By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
Trump, who lies, denies knowledge of Project 2025, the ultra-conservative plan to Make America Bleak. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” he avowed. “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 … .”
If he stops speaking only to his mouthpiece media, he should be asked to specify with which abysmal parts he disagrees. And how he can disagree but “know nothing.” But “journalists” are too busy ignoring the issues while calling for President Biden to withdraw, when, given his status as a convicted criminal, liar, star of the Epstein tapes, and day-one dictator, it’s Trump who should.
He can’t be unaware; attempting to distance himself from it proves the point. Several members of his inner circle are behind the document. He and his policies are mentioned in it numerous times. Incurious, unwilling to work hard (Newsweek: tinyurl.com/2avoidwork), he’ll do whatever they tell him. Because it’s over 900 pages, dense, and irreducible to cartoons, we’ll accept that he hasn’t read it.
I have (Project 2025: project2025.org/policy/). Some is anodyne proposals for streamlining government agencies. But even those are littered with Trumpic references to “Marxism,” and “wokeism.” Enormous defense spending is called for: more ships, nukes, planes, drones, missiles. No mention of paying for it. Fire transgender troops; reinstate, with back pay, those discharged for refusing vaccinations. “Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs.” Religious indoctrination, though: Yankee-Doodle-dandy.
“Require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery Department of Defense — the military entrance examination — by all students in schools that receive federal funding.” It’s reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s “Young Pioneer” schoolchildren, whom I saw during language study there (Russia Beyond: tinyurl.com/young4u).
Student loans would be privatized; forgiveness would be disallowed. The Department of Education would be dispersed and eliminated. All departments would be filled with political appointees answering directly to “the next conservative president.” To deploy the agenda quickly, Senate approval for high-level appointees would be delayed by naming “acting” leaders.
Particularly the State Department, where “large swaths of [its] workforce are left-wing. … The next Administration … should both accept the resignations of all political ambassadors and quickly reassess all career ambassadors. … No one in a leadership position on the morning of January 20 should hold that position at the end of the day.”
Sweep away experience. Uncritical fealty to the president is the prime directive.
NPR and PBS would be defunded, because incurious MAGAs don’t tune in. “[E]ducation is publicly funded but education decisions are made by families.” Monies should go directly to states, with tax dollars spent on private and charter schools, “Empowering families to choose among a diverse set of education options.” Goodbye fact- and history-based public education.
At all levels, “gender” will refer only to that assigned at birth. References to “sexual orientation and gender identity,” along with equity rules, should be expunged. “The next Administration,” it says, should note “how radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on school-aged children today — especially young girls.” How, they don’t say. Documentation, they don’t provide. “Ideology.”
As to children of low-income families, “Over a 10-year period, federal spending should be phased out and states should assume decision-making control over how to provide a quality education to [them].” Also, eliminate Head Start. Good luck, poor kids in poor red states.
The next president should “stop the war on oil and natural gas,” which isn’t a war. As with the majority of their proposals, many of which are akin to “clean air is nice,” specifics are lacking. Per its main spokesperson, that’s deliberate. Hide the darkest details before the election (YouTube: tinyurl.com/noshare4u). Many related regulations are to be abolished. Gone, too, are energy efficiency standards. Electric grid improvements are defunded. Climate- and energy-related initiatives are called “partisan” and “political.”
Enabling red state efforts to disenfranchise Democratic constituencies, the Federal Election Commission’s power would be diluted. Likewise, the Environmental Protection Agency’s. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is “the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government,” it says, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a “bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization.” Also, it must stop fighting the spread of disinformation and lies. Arrogant! That there’s some ironical irony.
Project 2025 would gut labor protections overseen by the Department of Labor, other than, because “God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest,” requiring time-and-a-half pay for working on that day. (Which one?) Christianity would be prioritized everywhere. Accreditation requirements for religious colleges would be removed. “Abortion is not health care.” No Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood. Ban abortifacient drugs.
The surface here is barely skimmed. There’s plenty more. The best summary of Project 2025 comes from its prime mover, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who’d previously said its purpose is to institutionalize Trumpism.
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Trump’s America: Submit or bleed. Voting against it is incalculably important, no matter the Democrats’ nominee.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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