EP07 | American Democratic Backsliding Into Project 2025

America is at a crossroads between saving our democracy and a hard right turn toward fascism.  Our journey to this crossroads has been of our own making, through a citizenry disinterested, complacent and cynical about our political future. Our inattention has allowed "democratic backsliding" characterized by the erosion of our democratic institutions, restrictions on our civil liberties, a relentless manipulation of electoral processes, attacks on political opponents, a weakening of our rule of law, an over-emphasis on national security, and the erosion of democratic norms.

Our democratic backsliding has left us vulnerable to efforts to concentrate power through the hard right conservative agenda known as Project 2025, authored by the Heritage Foundation and hard right white Christian Nationalist.  This episode explores that journey along with the general elements of the plan itself which includes a full-throated demonization of liberals, and a blueprint for dismantling the administrative state.   The idea is to weaken, eliminate, or merge key departments of the bureaucracy, and to purge those departments of career professionals unwilling to pledge an oath of loyalty to a conservative president, anticipated by Republicans to be Donald Trump.  The plan calls to eliminate all terms related to gender, climate, and diversity, equity and inclusion from any governmental document.   

Project 2025 is a 922-page plan for reshaping American society according to their vision, a vision that poses significant risks to democratic norms, equity, and participation, potentially reshaping the political landscape in ways that favor a narrow ideological agenda at the expense of broader democratic values, and this radical emphasis on executive power and reduction of institutional constraints will pave the way for authoritarian practices.

Project 2025 tells us the kind of America conservatives would like to live in, and we can expect this document will remain a relevant handbook regardless of the election outcome. While this episode presents the general outline of Project 2025, upcoming episodes on our American institutions, social issues, and civic structure will include not only their state of health, but their vulnerabilities ripe for exploitation by Project 2025.

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Transcript

Episode 7: “Democracy Backsliding into Project 2025”

Welcome to American Musecast!   I’m your host, Susan Travis, exploring American politics using the construct of the hero’s journey and archetypes of the psyche.  

If you’re a regular listener, you’ve been following as we’ve set the stage!  You recognize yourself as one of the heroes and villains of the American tale.  You recognize our precarious state of democratic decline because of American complacency, cynicism, and distrust.  And you know that our fixer upper called democracy faces a heartbreaking demolition should a conservative president win the upcoming election and implement the agenda he has in store for us.  Today, we’ll look closely at that plan, Project 2025, and the implications it promises. 

Now, I’ll remind you that we are on a hero’s quest within the American story.   Once complacent and cynical, we are newly poised to tip the balance, to defend democracy and right the ship.  We’re the ragtag army, the hero populace perfectly positioned to rescue democracy.  We’re like . . .mmm, a sleeper cell.  Here all along.  Never responding to polls, ignoring, grousing, and not making eye contact until the big mission – saving American democracy.  How exciting!  

Our mission, you’ll recall, is to develop a new political lifestyle of dynamic citizenry. It will be to vote for freedom over chaos, and to commit to new healthier habits as American citizens.  It’s time to set aside our politically sedentary lifestyle, and step toward a refreshing dive into civic understanding!  

Now, as I mentioned previously, we’ve had a rough summer in my little town, but since the worst seems to be over, I’ll pick up the pace.  This week begins our series on American institutions such as education, law, media, etc.  The health of our institutions is vital to a healthy democracy, and although they are every in need of improvement, we’ll discuss that in context of the profound threats they face through the conservative agenda known as Project 2025 or similarly through former president Trump’s plan, Agenda 47. There’s little daylight between the two

We’ll look at the project in general, beginning with the opening documents outlining conservative intent, then, in subsequent episodes, we’ll look at how Project 2025 ties into other issues and concerns such as white Christian nationalism, compromises to the Supreme Court, immigration reform, media and propaganda, the viability of the electoral college, healthcare and climate change.  SO. As you can see, there’s not a moment to spare!  

But first, let’s start with where we’re now, in that space between a healthy democracy and an actual authoritarian takeover.  You are here . . . set a pin in the place of what is called, “democratic backsliding.” It’s that an evolutionary situation which occurs when essential components of democracy are threatened.  That’s our current environment.

Democratic backsliding is generally subtle and gradual.  It’s like the frog in the pot  It’s a slow erosion that softens the ground for nefarious intent.  Democratic backsliding generally involves a combination of legal, political, and social changes, driven by economic instability, political polarization, corruption, and the strategic actions of political leaders seeking to consolidate power.  So.  That’s us.  We’re being groomed for fascism, and it’s why we’ve been characterized as a failing democracy since 2016.  With our own eyes, we see the following markers, normalizing dysfunction.

