Trump’s Project 2025 Will Eliminate Democracy

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This is an edited transcript of his talk at the July 26, 2024, meeting of the Arizona LD17 Democrats. Watch the video below.

Herb Paine writes the Substack newsletter In The Center Lane With Herb Paine.

To show how draconian Project 2025 is, President Trump spoke recently about the unified right. What does that mean? It reflects the Nazi ideal of what was called the Volksgemeinschaft in Germany. In this racially unified and hierarchically organized population, individual interests were subordinated to those of the nation, where coordination, control, and alignment of political, economic, and social life was by Nazi policy.

The theme was to make Germany great again. It fostered a culture that was inherently anti-intellectual, racist, and authoritarian, with unquestioning devotion to the leader — one people, one empire, one leader.

I came to this topic with a great sense of urgency.

Project 2025 by the Heritage Foundation is nearly two years old. Yet, the press and the media have only recently picked it up on it, and it has deserved far more immediate attention.

When I ran for Congress 18 years ago, I warned that democracy was at risk. I warned that there was a concerted and unwavering effort by reactionary forces to push back the decades of social and economic progress in social service, healthcare, and education. Today, we’re watching that agenda, specifically Project 2025, unfold before our very eyes and become the playbook for if he is reelected another Trump administration, which would have devastating ramifications.

It is a massive document. There were times when you read it that you felt some of this language sounded awfully benign. But when you probe deeply into the bowels of this document, you see how devastating the results may be in terms of its assault on the foundations of our democracy, our lives, and our personal lives.

So, I will walk you through the basic elements of Project 2025. From my vantage point, it addresses the two most important sets of issues.

  • One is the overhaul of government in a way that we will never recognize the democracy that we had.
  • The second is the level of the human dimensions of the project. It’s called Mandate for Leadership. It’s called the Conservative Promise.

The publishers of this document represent most of the folks who advised former President Trump. It represents a list of organizations whose agendas have all been about imposing a Christian perspective on American society, who’ve talked about deregulation, and who’ve spoken about overhauling how we conduct our democracy.

National Association of Christian Lawmakers

I want to point out two groups of particular interest. One is the National Association of Christian Lawmakers. I’ve been writing about them for quite a while now. They promote Christianity as the country’s specific and official cultural template.

There are two forms that it takes. One is a group called Christian Nationalism. The other is Christian Dominionism. Both have in common the penetration of all aspects of American society, education, the arts, culture, and the judicial system with a Christian template.

They would amend the Constitution to recognize America’s Christian heritage. They would reinstate prayer in public schools. And they would enshrine a Christian nationalist interpretation of American history in the school curriculum.

It erases any mention in the curriculum or any more negative aspects of American history.

They would impose immigration restrictions because they are afraid, as in the “replacement theory.” It’s about white supremacy. It’s about privilege. They would also impose governmental restrictions on immigration and immoral behavior.

Moms for “Liberty”

You might ask what the definition of that is. It’ll come up fairly shortly, as represented by another group named Moms for Liberty. They would end classroom lessons that address historical injustices, like slavery, racism, and alternative lifestyles. They would ban books, as you already know.

These are the folks who go to school board meetings and bully school boards into restricting curricula. They would promote parental rights bills requiring parents’ written consent before the teacher would address the child by their name or pronoun other than the one they were enrolled in. So, they would require schools to notify parents if the child’s perception of their biological sex is inconsistent with the student’s biological sex.

There are dog whistles in all of this language. There are subtexts. For example, in the degradation of American society, they include the toxic normalization of transgenderism.

But then they also talk about low-income communities and their concerns about them because they’re drowning in addiction and government dependence. That’s a hit on welfare. They also complain about the corruption of fundamental American values.

In their interpretation, however, those fundamental values represent the reversal of women’s roles to a more subordinate place in American society. They obviously are concerned about the excessive overreach and over-regulation of the federal government and the deep state. So, the document is rich with efforts to undermine, if not actually terminate, existing governmental departments.

And they don’t like what they call a totalitarian cult, or otherwise known as the Great Awoken. The administrative state is on their agenda. They believe that, over time, a group of unelected and unfireable bureaucrats at all of these various departments, EPA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education, Justice, the Pentagon, and even the State Department, have become infused with a “woke” agenda, or an agenda that is anti-reduction of regulations.

