John J. Barton

You have probably heard the term “Project 2025” (“The Project”) in recent weeks, maybe with some vague understanding that it embodies a radical right agenda which will accompany a Trump victory in November. You would be right that it is a radical right agenda; there is some confusion though about if, or how much of the plan would be enacted under a Trump administration.  Sensing the public’s odious reaction to the Project, Trump has distanced himself from its contents and its writers. Make no mistake about it, though.  This Project is Trump, Trump is this Project, and Trump will bring as much of it as possible into reality if he wins the Presidency.

What is Project 2025 and Who Wrote It?

Project 2025 is a detailed plan to restructure and refocus the executive branch of the United States Federal Government. The Project consists of four “pillars”:

1. A policy platform for the next Republican Administration (i.e. Trump)
2. A personnel database of “qualified” candidates to serve in the Administration
3. A training program for qualified candidates
4. A plan for the next Republican Administration’s first 180 days

This essay provides a bullet point summary of the first pillar, which has garnered the most publicity. I will follow each summary with my own opinions on the Project’s impact on society. The platform’s descriptions will be factual summaries in bullet point format; the comments will be editorials. If you fear the summaries or comments don’t do justice to the vast army of the Project’s preparers, then feel free to read all 922 pages. The Project’s website is:

https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf.

The document is not presented by socio-economic topic (climate, the economy, education, abortion, etc.). It is organized according to the departments and bureaucracies under the Executive Branch of the U.S. Federal Government (White House, Federal Reserve, Justice Department, Department of State, Defense, Education, etc.). Pillar I’s “policy platforms” must be gleaned by reading bits and pieces of several different chapters. For example, economic policies are contained in chapters under different bureaucracies and departments under the Executive Branch.

This essay’s presentation is by socio-economic topic (climate, economics, reproductive rights, etc.) with specifics on what will change and how the changes will be enacted. Project 25’s policies were formed over a period of years by the Heritage Foundation and dozens of contributing conservative groups. The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank founded in 1973 to promote a conservative agenda in American politics. While its original founders sought a traditional Republican platform of low taxes and small government, the current version of the Heritage Foundation sits well to the right of its positions in the late 20^th century. I would say the difference between the old and new Heritage Foundation is that the old version sought conservative policies within the structure of a democratic system of governance. The new version of the Heritage Foundation wants to replace the U.S. democratic system of governance with a new autocratic conservatism that does not compete with alternative perspectives (such as the Democratic Party). It does not want compromise. It wants dominance.

Most Americans have heard of the Heritage Foundation as the organization that vetted Donald Trump’s three nominees to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. These three Justices, along with the three conservatives they joined on the Court (Roberts, Alito, and Thomas) are an example of the new zero-tolerance conservative movement. Several landmark decisions made over the past three years (Dobbs, Trump vs. the United States, etc.) reveal a Court that cares little for precedent, the actual wording of the Constitution, or the logic of lower courts.

The following is an excerpt from the Heritage Foundation’s website:

 Our members make it possible for Heritage to conduct expert research, educate Congress and the American people, and promote consistently effective policy solutions based on the ideals of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.  https://www.heritage.org/financial

Of course, Heritage gets to define lofty concepts like individual freedom and traditional American values. Project 2025 is, in effect, an accumulation of these definitions which are the brain children of a small group of well-connected, ultra-conservative, mostly monied individuals.

Whether you like Heritage’s definitions of individual freedom and American values or not, you must understand this: if Donald Trump is elected in November, Heritage’s definitions will become your definitions.

While the Project reportedly only began operations in 2022, the second pillar effectively began operations soon after the 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden. Trump loyalists realized that much of Trump’s first-term MAGA platform was undermined by individuals in his own White House (the “grown-ups in the room”) and, if they failed to stop him, by career professionals in the vast Federal Bureaucracy who either ignored or slow-walked his mandates. The second and third pillars above are Heritage’s solution to this failure. If Trump is elected, we can expect thousands of career specialists in the Federal Government (i.e. the people who cut your SS check, the people who decide not to audit your tax return, the people who land your airplane, the people with guns who show up when a bank is being robbed, etc.) to be summarily fired. Loyalty to Donald Trump will become a condition of employment in the Federal bureaucracy. Those who refuse such loyalty, or are lukewarm in their fealty, will be replaced by the newbies who survive the vetting process in pillar II. 