We see the Erosion of Democratic Institutions, such as the judiciary, the electoral system, and legislative bodies. attempts to concentrate power . . . the weakening of checks and balances  . . . the demonization of compromise to the point of obstructionism. These are our democratic institutions, eroding and being battered before our eyes.

We see Restrictions on Civil Liberties, such as freedom of the press hobbled by the constant bullying accusation of “fake news,” on the freedom of assembly; and on freedom of speech, not so much eliminated, as saturated with lies.  The undermining of our civil liberties limits our ability to credibly criticize the government, to hold it to account, and to advocate for change.  But those are our OUR civil liberties, being restricted, and our democracy, backsliding.

We see the Manipulation of Electoral Processes . . . changes to electoral laws, gerrymandering, and other forms of electoral manipulation, all of which undermines the fairness and transparency of elections. erodes public trust in the democratic process, and inclines us toward consolidation of power in the hands of a few.  The efforts by former president Trump to subvert the 2020 election, with his January 6th insurrection incitement at the top of the list.  Slanderous conspiracy theories interwoven into frivolous legal challenges and foreign interference, even in the current election. We know, because they tell us, and in that telling, we see our democracy, backsliding.

We see Attacks on Political Opposition, those efforts to weaken or eliminate political opposition. through harassment, unsubstantiated legal challenges, and violence.  Threats by aggrieved followers, who mount chaos against election officials, politicians, and even their neighbors.  Threats by former president Trump to use the DOJ and the military to jail and even execute his opponents, should he win.  This was never a part of a healthy democracy – and now, it’s evidence of democratic backsliding. 

We see the Weakening of Rule of Law, undermined as leaders act above the law, fail to enforce legal norms impartially, and use legal mechanisms and biased interpretation of the law to suppress dissent and delay justice. Former President Trump floated the idea of suspending the constitution itself, and continually works to erode the independence of the judiciary.  This weakening of the rule of law, is part of democratic backsliding.

We see an Erosion of Democratic Norms – they erode before our very eyes - respect for the outcome of elections, tolerance for dissent, and commitment to democratic principles.  Every day, from early lies about Obama’s birth certificate, to the lies about Haitians eating cats, and FEMA confiscating hurricane properties.  Lies. Name calling. Backchanneling to Putin as a citizen. Stealing a bathroom-full of classified documents and such an act meets with a shrug. The sound of that “so what,” is the sound of democracy, backsliding.

We see an over-emphasis on national security as response to acts of terrorism or perceived antagonists such as immigrants and indeed, fellow Americans.  Build a wall, they’re coming, they’re coming for you and me, they’re rapists and pillagers with leprosy and Aids, all sent from the foreign asylums.  Hide your children . . . and your pets.  National security will never save us, so put those kids in cages.  If ONLY I were painting a picture for dramatic effect.  This is every day, so . . . Breaking News: We’re in a state of democratic backsliding.

When public opinion is on our side, there’s no need to struggle against democracy with such shenanigans.  It’s when we see our vision slipping, when our agenda has less merit, less public support, that darker methods become so tempting.  And so, encroachments into an anti-democratic realm just keep creeping forward, on the very screens before our eyes.  Breaking News – we’re in it, and each day, the democratic backsliding of our times calcifies into American contemporary history.  

In previous episodes, we’ve looked at how various authors urge us to address democratic backsliding:  through increased vigilance, by developing robust democratic institutions, and by committing to a more active civil engagement to uphold democratic norms and values. We are called to strengthen trust, establish policy integrity, and good faith implementation.  

NPR Citizen’s Guide to Preserving Democracy – Richard Haas
 https://www.pbs.org/video/a-citizens-guide-to-preserving-democracy-hcrswk/

-I'm worried.  We're off the rails.  Good news is, we can get back on the rails.  There's nothing that's happened that's irrevocable or irreversible, but there is something amiss.  -You really call it a crisis.  Is that the appropriate word?  Are we in that level now?  -We can argue whether it's a crisis or not, but if you're not worried, you're not paying attention.  I don't think any of us has the luxury to be sanguine about the state of, future of American democracy.  And if you value it, as I do, as you do, as I hope everyone watching this does, they should be worried.

And they should basically say, we can no longer assume that after 247, 248 years, it's gonna be around here for another 10, 20, much less 248 years.

