Every election season has a theme. This election, we’ve seen a few…such as Project 2025, “Black Jobs”, “DEI”, and, well… “weird”. The “weird” thing is though, that they all are related. There are several questions surrounding Project 2025 and its goals to disqualify DEI-designated “Black Jobs”, along with rolling back many freedoms that took generations of fight for to attain. So, what exactly is Project 2025? Let’s get into the mess.
Project 2025 is a proposed presidential transition project overseen by the conservative Heritage Foundation, that consists of four main components: a playbook of actions to be taken within the first 180 days in office; a database of potential candidates; training for this pool of candidates called the “Presidential Administration Academy”; and policy guidelines for the next presidential administration. It is led by Paul Dans, and Spencer Chretien, two former Trump administration officials, and it includes regulations that would be expected to affect every branch of government, from federal to local.
Project 2025’s first pillar, the almost 900-page policy book that outlines reform of the federal government, is the subject of much of the recent attention and controversy. Known as “Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise,” it stems as a continuation from a 1981 publication that provided a prototype for the incoming Reagan administration. And, well…. we all know how that went.
Republicans have long advocated for many of the policies already included in the Project 2025 agenda, such as heightened immigration security, increased law enforcement, less government involvement in education, and mass deportations. However, these conservative policies, along with their consequences, have only been amplified with the climate of the current presidential election, which can make Project 2025 feel more like a promise, and not just a threat, under the right administration.
One might say that we have been living in some pretty unprecedented political times lately, so how would the implementation of Project 2025 affect the everyday average American?
For starters, the subject of women’s rights has been a huge political focal point in recent years with specific regard to access to abortion. The Project 2025 agenda recommends that the Food and Drug Administration revoke its 24-year-old approval of the popular abortion drug mifepristone for the Department of Health and Human Services and reinstate stricter guidelines for its usage.
Project 2025 also recommended that the Justice Department should pursue the Comstock Act (an 1873 statute that forbids the mailing of any medications, treatments, or surgical instruments used in abortions) against suppliers and distributors of abortion drugs, meaning that all abortion-related treatment and prescriptions would have to be administered in person, no exceptions. The recent overturning of Roe vs Wade has created an even more volatile social environment around the concept of abortion that has only fueled conservative anti-abortion efforts, including the authors of Project 2025 seeking to establish a “pro-life task force to ensure that all of the department’s divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life and health of women and their unborn children.” The plan proposes that married men and women “are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.” It then continues to suggest that the head of Health and Human Services should “proudly state that men and women are biological realities” and “maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family” in a section titled “The Family Agenda.”
Aside from the war on women’s bodies and pushing for an end to the separation of church and state, the proposed Project 2025 also takes aim at all things diversity, equity, and inclusion…. three words that have sent racists and Republicans alike into hysteria. Their goal through this proposed legislation is to eliminate initiatives in higher education and extensions of the federal government that “engage in ideological agitation on behalf of the DEI agenda” and should “treat the participation in any critical race theory or DEI initiative without objecting on constitutional or moral grounds, as per se grounds for termination of employment.” Many of these measures are already being implemented as various private and public entities across the country have begun to terminate programs, and their corresponding employed positions, that were originally created to encourage a professional culture of diversity and equity across the board.
The conservative Republican agenda has always taken a strict stance on immigration, which is why it comes as no surprise that this proposal highlights avenues that would expedite the building, and funding, of the controversial wall, in their efforts to “take a creative and aggressive approach” to border security. In addition to enhanced border patrol presence, Project 2025 also alleges the dietary research that the Department of Agriculture has published over the last 40 years has been “infiltrated” by politicized concerns such as sustainability and climate change, and they demand that the next presidential administration either repeal or amend them, which in turn will directly affect how, and by whom, the food we intake is grown and distributed.
Although former President Donald Trump has denied being involved, or aware, of many of the policies laid out in Project 2025, his political and professional reputation, as well as his current presidential campaign seems to be rooted in agendas that align almost seamlessly with the initiatives detailed in the 900-page proposal.
It has been simple for Democrats to use Project 2025 as a fear-mongering tactic emphasizing the “Handsmaid’s Tale”-ish inevitability of another Trump presidency because the document serves as a blueprint for a very scary future. However, the overwhelming wave of bipartisan support that Vice President Kamala Harris has received on her campaign trail for the 2024 presidency has been a tsunami of hope that we haven’t seen, or felt, since the rise of Barack Obama in 2008. Maybe the optimism is a bit premature, but these last few elections have been everything but ordinary and needed a breath of fresh air that leans a little more towards faith, and facts, instead of fear. In a world riddled with misinformation, deep fakes, and conspiracy-based “research” cited from YouTube videos and Wikipedia, it’s important to take the time to understand the difference between an ill-informed analysis gone viral and legitimate fact-based journalism.
While recently speaking at an event in West Palm Beach, Florida organized by the conservative group Turning Point Action, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told Americans, “Get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, and you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”
Project 2025 is more than just a suggestion. They are saying the quiet part out loud. If your vote wasn’t important, they wouldn’t be fighting so hard to take it away. Your vote is your voice. Now is the time to get up, get involved, and get active.