But personnel is another essay. This essay is about the GOP platform laid out in Pillar I.  Before laying out the descriptions and comments, it warrants mentioning that Donald Trump and his campaign staff have attempted to separate themselves from Project 2025 in recent weeks. Trump has said he knows nothing about it, doesn’t know who is involved, or what it contains (but he wishes them luck, whoever they are.)

This is a complete lie. Trump’s familiarity with Heritage’s efforts is a matter of record and many of the most important contributors to Project 2025 served in his first Administration. He only lately separated himself from the Project because, as you will see below, several of Pillar I’s main sections are repugnant to centrist voters whose support he must attract before November. So Trump, as he has done his whole life, is saying what he needs to say in the moment to get what he wants.

Make no mistake. If Donald Trump is elected in November, Project 2025 will become the American reality. A Republican-controlled Senate is a near certainty next year, and the House is a toss-up. Even if the Democrats do control the House, it is likely the Republican-controlled White House, Senate, and Judicial Branch will effectively end run most efforts by House Democrats to stop Project 2025.

Pillar I: Topics and Comments

This essay does not include every topic covered in the Project. Only the most controversial are presented below:

Climate

Most of the Federal Government’s current plans to address global warming will be either discontinued or severely undermined, consistent with Donald Trump’s rejection of the idea of an impending climate disaster. The Project goes further though to restrict even State’s efforts to mitigate climate change. Assumptions made by the Project’s authors include any of the following depending on the author: 1) climate change is occurring but not related to mankind’s behavior; 2) climate change is occurring, is related to mankind’s behavior, but its effects are way overstated by a progressive political agenda; and 3) climate change is a hoax.

Project 2025’s proposals:

• President Biden’s executive orders on climate change will be nullified.
• Regulations that reduce emissions will be curbed.
• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be downsized.
  • EPA staffers will be selected as per Pillar II, not according to scientific qualifications
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will be eliminated.
• Restrictions on oil drilling will be removed, including on federal lands and in the Arctic

Comment

There is only one real issue facing mankind today: climate change.  All other issues, be they economic, social, legal, cultural, international, etc. pale by comparison. Over 95% of climate scientists agree that it is happening and its effect will be profound in the short-term. Since the 1980s, when scientists hit the mainstream media with warnings about increasing temperatures, they’ve been inaccurate on only one area: the speed at which the climate freight train is coming at us. They have consistently underestimated how fast climate change is happening.

What’s more is that you don’t need to believe the science. All you need to do is go outside or read the news. Worldwide temperatures set records each year – a statistical impossibility without climate change. Forest fires get bigger each year. Think of Paradise, California; Lahaina, Hawaii; Jasper, Alberta. Category 5 hurricanes are becoming the norm. And so on.

It is astonishing therefore that a major political party would be so irresponsible as to reject not only the climate science, but also what its constituents can see and feel. What is even more astonishing is that the GOP has convinced so many millions of people to believe the opposite of what their senses tell them.

Reader, if you want, you can stop here. This issue is so serious that even if you agree completely with each Project 2025 position presented below, then you must still run, not walk, away from anyone who supports Project 2025. In other words, if you value your life and your children’s lives, you cannot cast a vote for Donald Trump.

The Economy

Economic issues are mostly covered in Section 4, pages 657-796. But they are referenced in several other chapters on different Federal bureaucracies. Policies include the following:

• Abolish the Federal Reserve Bank
• Switch to a gold standard currency, or another currency backed by a commodity
• Extend the 2017 Tax Act beyond its sunset date of 12/31/25
• Instill two tax brackets:
  • 15% on income between $1 and $168,000
  • 30% on all income above $168,000
• Reduce the corporate income tax rate to 18% from 21%
• Require a congressionally required 60% threshold vote to pass legislation that increases any tax above the new levels

Comment

Some of these proposals are ill-advised. Some are just plain wacko. What they all have in common is that they would benefit the nation’s wealthiest citizens at the expense of the middle- and blue-collar citizens. Abolishing the Fed and going back to a gold standard are insane proposals that even the most pessimistic among us would assume will be dead on arrival, or never even written up as legislation.