Indeed, we, the hero-populace find ourselves in this space of democratic backsliding with all its terrain of shifting sands, turbulent seas and gusting winds.  It’s an environment ripe for a perfect storm, and in this environment, the right wing of our country seeks to cement power by implementing Project 2025.  

We’re at a crossroads.  And the stakes?  Democracy.  Keep it or ditch it? That’s what sits in the midst of our turbulent times.  Door number 1, our rather motheaten democracy, in need of care and repair; Door number 2, the dystopian fascist vision of Project 2025.

Lining up behind Door Number 1 (keep democracy) are Moderate Republicans, Centrists and the full Left wing who say keep it.  Let’s get to work, and fix it up!  In case you can’t tell, I’m with those guys. 

Lining up behind Door Number 2, are right wing extremists, Neo-Nazis, Q-Anon, White Christian Nationalists, and the fevered MAGA movement of dedicated Trumplicans who seem keen to ditch it, as outlined by Project 2025.  Democratic backsliding?  No.  This promises to take us far beyond. Under this agenda, America transitions into an authoritarian state in which 250 years of democratic processes and institutions are replaced by autocratic governance structures. A dictator on Day One, looking, as he has stated, for generals like the ones Hitler had.  These are the ideals of the extreme right-wing of our political citizenry, eyeing the profitability of strangling our social and electoral rights, and loosening the checks and balances that have long held back single party governance.

Now, you’re right to expect some sort of catastrophizing at this point.  A bit of jumping around dramatically screaming that the sky is falling on our heads and we have no hats!   Well, this this is not a catastrophizing tactic. It’s the real deal – it’s not a drill, because we truly are at a critical moment in our nation’s history, much like other democracies, long since fallen into the wastebins of history.  So heads up.

Let’s look seriously at these plans in terms of what constitutes the health of our institutions, how Project 2025 will affect that health, and how Project 2025 authors and supporters articulate and characterize their written manifesto in their own words.  

The primary authors of the project are led by the conservative organization, the Heritage Foundation, along with over 500 conservative contributors from various religious and financial entities.  Heritage Foundation has been around since the 70s, a self-described academic-styled “think tank,” though, their evidence-based research has generally been questionable.  As the Republican Party hasn’t posted an official election campaign platform in well over a decade, work by the Heritage Foundation is recognized as filling that gap.

Now, although former president Trump insists that he knows nothing of this project, his own “Agenda 47” very closely follows the project, and at the heart of the authoring body are former Trump Administration members and close associates who publicly assert that this is the agenda that Trump expects to undertake from day one, should he win the 2024 election.  It’s a rather obvious have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too strategy.  Disavow your heart’s desire for unchecked power.

Project 2025 can be found as a 922-page pdf on the Heritage Foundation website, and I’ll provide a link in the show notes.  For the purposes of our exploration, I’ve printed it out and have made copious notes in the margins.  In addition to its introductory section, it has 5 sections.  1. Taking the Reins of Government;  2. The Common Defense;  3. The General Welfare (which is itself comprised of 20 chapters); 4. The Economy; and 5. Independent Regulatory Agencies.  

Now, I’ve several general observations before I get into specifics.  First, this is a document curated by over 500 conservative lawyers and political professionals, a document of grave importance to our national dialogue, presenting to the world, their view of liberal Americans.  And it’s littered with not only with demeaning and contemptuous language, but with gross mischaracterizations and demonizing rhetoric (commentary, that is) about liberals and their political aspirations.  This sort of language would never be acceptable within an academic paper.  It’s hard to say if they really believe their own words, or if they are merely “catastrophizing” to manipulate support.  Either way, it’s a rather heartbreaking read, and rather chilling entry into our nation’s archives.

Secondly, if you want to know how conservatives view democracy, the multi-racial complexity of our populace, the idea of power balanced between our co-equal branches of government, the need for an impartial rule of law . . . this document, Project 2025, prepared by the most elite conservatives in in our nation, also unmasks their contempt for these time-honored bones of our democracy, even as they posture as protectors of democracy.  Democracy is a bit too fair, for their taste.  

And finally, I’m struck by the ways Project 2025 postures itself as a noble defender of democracy, by using profoundly anti-democratic strategies to achieve decidedly fascist consequences.  This project shows no awareness of democratic philosophy, of the purpose and reasons underlying rule of law, ethics, the values of diversity, equity and inclusion, checks and balances, or the separation of powers.  These fundamental values at the heart of democracy, the authors of Project 2025 dismiss as irritations, all while claiming to righteously defend and preserve democracy.  

