IMHO: I never thought I’d ever use a “Breaking” headline … but we are watching an interesting shift regarding the conservative manifesto: Project 2025.
The Heritage Foundation, which has long provided detailed policy advice to presidents, including about 60% of what was implemented by President Reagan, has publicly touted their Project 2025 as a manifesto for action as soon as the next conservative president (presumed to be Donald J. Trump) was elected.
Project 2025 Intent: Increase presidential authority in order to dramatically restructure government to the advantage of corporations and white, Christian people of wealth.
However, as the huge, complicated document has become better understood, the polling is plummeting. Politically savvy DJT started backpedaling. He, of course, doesn’t care about conservative policies, corporate well-being, or Christian values. Nothing is important to him … except him. He tossed aside Project 2025 like a used tissue even though 25 of the 30 chapters were written by former officials in his administration. (1)
HOWEVER, 110 conservative organizations poured two years, $22 million, and their hearts and souls into that document. They are proud of it. They make videos about it. They set up systems to accept applications from the thousands of people who wanted to be part of the new conservative movement.
Focused on their own self-interest, they ignored the fact that it required a king rather than a president acting as part of our long-standing balance-of-power tradition. They ignored the destruction of the Constitutional separation of church and state. They ignored the racism and bigotry inherent in the document. They ignored the rights of American citizens who didn’t happen to be white, straight, male, and Christian.
And, one wonders why it isn’t polling well.
This, from “X”:
Director of Project 2025 Paul Dans’ leaving is not proof that DJT rejects the proposals of this document, he badly wants to be the king/president.
NEVER FORGET:
Trump told the crowd to “get out and vote, just this time”, adding that “you won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.” — from The Guardian and a thousand videos
Back to the details of Project 2025 and why it must be understood as the manifesto conservatives want.
Wikipedia: Although Project 2025 cannot legally promote a specific presidential candidate, many contributors are associated with Trump and his 2024 presidential campaign.[43][44][45] The Heritage Foundation employs numerous people closely aligned with Trump,[46][47][48] and coordinates the initiative with various conservative groups run by Trump allies.[11] In 2023, Trump campaign officials acknowledged the project aligned well with their Agenda 47 program.[10] Trump campaign advisers have had regular contact with Project 2025,[
Is it mere coincidence that Trump chose as his VP candidate JD Vance, who wrote the foreword for Kevin Roberts’ (President of Heritage Foundation) about-to-be-released book and also offers this featured quote on the amazon.com page for the new book:
“Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism... We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lie ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.” — Senator JD Vance
Understanding Project 2025: Mark Hamill’s 31 “intentions”
On “X,” Mark Hamill shared a meme of 31 intentions outlined in Project 2025. Most of them were quickly attacked by Project 2025 as “false.” This is where truth gets a bit ragged.
The exact words Hamill used may not be in the actual document. Because the authors of the document knew enough not to specifically call for an “end to no fault divorce,” does not mean that they don’t intend to create a system that makes it more difficult for women (or men) who want a divorce.
Experienced political writers and policy experts are frantically trying to analyze the document to parse its intentions and possible repercussions. Here’s the list Hamill provided, followed by the project’s response on “X.”
Project 2025 has acknowledged the following in a post on “X”, rejecting all as FALSE with these exceptions:
Additional tax breaks for corporations and 1%: MISLEADING (advocating “trickle down” ideas.)
11. Eliminate the Department of Education:TRUE.
Use public, taxpayer money for private religious schools:TRUE.
End civil rights and DEI protections in government:MOSTLYFALSE
Increase Arctic drilling:TRUE
Deregulate big business and the oil industry:MOSTLYTRUE
Promote and expedite capital punishment:TRUE
Mass deportation of immigrants and incarceration in “camps”:MISLEADING
This rebuttal from the Heritage Foundation is carefully numbered and responded to point-by-point. However, Hamill’s list has 31 intentions and the rebuttal only has 30. It took awhile to find the missing intention … and it could be oversight or human error … but it is an interesting one: Cut Medicare.
For future discussion, all of Hamill’s intentions are rearranged into the 10 categories below. The intent here is to give you solid bits of information for your conversations with friends, family, and neighbors. Thank you, Mark, for giving us a starting point.
There will be a series of Saturday posts about the November 5, 2024 election between now and election day; each post will be included in a page available on the Navigation Bar for your reference. If you see a good post or article on this project, please feel free to forward it to me at jwycoff@gratitudemojo.com … or drop a link in the comments.
To help you understand what Project 2025 is proposing, we’ve organized the intentions identified by Mark Hamill, plus the four noted in the first post of this series into the following 10 categories and will continue to gather information about them in upcoming posts:
Women: 4
End no fault divorce.
Complete ban on abortion without exceptions.
Ban contraceptives.
Condemn single mothers while promoting only “traditional families.”
Taxes: 2
Additional tax breaks for corporations and the 1%.
Higher taxes for the working class.
Workers: 2
Elimination of unions and worker protections.
End civil rights and DEI protections in government.
Wow. The architect of Project 2025, Kevin Roberts, has a new book coming out in September about taking over Washington. JD Vance wrote the foreword.
Verified:
amazon listing
Education: 6
Eliminate the Department of Education.
Use public, taxpayer money for private religious schools.
Teach Christian religious beliefs in public schools.
End free and discounted school lunch programs.
End African American and gender studies in all levels of education.
Ban books and curriculum about slavery.
Climate: 3
End climate protections.
Increase Arctic drilling.
Deregulate big business and the oil industry.
Civil Rights: 5
Promote and expedite capital punishment.
End marriage equality.
Use the military to break up domestic protests.
End birth right citizenship.
End separation of church and state
Immigration: 3
Defund the FBI and Homeland Security.
Mass deportation of immigrants and incarceration in “camps.”
Ban Muslims from entering the country.
Effective Government: 5
Replace experienced civil servants with hand-picked loyalists
Eliminates federal agencies like the FDA (safe food and drugs).
EPA (protect our air and water).
NOAA (daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, and climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce).
Continue to pack the Supreme Court and lower courts with right wing judges.
If you want to read Project 2025 yourself, here’s the link and we’d appreciate your comments and recommendation for other expert views on this document.
Commitment: From now until the election, I will do Saturday posts about the upcoming election, including Project 2025 and Candidate Trump’s Agenda47.
Thank you! I appreciate your work and commitment to the truth about Project 2025. I hope we, all of us in the USA, are smart enough to comprehend the importance of the truth you are telling!
Such important information Joyce. It's disheartening that it even exists, but thank god there's been much light shone onto it lately, and by you, too!!! I fear many will not get past (if even to) the title of the cursed project. But let's hope if they don't connect through messages like yours, the validity and worth of Kamala will pull them in, and through.
Thank you! I appreciate your work and commitment to the truth about Project 2025. I hope we, all of us in the USA, are smart enough to comprehend the importance of the truth you are telling!
Such important information Joyce. It's disheartening that it even exists, but thank god there's been much light shone onto it lately, and by you, too!!! I fear many will not get past (if even to) the title of the cursed project. But let's hope if they don't connect through messages like yours, the validity and worth of Kamala will pull them in, and through.