2025:
(https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project 2025)
(https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/what-is-project-2025)
(https://democracyforward.org/the-peoples-guide-to-project-2025)
Here are some major lowlights:
• A partisan takeover of the Commerce and Justice Departments, the FBI, the Federal Communication Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission. One of many goals is gaining control of the media to assure only the government’s view is allowed. The Justice Department would become an arm of the Trump administration, in part to seek retribution and punish those whom Trump views as enemies. This will be achieved by reclassifying thousands of civil service employees as political appointees so they can be replaced by personnel committed to Trump and the goals of Project 2025.
• Eliminate the Department of Education, the Federal Drug Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and downsize the Environmental Protection Agency. Project 2025 blames NOAA for “being one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” Who needs NOAA when the direction of a hurricane can be changed with a Sharpie? And heck, we don’t need assurance our food and drugs are safe since we know Big Pharma and corporate agriculture are only interested in our well-being. Since Project 2025 proposes teaching Christianity in public schools, the Department of Education has no reason to remain a separate entity.
• Christian nationalism is infused throughout Project 2025. More than 100 of its authors served in the previous Trump administration and profess it should be part of public life. Russell Vought, a major contributor to Project 2025, is said to be under consideration for Trump’s chief of staff. He has written that Christian nationalism “recognizes America as a Christian nation” and Trump has echoed the promotion of Christian nationalism in campaign speeches.
• Project 2025 proposes to nullify Biden’s executive orders on climate change, and stop activities to reduce greenhouse gas, including repealing regulations to curb emissions. Further, the federal government “has an obligation to develop vast gas and coal resources” and supports Arctic drilling.
• Project 2025 would abolish the Federal Reserve and backs a gold standard. It states full employment should no longer be an economic goal. It proposes to reduce the corporate tax rate to 18% while individual income taxes are reduced to two brackets –15% and 30%. It proposes to extend Trump’s tax cuts of 2017 which benefit the wealthy and would increase the deficit by $4 trillion by 2028.
• Education would be left to the states. School choice would be the right of all parents with taxpayer funding for those choosing private or religious schools. States could opt out of federal standards and programs. Programs for students with disabilities would be shifted to Health and Human Services (to be renamed the Department of Life) or to the states. Free school meals and Head Start would be eliminated. Proposed limits for food assistance would impact 40 million people.
• Key personnel in leadership roles in various agencies would be dismissed and replaced with employees in acting positions, thus avoiding the need for congressional approval.
• The federal government would prohibit Medicare from negotiating drug prices, would promote private insurance plans and cut funding for Medicaid by setting lifetime limits.
• The president would have the power to withhold disaster relief funds should state or local governments refuse to abide by immigration laws. Internment camps and mass deportation would be the norm.
• Project 2025 states that life begins at conception and rejects abortion as health care. The project opposes any initiatives that “subsidize” single parenthood. It revives provisions of the 1870’s Comstock Act banning postal and other services from delivering any “instrument, substance, drug, medication or thing” that could be used for abortion. This would be a de facto national abortion ban.
• The expansion of presidential powers, without oversight by Congress, crushes the concept embedded throughout the Constitution of separation of powers. Trump said he has “the right to do whatever I want” (Fox News, The Washington Post, July 23, 2019). The Supreme Court seemingly agreed. This could include using the military to round up immigrants, put down protests, arrest dissenters—and “whatever I want.”
These are only a few of the proposals in Project 2025. If Trump is elected, it’s certain many of its authors will serve in the Trump administration. It’s noteworthy that Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation said, “…we are in the process of the second American Revolution which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
That threat of violence, together with a white, male, Christian, patriarchal agenda that’s embedded in Project 2025, could be America’s future.
Now we know the plan. There are two choices: the Constitution—or Project 2025.
Choose wisely.
Marsha Shearer is a resident of The Villages and the author of “America in Crisis: Essays on the Failed Presidency of Donald J. Trump.”