This conservative vision is held by the most powerful right-wing power-brokers in America.  Win or lose, it outlines their political aspirations, vision for government and citizen dynamics, and socio-economic structure for our country.  It tells us the kind of America they would like to live in, and we can expect this document will remain a relevant handbook for conservatives, even, and perhaps especially, if they lose the election. 

My final impression?  Certainly, we can all see the lack of trust and the erosion of governing quality, so there’s a general American consensus about the reality of democratic backsliding.  Nonetheless, we are poles apart, grappling to identify the real obstacles, blame, interpretation, and solutions - how we came to backslide, how we characterize that backsliding, and what to do about it. Our country desperately needs the principles of civics threaded throughout the curricula of every grade in school, lest such unprincipled “defenders,” run amok through America’s future journeys.  Surely, their work can be mitigated by a more informed, less malleable populace.  

Now, the odd structuring of Project 2025 is the least of our worries with this thing, but here’s the gist.

It’s comprised of four pillars. 1. Project 2025 is the FIRST PILLAR of itself.  THE SECOND PILLAR (of the first pillar), is to establish a database of conservative personnel with proven loyalty to the agenda of a conservative president, THREE a new presidential academy, that’s an online educational system taught by them, a sort of civics-for-conservatives aligned with conservative principles setting the bar for what is expected of senior leadership; and THE FOURTH PILLAR is a “playbook” which in their words, “we’re forming agency teams and drafting transition plans to move out upon the president’s utterance of ‘so help me God.’ 

The preface explains their strategy:  “a well-conceived, coordinated unified plan, and a trained and committed cadre of personnel to implement it.”  necessary, they say, “because of the long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions,” and further, “our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the administrative state.”

So. A pause here to reflect on the administrative state. What’s that? Well, it also goes by the term, “bureaucracy” which I long understood to simply be another word for “red tape,” civics not being a requirement in my high school.  But, no, it’s actually a term referring to those governmental agencies within the Executive Branch.  

Another pause, because my little poll of regular people has yielded the need for a little additional info.  Our government has three branches.  The Legislative Branch, related to law-making, and that’s Congress.  The Judicial Branch, related to our court system, and that includes the Supreme Court, and the many courts and legal apparatus across the land who interpret the law and dispense justice.  And finally, the Executive Branch, which includes the President, the Vice President, and the Bureaucracy aka the Administrative State.  

Now, the Executive Branch is primarily the branch under scrutiny in this part of Project 2025, because within this branch each department in the bureaucracy is tasked with enforcing laws, policies, regulations, etc. within that department. That’s the primary role of the Executive Branch – how will we enforce the elements of our structure.  The agencies and departments within the bureaucracy put policies into practice on a daily basis, and they are staffed with experts and career professionals generally regarded as the most highly esteemed in their fields of expertise.  

That said, Project 2025 calls those experts, “careerists,” defined in Collins dictionary as a pejorative, a slur that is, implying mercenary, calculating, opportunistic, self-serving, or looking out for number one.  They are the Administrative State which Project 2025 has tapped to be deconstructed.

So what gives? And why?  Well, the president’s cabinet is made up of heads of each agency and department within the bureaucracy, each of whom are presidential appointees, who require Senate approval.  These department heads generally carry the title of “Secretary,” and are the closest advisors to the president.  For instance, the Secretary of State oversees the State Department, which is in charge of international diplomacy. 

As the crème de la crème of experts, the secretaries are put in place to strengthen these departments through reasoned regulation in service to the people. We elected our president and members of Congress because, presumably, we view their character and expertise as sufficient to warrant our trust in choosing the best our country had to offer. So, the role of the secretaries, based on their expertise, their analysis, and their evaluation of related factors, is to guide policies toward the very healthiest of consequences aside from mere profit, power, or partisan agenda.

Project 2025 makes clear that this is a problem, that the bureaucracy’s FIRST consideration should be loyalty to the conservative agenda of a conservative president.  And that agenda, in most cases, includes the deconstruction of departments within the administrative state. In the prior Trump Administration, this goal of deconstructing the administrative state took the form of undermining and disrupting the departments using unqualified secretaries, so that the department could be shown to be ineffective and ripe for dismantling.  You may remember the Secretary of the Interior compromising our public lands and the Secretary of Education, defunding so many of our educational programs, to name a few.  

Trump tried in his waning days of office to create this new quote unquote, schedule F, a different category of civil servants who would be moved away from the protections of the merit system and into a space where they could be fired at will for not carrying out his agenda.

