There has been a lot of discussion about Project 2025 in this election. Who supports it? What will happen if it is implemented? Most importantly, what actually is Project 2025? We have taken material directly from the publicly-available “Mandate for Leadership," which is a 900-page document outlining the exact steps the project will take.
Project 2025 is a presidential playbook for the next Republican president of the United States. It is the explicit agenda of the Heritage Foundation, which is a conservative think tank. The goal of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, is to put the federal government under the control of conservative extremists and eliminate methods of recourse. These extremists have mutually beneficial relationships with multiple for-profit industries; which means that their “family values” are a smoke screen.
The three main goals of Project 2025 are to gut the power of the federal government, weaken human rights, and put America under the control of a very small minority.
Under Project 2025, many departments and boards within the federal government will be cut off from funding and forced into obsolescence. The 67 million Americans receiving Social Security would have their benefits slashed or removed entirely. Oregon would lose federal funding for important programs like SNAP that would worsen the food insecurity crisis. The Department of Education would become a state sponsored evangelical propaganda machine. Eventually, the total privatization of education would take the publicly funded Department of Education’s place. The FBI would cease to be the protectors of the public and instead be under the thumb of the president, and thus unable to investigate anything the president doesn’t approve. The power currently possessed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink, would be eliminated. This means that for-profit companies will be free to poison Americans for generations.
Project 2025 also seeks to limit the freedoms of everyday Americans. Medical records will be declassified so the government can keep track of health services you receive.The invasion of privacy does not stop there: explicit material and anything else the promoters of Project 2025 deem inappropriate (or that which does not fit the Project 2025 agenda) will be banned. This would be just the start of the government controlling the bodies and minds of Americans. Project 2025 takes a very hard stance against bodily autonomy. People, even children, will be forced to endure pregnancies regardless of the circumstances. They also want to outlaw birth control and sex education, which would dramatically increase the number of unplanned pregnancies in the United States.
According to the guidelines of Project 2025, the government’s priorities will shift to limit adopting or fostering children to people of the authors’ favorite demographics. This will ignore the well-being (or best interest) of each child.
Unions will be severely weakened or dismantled entirely, leading to dramatic wage loss among the working class. Taxes will be changed to give more to the rich and less to those who do the work. Furthermore, Project 2025 will end the legal obligation of U.S. companies to pay their employees overtime at all and reduce the rights of workers in general (union or non-union).
The most important goal of Project 2025 is to change the United States government with the intent to strip away the rights of citizens and fit a more authoritarian regime. Project 2025 is intended to make sure that control over the federal government rests in the hands of a very small minority that cares only for power and profit. If instituted, government employees will be terminated simply because they disagree with the agenda. New, arbitrary rules will be created to ensure American citizens have a difficult time participating in their own elections.
Ultimately, Project 2025 is setting Americans up for a lot of misery over the coming decades. Thankfully, it hasn’t happened yet. We still have the power to stop it. We, as Americans, still need to stand up for our freedoms with one powerful statement, and tell the extremists seeking to control us:
We will not go back.
Please join the Douglas County Democrats for a more in-depth discussion of Project 2025, and similar threats facing American democracy, at our upcoming public Community Discussion on Sept. 12 at the Roseburg Library or online from 6:00 to 7:30pm.
[Added by DPDC: online registration for event.]
This article was published in the News-Review on Sep 1 2024.
Comentarios