To hear Herb Paine live on Project 2025

Join Marana Dems & Friends on Zoom
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
6:30PM-8:00PM
https://www.arizona.zoom.us/j/6753488494/

A dictator president

They’ve made four promises. The first one relates to the concept of the unitary executive. It is a giant leap to expanding the powers of the President of the United States, where he has more than what the Supreme Court just allowed him, more than immunity.

It gives him total control over the entire executive branch. It states that he is free from checks and balances. The former President said that he related to Article Two of the Constitution, which, in his interpretation, said, wherever I have the right to do whatever I want as President, that’s how he interprets that language.

He would place the entire federal bureaucracy under presidential control and undermine the executive branch’s independence.

This is about a purge. It’s about converting all current career civil service positions into political appointments, purging the independent experts and the experienced bureaucrats, and creating a smaller, skeletal government.

So, the plan is to reduce federal employees by 50 percent in year one and 75 percent within four years. They’re building a personnel database. To create an army of loyalists, they implemented a “presidential administrative academy,” which would prepare loyalists and political appointees to implement the president’s will and the policies of that administration.

It’s radical, earth-shaking, and altering our understanding of democracy. It strips the notion of checks and balances and creates a unitary executive with extraordinary power.

Gutting the safety net

It recommends what I would call gutting the health and safety net. In the case of health and safety, they would repeal policies that subsidize single motherhood, which would disincentivize work.

That would penalize marriage. They would place restrictions on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Many of you know that the TANF block grant program is dedicated to uplifting low-income communities. They would virtually gut it.

They intend to eliminate Head Start, which ensures that children in pre-K to kindergarten develop social, physical, and psychological skills. They would prioritize funding for home-based childcare rather than universal daycare. They propose to cut social security benefits by raising the retirement age to 70, and they would repeal the administration’s Inflation Reduction Act to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.

Women would be second-class.

This is not a people-friendly policy. What is especially disturbing is its impact on women’s role in society, most visibly and most problematically in the area of women’s health and reproductive freedom. This proposal reverts women to second-class citizenship.

  • They would allow states to ban hospitals from providing emergency abortion care, an issue that just came up before the Supreme Court.
  • They would eliminate access to mifepristone, the abortion pills, including the availability of those. Medications through the mail, and they would end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and any other abortion providers.
  • They use some reverential language for the formation of stable, married nuclear families with working fathers as the essential element to the well-being and development of their children.

Let that sink in. They would also direct the Department of Health and Human Services to promote what they call the family agenda. Sounds benign. It’s not. It’s directing Health and Human Services to dictate that married men and women are the ideal natural family structure because all children — this is word-for-word out of the document — have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceive them.

Medical practitioners who participate in federal health care programs would not be compelled to provide sex changes or similar services. So they’re getting right into medical offices, the personal decisions of individuals, women, and the care of their children.

Anti-worker agenda

The Republican Party and Project 2025 are all about eliminating or reducing workplace benefits and doing everything they can to bust unions.

One of the things that they want to do is enact the “team.” This is the Teamwork for Employees and Managers Act, legislation that Senator Rubio introduced that would enable employers corporations to establish company-dominated employee involvement organizations. That would create chaos in the workplace because you’d have different organizations in which corporations would assume a majority role. It’s union-busting.

They would abolish protections for independent unions and unionization. They propose that the Working Families Flexibility Act would allow employers to provide comp time instead of time and a half overtime pay. Now, anybody that’s got any sense of math, that’s not the same as income.

It would make it easier to classify employees as independent contractors. Therefore, we can disqualify them from enjoying the protections we might otherwise provide employees.

Dictator’s powers for the President

Then there’s the justice system. They assert that the President of the United States must use its independent resources and authorities to restrain the excesses of the legislative and judicial branches.

That’s not checks and balances. It means that if the President doesn’t like something that the judiciary or the legislature has done—to impeach him or conduct an investigation that’s contrary to his interests—he can use his independent resources and authorities to restrain it.

Under Project 2025’s right-wing experts, the president has the right to determine the constitutionality of a statute or the legality of its own conduct. The President would also have the authority to defy any decision of the Supreme Court, including impeachment and removal from office. It’s that blatant.

