Can You Believe They Put Project 2025 in Writing?
Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech presented a compelling case for her election to the highest office in the land. She was, in a word, presidential. Hopefully, whatever issues or concerns voters have about her policy positions, she dispelled them last night. Now that she is the official nominee of the Democratic Party, it is essential to discuss what she’s up against. At the beginning of her presidential campaign, Harris slammed the Right-Wing Republican platform known as Project 2025 and tied the playbook to Donald Trump. Here is some of what she had to say:
"Donald Trump wants to take our country backward. He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like, we know we got to take this seriously."
"Can you believe they put that thing in writing? Read it. It's 900 pages. When you read it, you will see Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare. He intends to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and make working families foot the bill." He intends “to end the Affordable Care Act and take us back then to a time when insurance companies had the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions. Remember what that was like? Children with asthma. Women who survived breast cancer. Grandparents with diabetes. America has tried these failed economic policies before, but we are not going back."
Since those comments last month, Donald Trump and, more recently, his running mate, J.D. Vance, have tried to distance themselves from Project 2025. Per Trump’s tired playbook, they want us to ignore our lying eyes and ears. Project 2025 was written by the Heritage Foundation, a full-blown MAGA think tank; the document is subtitled The Presidential Transition Project. One of its authors is J.D. Vance. If you understand nothing else about the November 2024 presidential election, remember this:
If Donald Trump is re-elected, Project 2025 will be the cornerstone of and blueprint for his second term in office.
To understand what Project 2025 is, we must first understand who the Heritage Foundation is. Following the Supreme Court’s recent presidential immunity ruling, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts called Project 2025 a “second American Revolution which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
This is not a group that makes idle threats—its leaders once promised to overturn Roe v. Wade. The group recommended all three of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, the Justices responsible for overturning fifty years of women’s reproductive freedoms. Effectively, The Heritage Foundation chose the candidates; Trump just followed orders.
Slashes employment in the federal government and muzzles "woke propaganda at every level of government."
Eliminates the Department of Education and its "woke-dominated system of public schools."
Prohibits the FBI from fighting misinformation and disinformation.
Ends the "war on fossil fuels" and encourages further development, including on Native American lands.
Ends all active FBI investigations "contrary to the national interest."
Reduces veterans' benefits and benefits for active-duty troops.
Most of us have taken American History, American Government, or both in high school. When our Founding Fathers crafted our federal government, they created three distinct, equal branches: The Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary. A system of checks and balances was implemented to ensure that no branch had more power. This system has worked reasonably well for almost two hundred fifty years.
Project 2025 seeks to undermine the very foundation of our government. Its “Unitary Executive Theory” would elevate the president’s authority to be more powerful than the Congress or the Judiciary. Thus, when Donald Trump said, “I will be a dictator on day one,” it was Project 2025 he referenced–the president would be answerable to no one.
Not possible, you say? It is already happening. The Conservative majority on the Supreme Court recently gave Trump “official acts” immunity related to his current federal-level legal cases. Thus, his classified documents and election interference cases are in jeopardy. If he is re-elected, how far might he go? Who will check and balance his power?
Both Trump and Project 2025 vow to eliminate the Department of Education for its so-called “woke agenda” in public schools. Again, check recent history. Multiple red States have already acted ahead of Project 2025. Louisiana mandates that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public classrooms. Oklahoma requires that a Bible be placed in all classrooms and that Bible study be part of the public curriculum. Florida enacted a “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits any discussion of alternative lifestyles in the classroom and forces teachers to address students by the gender listed on their birth certificate even if they identify otherwise.
Stupid me! I thought the 1st Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses prevent the government from mandating religion or demonstrating a preference for one over another. With Project 2025 and Trump, any government entity that does not adhere to the MAGA agenda will be punished or eliminated. Are they making America great or . . . pure?
Project 2025 eliminates or drastically impacts other rights and privileges Americans rely upon. The following list of rights and privileges is representative but not exhaustive:
1. Social Security: Seniors and disabled people have paid taxes for and come to rely on this benefit since President Franklin Roosevelt introduced it in 1935. It requires continued funding by Congressional action. Over the years, multiple revisions have attempted to resolve the program’s solvency issues. Republicans have constantly tried to reduce benefits, but Project 2025 wants to defund the Social Security Administration and raise the minimum age to receive benefits. It does not wish to increase incoming revenues (by increasing current FICA levels—a tax on the wealthiest Americans). Conservatives would fix only one side of the equation, something President George H.W. Bush once called “voodoo economics.” Aside from ‘trickle down,” the plan requires seniors to work longer and compete for jobs with younger Americans, who will fund future Social Security benefits. There are solid reasons these policies have not been embraced or enacted in the past—they fail to address the problem entirely. If we do not fix Social Security correctly, recipients will experience drastic cuts in future benefits. Add corporate greed, inflation, or a future pandemic into the mix, and middle-to-lower-class seniors will be unable to afford future essentials. FDR is rolling over in his grave.
