From the AP/ Yahoo:
“What is Project 2025? A look
inside the conservative policy proposal making waves”
What is Project 2025?
Conversations, both online and off, surrounding the conservative agenda have
exploded recently — more than a year after the policy proposal was published. Project
2025 is a 922-page proposed blueprint for the next Republican administration
produced by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. Critics have
labeled it “an authoritarian takeover of the United States,” while supporters
call it a plan to return “our federal government to one ‘of the people, by the
people, and for the people.’” The proposal came under the spotlight last week
after Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said, “We are in the process
of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left
allows it to be.” The ensuing scrutiny caused a spike in Google searches for
the term and led both presidential candidates to issue statements.
What is Project 2025, and what
is it calling for? Project 2025 bills itself as “a policy agenda,
personnel, training and a 180-day playbook” to be implemented “on day one” by
the next Republican president, outlining various agenda items, including which
bills to propose, laws to revoke and government agencies to restructure. While
the project is a proposal and not aligned with any specific campaign, its
proponents hope their recommendations will be taken into account by Donald
Trump should he win in November.
Some of its directives
include:
An overhaul of the Department of
Justice and FBI, the former of which it labels "a bloated
bureaucracy" with employees "who are infatuated with the perpetuation
of a radical liberal agenda."
Implement Schedule F, a Trump-era
executive order that the Biden administration repealed that would allow the
reclassification — and potential replacement — of thousands of government
workers.
Eliminate the Department of
Education.
Shut down the EPA's Office of
Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.
Impose wide restrictions on
abortion access, including reversing federal approval of the abortion pill
mifepristone.
Allocate funding for
“construction of additional border wall systems.”
Ban pornography and imprison
anyone who produces or distributes it.
Promote "Sabbath Rest"
by encouraging Congress to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to require people
who work these days to be paid time and a half.
Have the federal government
promote “biblically based, social science reinforced” heterosexual marriages.
Call on the new Health and Human
Services secretary to “reverse the Biden Administration’s focus on 'LGBTQ+
equity'" and “subsidizing single-motherhood.”
Remove sexual orientation, gender
identity, diversity, equity, inclusion and gender equality from any federal
rule, regulation or legislation.
Revive Trump’s plan to open most
of the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska to leasing and development.
Who’s behind Project 2025?
(Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, speaks with members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus on Sept 12, 2023.)
Founded
in 1973, The Heritage Foundation came into prominence in Washington during the
Ronald Reagan presidency, whose administration implemented policies from the
think tank. Since then, the group has been ranked by the University of
Pennsylvania as one of the most influential public policy organizations in the
U.S. Heritage also advised the administrations of George W. Bush and Trump.
Project 2025 is not officially
affiliated with Trump’s campaign —or any other — although the name Trump is
mentioned over 300 times throughout the document. In November, Axios reported
that Heritage officials told the outlet they had briefed all the Republican
campaigns running at the time — Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley.
Trump’s own policy agenda is
called “Agenda47,” given the next president will be the nation’s 47th. The
former president has said publicly he does not know who’s behind Project 2025.
However, numerous people involved
in Project 2025 worked in the Trump administration or have helped with Trump’s
reelection campaign. Project 2025 director Paul Dans was chief of staff at the
Office of Personnel Management under Trump. Associate directors Spencer
Chretien and Troup Hemenway worked for the Trump administration as well. Of the
34 authors and two editors listed on the project, at least 25 have served Trump
in some capacity, several in senior positions in his presidential
administration. In an April podcast interview, John McEntee, a senior advisor
on the project and former Trump official, said, “We're gonna integrate a lot of
our work” with the Trump campaign.
What does Trump say about Project
2025? Trump has distanced himself from the project. In a post on social
media after Roberts’s comments, Trump said he didn’t know anything about it.
“I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump wrote. “I disagree with some of
the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely
ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing
to do with them.” Trump did not specify which points he disagreed with.
Trump’s campaign website does not explicitly endorse Project 2025 either and
instead points to Agenda47 for policy stances. There is some overlap in ideas
between Project 2025 and Trump’s campaign — both include some variation of
shutting down the Department of Education, cracking down on gender-affirming
care, ending subsidies for electric vehicles, and continuing to build the wall
on the U.S.-Mexico border.