In this case, they would propose that the Department of Justice be directed to and used as an instrument of enforcement for their right-wing agenda.

They propose to end the independent authority of the Department of Justice, the Civil Rights Division and make that division a tool of the government to enforce an anti-democracy, anti-freedom, anti-people agenda. This is a set of code words for what they would otherwise call the “woke” community or liberals.

  • They would review all major FBI investigations and expand the number of political employees in every Department of Justice office.
  • They would eliminate the Department of Education, establish the nonnegotiable authority of parents to serve as their children’s primary educators, eliminate critical race theory, and increase public funding of religious education.
  • In environmental energy, they will dismantle all renewable energy programs, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and reduce funding for environmental justice initiatives. They would do everything they can to foster fossil fuel development. They would withdraw from established treaties to protect the environment.
  • They would eliminate terms including LGBTQ+, Black and minority communities from all federal rules, regulations, and contracts. They would rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination. It’s basically removing diversity from the national agenda.
  • They would outlaw pornography, which for them means exposing children to sex education.

As citizens, we have to ensure that, in addition to all other efforts, we send a message to our friends and neighbors to mobilize the vote and ensure that Project 2025 never sees the light of day.

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35 thoughts on “Trump’s Project 2025 Will Eliminate Democracy”

  1. Please show where Trump praised it. Do you have a source other than sharpie?

    • I have a better idea, John Who Lives on Taxpayer Money Kavanagh, how about instead of you assigning us work, you tell us what you and convicted rapist and felon Donald J Trump actually do stand for?

      Back up your words. Put up or shut up, as it were. Walk the walk or STFU.

      As it were.

      You won’t, because you’re lying now, you’re a hypocrite, and you’re a coward.

      I’ll gladly apologize if you for just once tell the truth here.

      raicestexas.org
      ACLU.org
      plannedparenthood.org
      kamalaharris.com

        • What about it does convicted rapist and felon Donald J Trump disagree with, John who lives on the taxpayer dime?

          It was written by his people, it’s what his former campaign manager Steve the Greaseball Bannon has been saying on his show for years, it’s what all you creepy weirdos want, it’s basically the same crap as his Agenda 47, right wing weirdo hallucinations, fear, and hate.

          What do you stand for? Why won’t you answer? Because you’re scared.

          And wow, if this is how you think the world works, I hope you never end up on a jury, either.

          Such a cowardly little man, living on his government checks, too dumb to realize he’s showing the world what a hypocrite he is.

          plannedparenthood.org
          ALCU.org
          raicestexas.org
          kamalaharris.com

    • Senator Kavanagh, let’s step away from Mr Trump for a moment, and go to a basic question: do you – as a responsible adult with a responsibility to all members of your constituency – agree with the content of the Project 2025 document?

      That is a reasonable question, isn’t it?

      Thanks.

      • Been asking the old mooch this same question since forever.

        He’s won’t answer. He’s too scared. Chicken.

        A real man would stand up for his beliefs, but Kavanagh is a queer one, a weirdo as the kids call them these days.

      • Honestly, I have not read it. I suspect I would like some of it but I have not read it.

        • I really don’t care about how bad a person he may be. I will not stop being polite. He can decide what he wants to be.

        • Thank you for that. Do you think it might be a good idea to get acquainted with it? I downloaded the document and have so far only skimmed through it, but it looks remarkably close to what the Republican Party is projecting as its platform for this election. So whether Trump distances himself from Project 2025 or not, the platform he is running on as the Republican nominee puts him very close to it.

          Anyway, I think it is a distraction to have an argument over whether or not Trump agrees with the document; Trump has contradicted himself often enough, and denied having said things that are on record often enough to make his statement irrevelant to the truth..

          The real question is this: to what extent do elected representatives of the Republican Party agree or not with the content of Project 2025. And when they’ve read it, whether they are willing to state their agreement or differences in public.

          Would greatly help if you read it, then. Perhaps at that point there could be a reasonable discussion on the suject.

          Thanks.

          • I do not have time to read a 500-page document that Trump has not associated himself with. In addition, even if it became the party platform, that does not mean Trump is in lockstep with all of it.
            Are you saying that once the Democrat Party adopts its platform, we can all assume that VP Harris agrees with all of it and Republicans can attack her about that? I do not think so.
            Thanks for being civil. It is a refreshing change here at BfA.

