A Note on “Project 2025”

Project 2025 link: “A Note on “Project 2025“

Who is the author of this chapter? “Paul Dans, Steve Groves. Dans is Director of the Presidential Transition Project at the Heritage Foundation, and former Trump Administration Chief of Staff at the US Office of Personnel Management. Groves is the Margaret Thatcher Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former Trump Administration Ambassador Nikki Haley’s Chief of Staff at the U.S. Mission to the UN.“

ACTUALLY, we (Indivisible Ventura) will go first: Why is awareness of Project 2025 important? Why are individuals and organizations spending hundreds of hours deciphering this huge document? Why are we asking you become familiar enough that you can share it with others?

Our primary elections had a shamefully low turnout of voters. From conversations we’ve had, Californians seem to believe that we are immune from the effects of creeping authoritarianism from red states, and that we still have the privilege of refusing to vote, “boycotting Biden,” or voting for third party candidates, to “send a message.”

Message sent. To the GOP. And that message is that we are not even playing the same game. 

This dangerous, radicalized minority has slowly, quietly, built up almost unassailable rule in statehouses across the nation. (Read David Pepper’s “Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call from Behind the Lines”). They’ve been infiltrating our courts with far-right, Christian nationalist jurists since the 80’s. We are seeing the damage now, with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, along with other infuriating decisions.  

Individual states have been test-driving parts of Project 2025 – book banning, criminalizing librarians and teachers, voter suppression, removal of abortion rights, suing people who aid in an abortion, and harsh laws against transgender individuals – these are all components. It is also now legally hazardous to organize a mass protest in Louisiana, Mississippi or Texas. These are not anomalies – they are well-organized experiments in repression and the successful strategies spread like a cancer to other states. If Project 2025 is installed with the election of a Republican president, these policies will ultimately become the law nationwide. California will not be spared. (We’ve listed a sampling of them here)

We are not exaggerating when we say that Project 2025 is the most dangerous reversion of civil rights for women, minorities, the LGBTQ community, and immigrants that our country has ever experienced, and it promises the destruction of public education, the environment, unions, freedom of speech, and even our most established social safety nets like Medicare, Social Security and Head Start, if Trump takes over. 

The GOP is patiently waiting for us to make that final mistake – not actively supporting Biden over Trump in November – to spring their trap shut. 

Reagan used 60% of the Heritage Foundation’s manifesto. Trump used 2/3rds of his version. If he returns, he will enact it all, along with his revenge-centric overlay of Agenda 47. If we can use climate-warming’s tipping point as an analogy, if Trump wins, we will wake up after the election to an America we no longer recognize. 

The basics “pillars” of the Heritage Foundation takeover of our government.

  • Pillar I – our viewpoint: This puts in one place a consensus view of how major federal agencies must be governed and where disagreement exists brackets out these differences for the next President to choose a path.
  • Pillar II – our people: This goes back to one of Trumps last executive orders before he left office – the creation of Schedule F, a return to the corrupt patronage “spoils” system of the Andrew Jackson presidency Countermanding this was one of the first corrections Biden made in office. It’s a personnel database that allows “candidates”, which are actually taking over jobs held by professional civil servants who will be fired on Trump’s first day of office, to build their own professional profiles and our coalition members to review and voice their recommendations. These recommendations will then be collated and shared with the President-elect’s team, greatly streamlining the appointment process.
  • Pillar III – Hitting the ground running: No more inept nepo hires and embarassing press conferences! The Heritage Foundation is setting up the Presidential Administration Academy, an online educational system taught by experts from their coalition. For the newcomer, this will explain how the government functions and how to function in government. For the experienced, we will host in-person seminars with advanced training and set the bar for what is expected of senior leadership.
  • Pillar IV – How we are going to take over: This is the Playbook—we are forming agency teams and drafting transition plans to move out upon the President’s utterance of “so help me God.”