Project 2025 must be defeated
To the Editor:
The biggest threat to American democracy that no one is talking about is waiting in the wings, ready to be rolled out as soon as a “conservative” (MAGA) Republican presidency is voted in.
I am talking about the “Mandate for Leadership,” a.ka. “Project 2025,” the 900+ page brainchild of the extremist Heritage Foundation that is a blueprint for guiding Trump’s second term in office if he is reelected. If allowed to be implemented, it will transform the USA we know into a far-right authoritarian state à la Victor Orban’s Hungary. It is no less than a plan to re-make America.
This document is so long and all-encompassing as to be overwhelming. One of its main objectives is the dismantling of what it calls the “deep state.” A key goal of Project 2025 is to purge all governmental agencies of federal workers and to replace them with Trump loyalists. Trump and his supporters consider the federal workforce hostile, but really that bureaucracy houses subject-area experts, scientists and diplomats — American citizens, public servants — who carry out the work of our government’s many agencies. They predict the weather, engage in basic science, keep abreast of best practices in many fields (including education, law enforcement, health care, medical research, defense, international relations) to advise our president and legislators.
What they disparagingly call the “deep state” are the guardrails of democracy. They are mainly what saved us from Trump’s worst impulses during his term in office. Project 2025 proposes a complete overhaul of all federal agencies, replacing experienced civil servants with employees whose main qualification is loyalty to the president rather than experience or expertise.
Trump’s’ recent claim that he has “no idea who is behind” Project 2025 so as not to alarm moderates and independents is another of his endless lies. Twenty-nine of the 37 authors of Project 2025 are former members of the Trump administration. The Trump campaign is basically Project 2025, and his Make America Great Again PAC created the website TrumpProject2025.com.
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Other items in Project 2025 include mass arrests and deportations of undocumented people, ending the prosecutions of far-right groups like the Proud Boys and giving additional tax breaks to large corporations and the ultra-wealthy. Trump has said that climate change is a hoax, despite the effects of climate change we see every day like excessive heat, wildfires and storms. Project 2025 calls for ending clean energy incentives and ending fossil-fuel regulations which would only worsen the effects of climate change. It also calls for the prosecution of Trump’s “enemies” and the takeover of law enforcement in blue cities and states.
If this turn toward authoritarianism alarms you as it does me, if the recent decisions of our Supreme Court limiting our freedoms and bestowing on presidents the rights of kings feel wrong to you, then start paying attention. Google Project 2025! Vote for Democrats up and down the ballot to preserve our democracy! This election is too important to sit out!
Nilofer Couture
Cullowhee