What do critics say about
Project 2025? Critics have called it “a real threat to democracy,” “a
far-right assault on America” and a “dystopian plot.” Institutions such as
Georgetown University have called elements like the cuts to Medicaid
“draconian.” Sasha Buchert, the director of the Non-Binary and Transgender
Rights Project, described the language as “dehumanizing.” Immigration advocacy
groups have called it “an authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip
apart nearly every aspect of American life.” Many Democrats have pushed
back against it, including President Joe Biden, who said it “should scare every
single American.” Some conservatives have even gone public with their concerns.
Robert Shea, who was a senior official under former president George W. Bush,
said Schedule F would create “an army of suck-ups.”
What do supporters say about
Project 2025? Roberts, who wrote the Project 2025 forward, says the current
political system is stacked against Republicans and Project 2025 will work to
“free the next Republican president.” “The point is to hasten the hiring
of aligned personnel and hasten the implementation of conservative policy,”
Roberts told the New York Times in January. “That includes hastening the
overturning, via executive order, of what we believe are wrong policies of the
current administration.” Conservatives outside of the organization have
also offered their support. Sen. Mike Lee called Project 2025 a blueprint to
“return power back to the states and the American people.” Mollie Hemingway,
the editor-in-chief of the conservative site The Federalist, described it as “a
sweeping plan to end the weaponization of the government against Americans.”
Why is Project 2025 getting so
much attention right now? In a July 2 interview on Steve Bannon’s podcast —
hosted by former Rep. Dave Brat since Bannon reported to prison for his
contempt of Congress sentence — Roberts made his comments about the “second
American revolution.” The clip circulated widely on social media, racking up
thousands of views and introducing fresh debate around Project 2025. In the
days following Roberts’s comments, Google searches for “Project 2025” hit
record highs.
The Biden administration, which
has spent the last few weeks trying to put out fires regarding Biden’s debate
performance and Democrats asking him to drop out of the race, jumped on
Roberts’s rhetoric. James Singer, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, said
in a statement, “248 years ago tomorrow America declared independence from a
tyrannical king, and now Donald Trump and his allies want to make him one at
our expense.”
Roberts tried to clarify his
comments in a post on X, claiming he and other conservatives are “committed to
peaceful revolution at the ballot box,” but it hasn’t calmed the conversation
online. In the aftermath of Roberts’s comments, on July 5, Trump released his
social media statement to publicly distance himself from the initiative. That
same day, a Project 2025 spokesperson said it does not “speak for any candidate
or campaign” in a post on X, but added that it believed Trump will be the next
president and that he can “decide which recommendations to implement.”
^ Project 2025 goes against what
the Founding Fathers wanted for the United States (as seen in their words – in the
US Constitution.)
Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson,
and Others used the phrase “Separation of Church and State” in 1802 in
discussions regarding the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution which reads: "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof..."
Article Six of the US
Constitution provides that "no religious test shall ever be required as a
Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States".
The Founding Fathers added the “Separation
of Church and State” because the American Colonies governed by the British was
the opposite.
In the UK, the Church IS the
State. The Monarch has to legally be a Protestant (meaning that Protestants are
seen as better than Catholics, Jews, Muslims, etc.)
The Extreme Conservatives behind
Project 2025 (both the Heritage Foundation, many Politicians and Evangelical or
Born-Again Christians) want to completely wipe out 222 years of Sacred Government
Tradition.
I consider myself very Religious,
but I believe Religion is a private and personal matter and that no Religion
(even the one I believe in) should be forced on anyone – which is what Project
2025 would legally do.
I also don’t support Project 2025’s
attack on bringing back the Open Discrimination of Homosexuals.
If the creators of Project 2025 are
as Religious as they claim to be then shouldn’t they “Love thou Neighbor” even
if their Neighbor is Homosexual?
I believe they should.
I also believe that Project 2025
would not only replace our sacred 248 Year Democracy with a Strict Religious
Dictatorship similar to Iran’s (Iran has a Strict Islamic Dictatorship whereas
America would have a Strict Protestant Dictatorship), but would also lead to
the Official and Government Sanctioned Attack (termed the Second Revolution by Project
2025) on ALL Ordinary Americans (since no one person, not even those that
created it, could realistically abide by
everything in Project 2025’s 992 pages.) ^
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