He rolled out an executive order to this effect.  In the late days of his, of 2020.  He started to try to implement it, but ran out of time.

Joe Biden rescinded this executive order on one of his first days in office, but a real area of overlap between what Trump is promising himself and what project 2025 is articulated is a resuscitation of this executive order, and plans to get it out the door right away to remove some of the internal checks that, usually like prevent presidents from taking illegal actions, but in this case would enable, the Trumpian agenda with, with few checks at all.

Restoring our bureaucracy to a healthier, more efficient structure of service to the public has been no small task for the Biden Administration, and the work to ever improve is an ongoing endeavor.

In addition to the many commissions and boards that manage policy, there are currently fifteen primary departments with representation in the president’s cabinet, including the departments of defense, interior, agriculture, commerce, and labor, the department of health and human services, housing and urban development, the departments of energy, education, and veteran’s affairs, homeland security, the environmental protection agency, the office of management and budget, national intelligence, the CIA, the departments of trade, economic policy, small business administration, and the office of science and technologies.  

These are the agencies targeted by Project 3035 when they say they want to “deconstruct the administrative state.”  The plan outlines the intention to eliminate many of these departments with some folded into other agencies or privatized, including the Transportation Security Administration.  Imagine weakening these regulatory bodies so that they diminish public protections, leading to environmental harm and unsafe products, all for profit and power. 

Bonnie Erbe’ and Aisha Woodward from Protect Democracy. 
 https://www.pbs.org/video/protect-democracy-vs-project-2025-oqeuul/

As you know well, the nonpartisan civil service is kind of foundational to how our government is run.  These are people who are hired because they have expertise in science and data and policy, and they carry out the day-to-day functioning of government.  And they don't change from one administration to the next because their fealty is into a political party.  It's to carrying out the law as they see it and the policies of elected officials.

Right.

Like you work for the FDA, you, a lot of the, civil servants there have advanced degrees in medical research, and they make their judgments based on what's on science, not on their political beliefs.  And he would want to change that so that he could appoint people permanently who would make those judgments based on their religious beliefs.

That's exactly right.

The Heritage Foundation director, Kevin Roberts, introduces a need for this bucket list by identifying liberalism as culprits guilty of “wholesale dishonesty and corruption of the political class who oversees inflations, drug addiction, transgenderism with drag queen and pornography in their libraries, China’s cold economic war, and governmental dependency.”  

He goes on, “contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s “radical chic” to build the totalitarian cult known today as “The Great Awokening.”  Well, that’s cute, but what in the world are they talking about?  I think he just made that up.  Until now, I’ve never heard of the “Great Awokening,” though maybe it’s a Fox News thing.  A totalitarian cult born of the radical chic. This bogeyman under the bed born of the conservative imagination is a radical chic controlling America through their totalitarian cult known today, far and wide, as the “Great Awokening.”  Or maybe the Great Pumpkin . . . Also, apparently, “unaccountable federal spending is the lifeblood of the “Great Awokening.”  So.  Move over Q-Anon. Identifying America’s threat comprises the second paragraph of the Project 2025 foreword, and it reads like the overarching conspiracy theory of a dystopian novel.  

This is the anti-democratic adversary of the hero populace, an irrational part of America that fears and hates, and will dismantle the guardrails of justice and democracy.  Remember that the actual historical definition of “woke” refers to an alert vigilance for injustice.  I’d like to note that each time I ask a conservative to define “critical race theory” or “woke,” they either admit to not knowing, or answer that it’s “the liberal agenda.” Remember too, that being “antifa,” means being anti-fascism, that hard right concentration of power steeped in injustice.  Additionally, they specifically reference “the scourge of socialism, communism, Marxism, progressivism, fascism, whatever name it chooses” . . . . not seeming to remember that fascism is born of right-wing extremism, not left. 

Referring to his foreword as “the opening salvo of Project 2025,” Kevin Roberts introduces “The Conservative Promise” with four promises.  Section ONE of Project 2025, “Taking the Reins of Government” puts meat on the bones of each promise.

FIRST To restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and to protect our children. Well, good on’em.  A noble goal . . . ah but, having already accused the left of centralizing power the opening of that promise reads, “the ENTIRE point of centralizing power is to SUBVERT the family; it’s purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatural ones.”  