          • Senator Kavanagh, yes I would say this: once the Party convention adopts a platform and nominates its candidate, I would expect the candidate to represent the Party and its platform. That would be true of any Party that went through adopting a platform and a candidate for an election, Republican, Democratic, Libertarian or Green. Trump does indeed represent the Republican Party in this coming election, and the platform adopted by the Republican Party is his to uphold. Without that connection, there is no value for either platform or nomination. Unless – and I mean this in the logical sense, not as a debating point – one believes that the nominee is a king who can do whatever he or she wants.
            In fact, I believe that you too represent the Party in your role as a Republican Senator. Don’t you?
            That you can diverge from your colleagues is only because your Party, like the Democratic Party has a history of being a big tent with multiple variants on a basic theme.

          • And there’s the real John Government Checks Kavanagh.

            Has time to comment here over and over but not to even do a second of research about something he’s been posting about here for days.

            After complaining about the “editors” of the blog.

            And complaining about folks being rude after he’s been rude.

            And to top it off, he doesn’t understand how party platforms work.

            Yeah, JGCK, the person at the top of the party approves and runs on the party platform. That’s why the GOP took out the stuff about Russia back in 2016, convicted rapist and felon Trump wanted it gone.

            But I understand that the GQP doesn’t like people knowing what they’re up to, don’t blame them. Sneaky bunch.

            FFS, this has to be one of the lamest exchanges he’s had here. Weak.

            plannedparenthood.org
            ALCU.org
            raicestexas.org
            kamalharris.com

            Too bad, it looked like JGCK made a new friend here, that would have taken away some of the loneliness he feels after losing his friend JT Ready.

            Hey John, remember when you were mocking the Clinton folks for getting hacked? I see the convicted rapist and felon’s team got hacked this week. Comments?

          • K Bharathan, you seem nice, but MAGA is the exact opposite of “big tent”, it literally means “white christians only”.

            And John Kavanagh does not post here in good faith. That’s the nicest way I can say that he’s a liar and coward.

            Good luck.

          • Thank you, Sharpie. I believe I said that the Republican party has a history of being a big tent. I am well aware that it has been taken over by a right wing minority. I really believe that sooner or later the larger party will realize it is in its own self interest to push back.

            Calling them names is just us preaching to our choir. Has no impact.

            Thank you.

          • K Bharathan, the GOP has never been a big tent.

            From a famous Lee Atwater interview in 1981:

            “You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*****, n*****, n*****,.” By 1968 you can’t say “n*****,”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N*****,, n*****.” ”

            From Ronald Reagan’s made up stories about “welfare queens” and “big bucks” to Kavanagh’s SB1070 up to convicted rapist and felon Donald J Trump’s Muslim ban (but oddly not a ban on muslim countries where he has businesses), the GOP has been racist.

            They say convicted rapist and felon Donald J Trump gave them permission to say it out loud, it’s not new.

            I troll John Government Checks Kavanagh because he’s not just a racist, he’s done real harm to Arizona, he does not come here in good faith to discuss issues, and here on this topic he’s done again what he always does…

            Cuts and runs away when things don’t go his way, this time saying he doesn’t have time. LOL.

            But I see he’s already moved on to commenting on another post. 🙂

            Which is why I call him a coward. I hate the idea of anyone reading his comments and thinking he’s legit.

            He won’t say how he really feels about Project 2025 because he knows it’s a loser for his party, but it’s all stuff he’s 100% for, based on his past statements and laws he’s worked on.

            Kavanagh has said he doesn’t think everyone should be allowed to vote.

            Un-American creep.

            A while ago he posted a video on his X/Twitter account lying about some refugees and trying to stir up a mob. A mob against families FFS.

            https://www.kjzz.org/2022-02-01/content-1752419-arizona-legislator-sparks-outcry-over-comments-about-afghan-refugees

            He’s a Republican who’s whines about big government but he’s NEVER had a private sector job, he’s always lived off of government issued checks. He takes his orders from out of state billionaires and ALEC, not the people of Arizona.

            I respect your politeness, but Kavanagh is not an honest man and does not debate in good faith.

