While some Democratic leaders continue hand-wringing over President Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump in November and whether he should drop out of the race, other Democrats and progressives are sounding the alarm over what they believe should be the party’s focus instead: Project 2025.
Project 2025 is a 900-page document that sets forth a platform and priorities for a Republican administration. It was created by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank that has shaped Republican policies since President Ronald Reagan was first elected in 1980. The Heritage Foundation was joined by more than 100 other conservative organizations to create Project 2025, including many who could exert considerable influence if Donald Trump is re-elected.
Overall, the document would increase executive power and roll back a number of protections for minorities and marginalized groups, including Black people. According to the project, tens of thousands of federal jobs would be eliminated, the Department of Education would be abolished, and undocumented immigrants would be deported in mass numbers, among other policies.
While former president Trump claims to “know nothing about Project 2025” and stated on his social media platform Truth Social that “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” major players in Trump’s orbit contributed to the document. For example, Russell Vought, who served in Trump’s administration as budget director, wrote an entire chapter of Project 2025 and is currently working as the Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform policy director.
According to the Heritage Foundation’s President, Kevin Roberts, the document sets forth sweeping changes that will hopefully usher in a “more conservative era.” In fact, Roberts shocked many when he went further in a podcast interview, stating that “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” as reported by the New York Times.
But what would a more conservative era look like, and how does Project 2025 plan to promote the vision? Project 2025 is built on four pillars: “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life; dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people; defend the nation’s sovereignty and borders; and secure God-given individual rights to live freely.”
The document’s potential impact on various sectors, particularly how it may affect Black people, is crucial and worth noting. Here’s the breakdown.
Government
Project 2025 would expand the executive branch’s powers while curtailing the independence of federal agencies like the Department of Justice by placing them under direct presidential control. It would also remove job protections for government employees, allowing thousands of them to be purged and replaced by political appointees loyal to the President. Placing agencies under presidential control would also mean that the President could implement policies across agencies on their own.
Education
Project 2025 calls the Department of Education “a convenient one-stop shop for the woke education cartel” and recommends that the department be eliminated completely. It also suggests transitioning Title I, which provides funding for low-income schools, to block grants that would go directly to parents that they could then use for private schools. The funding would be eventually cut entirely over the next decade. Protections against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination would be eliminated from schools, while prohibitions against race-based discrimination would also be limited.
LGBTQ Rights
The document rails against what it calls the “toxic normalization of transgenderism” and recommends that regulations “prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status and sex characteristics” be eliminated. It also promotes a biblically-based definition of marriage and family, which, in their view, would not include recognition of same-sex marriage.
Immigration
Under Project 2025, the Department of Homeland Security would be dismantled and combined with other immigration enforcement agencies to create a bigger and more powerful border enforcement agency; more funding would be provided for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and more fees and less protections would be available for immigrants. For example, people who pay a premium would have their asylum applications fast-tracked, while visas for victims of crime and human trafficking would be eliminated.
Abortion
While not calling for an outright ban, Project 2025 does call for the withdrawal of the abortion pill Mifepristone from the market and using a rarely enforced law to prevent the drug from being sent through the mail.
Many Democratic leaders are speaking out against Project 2025, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who, according to USA Today, called it a “playbook for authoritarianism” during a congressional hearing in May. High-profile celebrities like Taraji P. Henson have also criticized Project 2025. In a speech at the BET Awards, Henson said it was “attacking our most vulnerable citizens” and “was not a game.”
President Biden has repeatedly drawn attention to the dangers of Project 2025 as well. President Biden said in a video released Wednesday along with a new website breaking down the expansive document, “Project 2025 will destroy America.”
The website reads, “Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins. Trump’s campaign advisors and close allies wrote it – and are doing everything they can to elect him so he can execute their playbook immediately.”