Conservatives have long deemed liberals as the culprits behind centralizing of power, perhaps because it’s the locus of the human rights protections in our democracy . . .the constitution at the heart of democracy, intends the broadest umbrella “centralizing” protection of our human rights, speech to religion, arms to welfare, soup to nuts.   Our humanity, our dignity, is the first aim of the constitution, and to that end, the constitution establishes the structure, the checks and balances and due process to do so, allowing states to sort out their own unique interests.  Roughly speaking.  It makes sense that the rights of our humanity should be consistent.  Yet, Project 2025 paints all of that justice and democracy as a diabolical liberal conspiracy.  Yet, decentralizing our human rights into the purview of the states will generate 50 ideas about who warrants dignity, leading to profound inconsistencies in rights and protections across states, as we’ve seen in the reproductive restrictions following the Dobbs decision to dismantle Roe v Wade.   

Now, while Project 2025 doesn’t explicitly call for an abortion ban, it does advocate many steps to restrict the procedure, including outlawing the abortion drug mifepristone, blocking abortion equipment or medication from being mailed, barring the use of federal funds to provide healthcare coverage for abortion and requiring states to report all abortions through a federal database on the reproductive status of citizens. 

This promise to restore family means, “to make the institutions of American civil society, HARD TARGETS for woke culture warriors, starting by deleting the terms ‘sexual orientation and gender identity’ aka SOGI.”  SOGI-inclusive schools embrace the different gender identities and experiences of their students, and ensure that these identities are never a cause for discrimination, but Project 2025 wants to delete even the term “SOGI” as well as, again quoting, “DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the following terms gender, gender equity, gender equality, gender awareness, gender sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights.”  They add that these terms should be deleted, from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists,” adding that, “anything related to “critical race theory” or “gender ideology” poison our children.”  

Transgender rights and gender identity beyond biological sex are roundly rejected with the intention to reinstate the ban on transgender Americans serving in the military, to prohibit public school educators from referring to students by anything other than their birth name and pronouns without parental permission, and to ensure no federal funds are used to provide gender-affirming care.  Just a note, US prisons easily approved gender affirmative treatments and surgeries under the Trump Administration.

While Project 2025 doesn’t outlaw same-sex marriage, it supports “nuclear families” that include a “married mother, father, and their children.” They call for restricting laws that bar discrimination on the basis of sex, adding that such laws should exclude sexual orientation and gender identity.  In other words, THAT discrimination would be acceptable.

A full paragraph of the foreword relates to the eradication of pornography, jailing users, and “shuttering telecommunications and tech that facilitate pornography.”  Educators and librarians would be imprisoned and classified as sex offenders.  Now, pros and cons of pornography aside, Project 2025 states up front that they will shut down telecommunications and tech that facilitate pornography.  So, let’s think it through.  Conservatives throughout the country have banned, books they have identified as pornography including To Kill a Mocking bird, Beloved, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Handmaid’s Tale, and even Sleeping Beauty. So, for facilitating their idea of pornography, there goes your internet provider. There goes Random House and Audible for their digital publications of classics.  As conservative characterizations of these matters increasingly become the law, democratic backsliding slips down the slope, and plops into a fascist pool far beyond the promises of an open and inclusive democracy.

Project 2025 asserts:  “Schools should serve parents . . . states, cities, and counties school boards, union bosses, principals and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds.” Most of us maintain that the school should equitably serve the students.  Yet, imagine if EVERY parent (though doubtfully, the liberal ones) gets to insert their conspiracy theory into actual curriculum, their views on religion, race, or a liberal democracy. 

Such conservative fundamentalism does not understand that the ideas of freedom, free societies, and “free will” rest on the idea of choice from among the options arrayed before us through an open society.  Within a democracy, the building of character and virtue comes not by having the government remove access, but rather through the individual journey of hard choices and resistance to temptation

The SECOND PROMISE of Project 2025 is to dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the people.  This concept was introduced previously, but amid this “promise” section is the plan to remove those unelected and appointed career professionals, the one’s they call “careerists,” to, in their words, “defang and defund the woke culture warriors who have infiltrated every last institution in America.”  In other words, people who don’t think like them, who refuse to take an oath of loyalty to the president (not the constitution, the president) and to insert only political appointees who are ideologically aligned with the president into the executive branch. This would affect as many as 50,000 federal employees, expert in their field.  So, no push back.  No guardrails or information that might give pause or remind the cabinet of legal obstacles or social consequences.  It promises that arrogant good-versus-evil mentality that shuns the idea of complexity and nuance.  If you aren’t fully with us, you are the evil enemy needing a silencing and disempowerment.