            He’s even threatened me here a few times in the past. Big tough guy on the internet. 🙂

            F’ that guy. Good luck.

  2. Didn’t anyone tell you Trump is not involved with Project 2025? Thought you should know so you don’t look foolish.

      • Glad you are not disputing my statement that Paine’s claim about Trump and Project 2025 are false. Strange that Paine is not disputing my claim with evidence. This blog needs an editor with journalistic standards to clean house here.

        • Let me get this straight. John, your argument is “Trump said he had no knowledge and wasn’t involved”…. Trump the truther. LOL

          • Partially but my main point is that Paine offers no proof that Trump supports it or even ever talked about it. You can’t make up or assume things in a responsible forum. But I guess BfA isn’t responsible because it accepted the post.

          • “…Paine offers no proof that Trump supports it or even ever talked about it. You can’t make up or assume things in a responsible forum”

            That would be akin to saying that a person cannot be convicted of murder unless someone has actual video of the crime.

          • Trips on Epstein’s jet, by candidate:

            Trump – Seven
            Harris – Zero

            plannedparenthood.org
            ACLU.org
            raicestexas.org
            kamalaharris.com

          • Trump does not mention Project 2025. What proof? I hope you never wind up on a jury.

          • Your own link refuted the false claim that Trump was talking about Project 2022. The tape was made pre-Project 2022 and the network commentary (see below) just mentions Heritage and not the project. You are so busted.

            Video from 2022 shows Donald Trump touting The Heritage Foundation, the group behind Project 2025. MSNBC’s Ari Melber reports and is joined by political strategist Chai Komanduri. (Check out The Beat’s playlist: https://msnbc.com/ari Connect with Ari Melber: https://www.instagram.com/arimelber)

      • Glad you are not disputing my statement that Paine’s claim about Trump and Project 2025 are false. Strange that Paine is not disputing my claim with evidence. This blog needs an editor with journalistic standards to clean house here.

      • Once again, no proof. Trump does not mention Project 2925. When was that video made? This blog has no standards.

        • This is coming from a former law enforcement man who cant’y justify why he backs a rapist, a person whose family cheated cancer patients, a business fraudster and traitor. He does not mention Project 2025. How gullible are you John? What do you think he was talking about? Give me a break.

          • John Government Checks Kavanagh is running away from Project 2025 just like the rest of the MAGA cowards because it’s hurting convicted rapist and felon Donald J Trump’s chances of getting elected.

            But they’re all full of shit, it’s 100% what Kavanagh wants. He just won’t admit it because he’s not man enough to stand up for what he believes.

            MAGAs have no honor, and Kavanagh is just a cowardly little troll.

            But he does crack me up when he starts barking orders.

            He seems to think a blog is like some old black and white movie with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau smoking Pall Mall no-filters, sounds of mechanical typewriters filling the air, and yelling stuff like “stop the presses” and “twenty three skidoo” across a smokey newsroom.

            Walz is getting credit for the MAGAs are weird thing, but I’ve been calling Kavanagh a weirdo for years.

            An old, out of touch, cowardly weirdo.

          • When and where was that tape recorded? Cam you provide a link to the full speech?

          • Does anyone else find it weird that GQP_GOP, MAGAmoron, nazis post on a left leaning blog? It might be interesting if they posted logical, coherent arguments that gave pause to Dem positions and opinions but their posts are silly word salads of easily disproved facts. Here’s a short poll to show what other Dem readers of this blog might think is happening:
            1) GQP_GOP post here bc they’ve been banned/ignored by their own ilk.
            2) Like trump, they crave attention even when others call them idiots.
            3) Like trump, they have an inflated sense of their own importance.

            Feel free to add other choices that you might want considered. These GQP_GOP posters are excellent examples of PhD (Piled higher and deeper.)

    • Your convicted felon keeps bleating that he’s not involved even though his close staff are in it up to their eyeballs and he praises it. You really believe this intensely micromanaging control freak is not involved? Guess the felon was talking about you when he referred to “suckers and losers”.

    • Botton line –
      Cheeto lies like normal people breathe, and credibility counts. He has none, and neither does anyone in his circle.

      If he wants to be believed about this, or being shot at, or on any other topic for that matter, he should start by not lying.

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