2. Health Care: While most Americans live paycheck to paycheck in two-income households, health care is a for-profit business in America. That is not true in most other countries. Carriers like Humana and United Health Care make billions in profits. Project 2025 would see carriers make even larger profits while citizens struggle to make ends meet. Furthermore, its core health initiative is “protecting life, conscience, and bodily integrity . . . Abortion and euthanasia are not healthcare.” This is not surprising considering its leaders’ radical right-wing agenda. Since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, fourteen states have implemented abortion bans, some with no exceptions for rape, incest, or life of the mother. And they call themselves “pro-life—” very “Christian” of them.
Without saying the words, Project 2025 seeks a federal ban on Abortion. It calls for “robust protections for the unborn” and seeks bans on federal funding. In January 2023, MAGA Republicans introduced the “Life at Conception Act,” which states that human life begins “at the moment of fertilization” and seeks to protect the right to life of “each born and preborn human person.” Project 2025 seeks to define morally, not scientifically, when life begins. If you are a truly religious person, pray that these people never achieve the power they seek. Women will lose all reproductive rights in America.
From a healthcare cost perspective, an increase in births means an increase in healthcare and childcare costs. The same is true of preventing end-of-life decisions. Prolonged suffering means expensive treatment and more profits for providers and carriers. Project 2025 also seeks to reduce federal regulation in medical care, which will add another layer to the confusion patients currently experience in the medical field of reproductive rights. If the right wing has its way, all rights to medical treatment will depend on where you live and whether you have the resources to travel to more progressive communities for treatment.
What do you think this next section means? “HHS (Health & Human Services) should prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.” You guessed it. Project 2025 seeks to discriminate against single-parent households and transgender and non-binary citizens and deny them healthcare benefits, which is especially cruel since right-wing’ anti-abortion policies force single parents to deliver unwanted babies conceived by rape or incest.
Project 2025 also refers to Medicaid and Medicare as “runaway entitlements,” implying they are “giveaways.” Most people know that recipients pay taxes to support these programs. Project 2025 seeks to privatize Medicare and turn it over to for-profit insurance companies. The Heritage Foundation sugarcoats this by suggesting that recipients will have more choices in doctors, hospitals, and plans. This notion is absurd—we already have these things with Medicare Parts A and B, plus a supplemental insurance option. And Project 2025’s recommendations for Part C will send out-of-pocket co-pays through the roof!
Project 2025 also seeks to declaw the Affordable Care Act’s pre-existing coverage provision and repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. These two proposals would raise premiums and remove recent caps on insulin and other Medicare-negotiated prescription drugs.
What’s the bottom line? Project 2025’s healthcare proposals are a good deal for private insurance companies and a bad deal for American citizens. Why are Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans so pro-corporate greed and so anti-consumer savings? If MAGA has its way, millions of seniors will live (and die) in pain because they won’t be able to afford essential treatment or medication.
How do we stop this? Prevent politicians who wrote or now support Project 2025 from taking office or being re-elected. Contact your senator or congressperson and find out where they stand on Project 2025. We know Donald Trump supports Project 2025 despite his meek attempts to distance himself. If your elected official supports Project 2025 or any part of it, vote for their opponent.
3. The Department of Education: One of the more dangerous aspects of Project 2025 relates to our children and their education. The Heritage Foundation’s focus on eliminating a “woke agenda” in America’s schools reflects its anger about its racial, gender, and religious diversity. Project 2025 seeks to establish Christian Caucasian dominance in America’s education system. It aims to eliminate the Department of Education while offering no plan to improve education. The framers of Project 2025 believe that simply eliminating our schools’ “woke agenda” will improve test scores. I kid you not—here are some of their ideas and proposals:
A. Eliminate the Department of Education and empower students and families to decide what’s best. While the federal government should continue to fund public education, it should have no role in providing that education or deciding on curriculum. This is a terrible idea. Instead of a standardized curriculum, a locality’s bias, hatred, and bigotry will play a huge part in developing community curricula. Oppressing a community’s minority population is not the way to educate our children. Say what you want about the Department of Education, but, at its core, it promotes equal access to quality education for all citizens.
B. Advance Education Freedom. This is code for improving educational opportunities for wealthy white Christians, suppressing minorities, and widening the wealth gap in America. Under the plan, the feds deposit taxpayer dollars into citizens’ Education Savings Accounts and parents choose how to spend the money. Those who can easily cover the cost of private or religious school get to use taxpayer dollars to offset the cost. Again, the rich get richer, and racial and ethnic diversity take a pounding at taxpayer expense. Wealthy bigots benefit and taxpayers subsidize it.