Part of this effort to dismantle the administrative state, places a huge target on the department of justice. It focuses on appointing judges who strictly interpret the Constitution and are aligned with a conservative president’s agenda, yet this focus undermines judicial independence and fairness, and blatantly ignores the fascist implications of ensuring biased rulings that favor specific ideologies. 

Laura Barron-Lopez, in an interview with PBS  
 https://video.pbsnc.org/video/trump-agenda-1720559568/

Project 2025 proposes placing the Justice Department squarely under Donald Trump's authority, doing away with any traditional independence that we usually see for the Justice Department and the attorney general.

They want Donald Trump to install a loyal attorney general, install loyal lawyers across the board, and Trump himself has repeatedly said that he wants to do this.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: We will restore law and order in our country.  (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And I will direct a completely overhauled DOJ to investigate every radical out-of-control prosecutor in America for their illegal, racist and reverse enforcement of the law.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: There is no law.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That, Amna, is a regular part of Donald Trump's stump speeches.

So it's not just Project 2025 proposing this.  It's also the former president himself.

And Russ Vought, again, that person, the -- who worked in Donald Trump's first administration, likely going to be into any second Donald Trump administration, has said that the Justice Department is not an independent agency.  He has said this publicly, and that if anyone were to try to say that they are independent in a second potential Trump term, that he would kick them out of the White House.

Even as they argue to expand and consolidate power with a conservative president (not just any president) at one point the document says, “the government should stop trying to substitute its own preferences for those of the people,” while a few sentences later noting “there’s no such thing as the government, only people who work for the government.” They add, “ultimately, the Left does not believe that all men are created equal, they think only they themselves have an unalienable right to pursue the good life and only they themselves have such a right along with a moral responsibility to make decisions for everyone else.”  Again, blind to what they themselves are doing with Project 2025 which established up front their position of “down with diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

The inherent contradiction of the scourge to be eliminated and the means they chose to do so is lost on the authors of Project 2025.   In loathing a politically appointed bureaucracy answerable to the president, (though actually answerable to the rule of law), they seek to secure for themselves, a politically appointed bureaucracy answerable ONLY to the president.  Makes no sense.  Except that it’s not about anything other than securing conservative power.  In their words, “the great challenge confronting a conservative president is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power, including the power currently held by the executive branch, to the people.” But that isn’t what’s happening here.  They want the power to reside with a conservative president and all bureaucratic roads to lead to his or her agenda. But, if power were fairly returned to the people, it would be balanced in terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion, or NOT, because they’ve already spurned such a balance along with “woke” policies in their opening salvo.  

Project 2025 calls for a “top-to-bottom overhaul” of the DOJ and FBI that gets rid of what it calls an “unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class and radical Left ideologues.” They propose an agency that would be more focused on violent crime and filing litigation that’s “consistent with the President’s agenda” and filled with far more political appointees; it also proposes prohibiting the FBI from investigating misinformation or making “politically motivated” moves against U.S. citizens, an interesting conflation, a mushing together of two unrelated issues.  Consider also, that former president Trump’s stated agenda is to retaliate against his political opponents using the military and justice system. 

The proposal would undo much of the federal government’s climate work which they call “climate fanaticism.”  They would leave the Paris Climate Agreement, eliminate the Office of Domestic Climate Policy, overhaul the Department of Energy to promote oil and natural gas and deemphasize green energy sources, remove the Department of Agriculture’s focus on sustainability and curtail climate research. Their words.

Project 2025 would make significant cuts to Medicaid and impose work requirements to receive coverage, and would reform Medicare—including by making the default option for patients, Medicare Advantage, a paid supplement with a disturbing record of miserable coverage.

The project seeks to reform the Federal Reserve by “tak[ing] the monetary steering wheel out of [its] hands and return[ing] it to the people,” which the authors propose could be done by getting rid of the government’s control over the nation’s money entirely—instead leaving it up to banks—or returning to the gold standard, in which the dollar’s value would be tied to a specific weight of gold. 

Project 2025 would seek to get rid of current tax rates and most deductions and credits, instead proposing a 15% rate for anyone under the Social Security wage base ($168,000 in 2024) and 30% for taxpayers earning more than that—which means the lowest-income taxpayers will now pay more and some higher earners will pay less, and it would also lower the corporate income tax rate to 18%.  