But the changes to the flat rate personal income tax rates would likely happen. Some of the lower income households would see a modest tax increase from 10-12% to 15%.  The highest earners would see a windfall in a 7% tax deduction.

Here is the point of the Project’s flat tax rates:

The lower income household making $50,000 would see a tax increase of just under $2,000 per year. The high-income households though would see millions in tax savings since their effective tax rates would decline from 37% to 30%.

Reducing the corporate income tax rate to 18% would benefit only the 50% of the country who own corporate equities (yep, the upper half).

Requiring a 2/3 congressional vote to increase taxes in the future is a fundamentally unconstitutional law (no congress can outlaw a future congress’s decisions) unless, of course, the current Supreme Court decides to re-interpret the U.S. Constitution to accommodate its personal biases, which it has been quite willing to do in recent years.

Each of these proposals would substantially increase the federal deficit, which the GOP claims is one of its top concerns. The Project’s authors would say that lower tax revenues will be made up on the expenditure side (such as eliminating bureaucracies like the NOAA and other cuts in the discussion below).

Education

Proposals in this area include:

• Eliminate the Federal Department of Education
• Expire Title I of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act
• Public funding for education would be in the form of school vouchers
• Free school meals would be eliminated or severely restricted
• Head Start would be eliminated
• No student loans would be forgiven
• Federally funded research in educational fields must be aligned with conservative agenda

Comment

The GOP is an anti-education political party. It sees a highly educated society as an existential threat to its survival. The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 don’t try very hard to hide this baseline philosophy.

Some of the Project’s proposals are particularly insidious. For example, look at the elimination of free school meals. Talk to any principal or teacher in any urban school district and they will tell you that the only meals many of their students get each week are the ones they eat for free at school. Wait. What? Isn’t the GOP the family values Party?  Aren’t these the guys who wear Jesus on their sleeves, helping their fellow man? Yes, they are when it is families who live in gated communities. But not so much when it comes to urban youth (yes, you are free to interpret that code word as “black youth”).  

Project 2025 supporters would say that they do not support eliminating school lunches, that they just want to restrict them to truly needy children. The problem with that defense is that free lunch programs are run by the States and State governments already restrict them to the needy, usually defined as somewhere at or below the government defined poverty level. So why does Project 25 want to re-define the term “Needy?”  Because their definition of needy is “no one.”

School vouchers are a way to fund private and religious institutions with public money. It’s actually worse than that. On paper, everyone could get the same voucher, so it’s fair, right?  No. If you are an inner-city parent, yes, you’ll get a voucher to pay part of the tuition to send your child to a suburban private high school (many of which cost north of $20,000 per year).  But your child has to be admitted first. And if admitted, how are you going to get him there? How are you going to get him home? And how will you pay the rest of the tuition not covered by the voucher? The answer is you won’t. School vouchers are a one-way street. The suburbs will get money to support private and religious schools. The cities will pay taxes to fund those vouchers.

The school voucher is a naked attempt to divert funds from the areas of education that most need public funding to areas of private education that do not need additional funding. It dovetails nicely with the “simplified” tax system proposed above in which lower income workers pay more taxes and higher income workers get tax relief. The program is the first step in a slow walk to eliminate public education.

Project 2025’s educational proposals are Betsy Devos on steroids.

Immigration

Proposals:

• Abolish the Department of Homeland Security
  • Replace it with an agency that includes the TSA, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
• Eliminate the Department of Health & Human Services
• Services under these departments that are discontinued would be privatized or eliminated.
• Admission of refugees would be curtailed
• Asylum fees would be increased
• Immigration violators would be arrested and deported (regardless of how long they’ve been in the U.S.)
• Use active-duty military along the U.S. southern border
• The national guard in red states would be deputized as immigration officers and deployed to blue states.
• Finish building the wall along the entire southern border

Comment

Stephen Miller, a top aid in Trump’s first term, is the driving force behind this part of Project 2025. He is one of the most xenophobic persons to ever serve in the U.S. government. He is likely to occupy a major position in another Trump Administration.