C. Mandatory Repayment of Student Debt for College or Postsecondary Education. It is just what it says. Project 2025 states that “when the federal government lends money to individuals for a postsecondary education, taxpayers should expect those borrowers to repay.” While we are all well-intentioned, sometimes economic realities make repayment impossible. Flexibility is necessary and Project 2025 provides none. This is more of the Heritage Foundation’s ever-expanding wealth gap philosophy. The rich can afford and receive a college education—the poor cannot or is saddled with crippling debt. Sucks to be poor.
D. Race, Gender, and other Civil Rights: MAGA Republicans just cannot accept the concepts of choice or diversity. Project 2025 seeks to end “critical case theory” and “gender ideology.” The Right demeans public educators by calling schools and teachers “woke” and accusing them of attempting to “groom” children. In the same way the right-wing seeks to control a woman’s reproductive rights, it also seeks to control a person’s sexual identity. Project 2025 refer to sex reassignment as “child abuse.” This is not my business, their business or your business—it is only the business of the person seeking reassignment, his or her family, and their doctor. Project 2025 seeks to tear down America’s public education system and decimate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all but a chosen few, further widening the wealth and education gaps in this country and creating future generations of undereducated minorities.
4. The “Blessings of Liberty”: The so-called ‘Conservative Promise’ lays out the tenants of a White Christian Nationalist Country. Only the “blessed” are entitled to America’s Constitutional freedoms. Project 2025 seeks to roll back the protections the Civil Rights Act granted. The current Supreme Court majority is way ahead of the Heritage Foundation, already gutting Affirmative Action and the Voting Rights Act. Limiting minorities’ right to vote is a critical element of Project 2025. After Trump lost the 2020 election, multiple Red States passed draconian voting restrictions seeking to improve the chances of MAGA candidates. Conservatives seek control of who gets “The Blessings of Liberty.”
5. Attacks on Immigrants and Immigration: Like most of our elderly population, I am the grandchild of immigrants on both sides of my family. If our government treated my grandparents like those currently seeking entry to America, most of us wouldn’t be Americans. Project 2025 is a blueprint for a second Trump administration that plans to double down on its America First demonization of immigrants. “Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats” is code for Trump’s constant message that America’s problems are immigrants’ fault. In Trump's world, immigrants are pouring in, committing crimes, being drugs, and stealing jobs from citizens. He promised to build a wall in his first term and make Mexico pay for it. He accused Democrats of advocating for open borders. Trump often claims that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts often claims that Democrats are “socialists.” Both claims are highly offensive to Jewish Democrats.
6. Government Funding: Republicans have always falsely claimed to be the party of fiscal responsibility unless, of course, the brand of pork is wasteful military or corporate spending, a multi-billion-dollar border wall, or a multi-billion-dollar tax break for the mega-wealthy. Project 2025 dismantles essential government agencies, dismisses hundreds of thousands of federal employees, and eliminates the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, the TSA (fly the unfriendly skies with no oversight), EPA (“drill baby, drill” and let corporate polluters and climate change deniers poison our air and water for profit), HUD, and FEMA. G-d forbid if there is a disaster. The VA would be restructured and privatized (probably increasing the financial burdens of veterans). Worse, the Department of Justice would lose its independence and be subject to presidential control. Donald Trump and future criminal presidents get to determine their criminality. They might also use the DOJ to pursue charges against their political enemies—the foxes guard the henhouse. Under the guise of reigning in “big government,” Project 2025 seeks to deny citizens the rights their tax dollars support. Furthermore, it aims to consolidate power to the president, the “Dictator on Day One” policy. Why doesn’t this scare the hell out of every freedom-loving American citizen, including Republicans?
In his forward for Project 2025, Roberts promises to restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children. At first glance, this sounds like a noble promise until Roberts echoes a Christian Nationalist view of family life. Marriage can only exist between a man and a woman—same-sex marriage is “unnatural.” Roberts blames the national acceptance of same-sex marriage and unwed mothers as the reason for the moral decay of American culture. He argues (without support) that seventy percent of Black children are fatherless. He further claims that this is the reason for increased poverty rates, crime, and drug abuse. One would think that Black people are the only Americans who are poor, commit crimes or abuse drugs. If you aren’t a religious Christian, you are “woke.” Roberts seeks to remove all terms related to gender equality, race, sexual orientation, or reproductive rights from all federal documents and claims, hypocritically, that this would protect First Amendment rights. He concludes that the breakdown of the American family is directly attributable to a woman’s reproductive rights. Kevin Roberts is a dangerous man, and Project 2025 is a cruel and dangerous document.
All Americans should read this nine-hundred-page document. You have a First Amendment right to read and embrace it if tyranny floats your boat. Is this your vision of a free and fair America? That is your right. There is no “book-banning,” “right-wing woke banning,” or rights restrictions here. Here, there is only freedom.
I hope that freedom-loving Americans read this horrible document and reject it, its framers, and all candidates who support it. America is almost two hundred fifty years old. We have done quite well as a democracy where all people are created equal. As Kamala Harris points out, we are not going back.