This is not my area of expertise, but the worry by prominent economists is that such policies would exacerbate inequality, concentrating wealth and power, undermining the economic foundations of a healthy democracy, as would their plans to secure election integrity through stricter voting laws and measures to combat alleged (though negligent) voter fraud.  These laws often disproportionately affect marginalized communities, hindering their participation in democracy. Stricter voting laws and reduced federal oversight typically leads to systemic disenfranchisement of specific populations, deepening existing political divides, creating an environment where compromise and bipartisanship become increasingly difficult.

Their THIRD PROMISE is to defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders and bounty against global threats.  Okay, but here’s the meat on those bones. “The next conservative president must end the Left’s social experimentation with the military (?) restore warfighting as its sole mission, and set defeating the threat of the Chinese Communist Party as its highest priority.”  Along with progressives, they claim that “America’s corporate and political elite do not believe in the ideals to which our nation is dedicated, self-governance, the rule of law, and ordered liberty.” They claim that “the left cavalierly supports open borders,” that their goal is to decrease wages for the working class and that “environmental extremism is decidedly anti-human and (is) a pseudo-religion meant to baptize liberals ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the holy water of environmental virtue.”

So to all of this, they state. “The solution of ALL OF THE ABOVE problems is not to tinker with this or that government program or to replace this or that bureaucrat.  These problems are not of technocratic efficiency, but of national sovereignty and constitutional governance.  We solve them not by trimming or reshaping leaves but by ripping out the trees, root and branch.” International organizations and agreements should be abandoned, and America should adopt a more isolationist stance, despite the worry that reduced international engagement could weaken alliances and diminish the U.S.’s global influence and ability to promote democratic values abroad.

Their FOURTH PROMISE OF PROJECT 2025, is to secure our God-given individual right to enjoy the blessings of liberty.  For a group that wants STRICT interpretation of the Constitution, they begin this segment “When the founders spoke of pursuit of happiness, what they really meant might be understood today as, in essence, pursuit of blessedness. … Our constitution grants each of the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought.”  Not exactly strict originalism; because saying “What they really meant might be understood today as, in essence” phrases us to their own stumbled interpretation. An interpretation that says, “BOO to free will.” 

I’d wager a sack full of money that if Project 2025 were to use the find and replace feature on their agenda, replacing “conservative” with the word, “liberal,” and “right” with “left” conservatives would suddenly have their own Great Awokening. Because imagine if an Obama, a Biden, or a Harris should decide to openly replace all conservative career appointees with liberals required to pledge loyalty to a democratic president, instead of to the constitution.  The flaws to Project 2025 would quickly become apparent if they viewed it from that perspective.

By prioritizing ideological appointments and reducing the role of regulatory agencies, Project 2025 risks undermining essential checks on power.  What Project 2025 fails to understand is that within the idea of “checks and balances,” is that checks critically ensure that power is balanced.  But when the goal is to concentrate power in any direction, the balancing of power is an obstacle, so, the checks must go, and VOILA, you have yourself an unchecked president, with full immunity for official act, now declaring all acts official. Concentrated power is the literal opposite of balanced power.  I can’t help but wonder if our conservative fellow citizens are really all that gung-ho about this plan . . . if they really understand the impact it would have on a healthy democracy, and if they even know it’s out there, speaking for them.

Project 2025 is a 922-page plan for reshaping American society according to their vision, a vision that poses significant risks to democratic norms, equity, and participation, potentially reshaping the political landscape in ways that favor a narrow ideological agenda at the expense of broader democratic values, and this radical emphasis on executive power and reduction of institutional constraints will pave the way for authoritarian practices.

Now, in today’s call to action, I urge you to explore Project 2025 from more than just the perspective offered in this podcast.  If you’re already in podcast mode, consider searching the term “project 2025” or specifically listen to Ali Velshi’s podcast which regularly explores elements of Project 2025 with amazing clarity.  He is really SO GOOD at explaining this – you can also just search Project 2025 Velshi on YouTube and video segments from each of his episodes are there as well.  Additionally, there is an amazing NPR podcast fully dedicated to Project 2025 which I recommend.

Our next episode will explore trends related to White Christian Nationalism, the need for a woke populace, and the threats posed to people of color through Project 2025.

So that’s it for today, but for my dear listeners with a fire in the belly, please follow this weekly podcast, share it with others, and tell them how much you love it. I welcome your observations in the comments section because sometimes they offer a sparkle of ideas to include in other episodes.  Just use your manners.  I’m a real person, not a chew toy!  So, buckle up buttercups!  Let’s get out there, and steward democracy!