Immigration is one area in which major changes will occur whether or not the Project’s policies are adopted by Trump. Separate from Project 2025, Trump has made clear that he will close off migration at the southern border and seek to deport as many as possible of the 10-11 million immigrants in the U.S. who are not here legally. It is important to realize that many of these people have been here for decades, have served in the U.S. armed services, are family members, and occupy important positions in their companies and communities.

There will be no excuses, no exceptions.

Trump’s policies – and Project 25’s policies – will suffer from the law of unintended consequences. If successful in deporting millions of people who occupy significant roles in communities across the country, the consequence will be felt in local businesses, in the national labor force (no, these people didn’t take your job; if you want a job, there are currently 1.25 jobs for every American seeking one), in the armed services, in hospitals, etc. Before Trump deports these people, he might want to review how many of the employees at his Bedminster Golf Club won’t be showing up for work on Monday.

Reproductive Issues

Proposals

• Revisit and withdraw FDA approval of mifepristone and misoprostol (medications which inhibit pregnancy and induce the termination of a dead or unviable fetus).
• Eliminate funding and agencies which support reproductive healthcare services
• Eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood
• Enforce the 1870s Comstock Act which prohibits the U.S. postal from delivering any drug which induces an abortion.

Regardless of your personal view on abortion, you must admit that the campaign against abortion rights is a perfect example of how the Republican Party and the Heritage Foundation view America. To them, America should not be a democratic society in which different viewpoints negotiate a compromise. Rather, America is a land of different viewpoints, one of which is correct and all others are incorrect. The concept of majority-rule is an anachronism.

About two-thirds of the American public believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. A higher percentage believe abortion should be legal but in very limited cases. Less than one-third believe it should be banned. In a democracy – a real democracy – the argument ends there. I’m not saying abortion is moral, immoral, sort-of-immoral or anything. I’m just saying that in a democracy, the majority rules, or should rule. Every time.

Consider the alternative. If I am pro-life, I might say, “I agree with the concept of majority-rule, but in this case, I cannot allow legal abortion because it is murder and since it’s murder, I have a right to overrule the majority which is clearly misguided.” You may have logical support for your stance on abortion, but there is one flaw in your thinking. You can’t believe in democracy and, at the same time, believe that you have the right to overrule the majority when you think you’re in the right. Even if you really, really, really, really think you’re right.

If you get a veto to the majority on abortion, then why can’t you get a veto on other matters? Why don’t I get a veto on things that I think are really, really, really, really wrong? Where does it stop? The answer is it stops at autocracy. In the end, one man will get to decide what’s right. And guess what? That man isn’t going to be you.

So, what are your rights in a democracy when you really, really, really, really disagree with what the majority decides? Well, you have several rights. You have the right to vote for candidates who agree with your position. You have the right to protest against things you feel are wrong and demonstrate for things you think are right. Finally, you have the right to move to a country whose people and government align more with your views.

Project 25 does not overtly propose a national ban on abortion. It does though create a web of laws and prohibitions and changes in funding that will, in time, effectively impose abortion bans on States where abortion is currently legal. It is safe to assume the current Supreme Court Justices will in no way hinder this process.

Equal Rights

Policy proposals:

• Rescind policies throughout the Federal Government that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics
• Target Diversity, Education, and Inclusion Programs (DEI) throughout the federal government and institutions funded by the Federal Government
• Terminate employment of Federal workers who agitate for DEI programs or promote critical race theory (see the Department of Education and the Agency for International Development)

Comment

Much of Project 2025 sounds like the Far Right is just asking for that first inch in the adage, ‘Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” By targeting mostly only the LGTBQ Community, the Project wants to turn the clock back only 10-20 years to reject America’s most recently accepted at-risk population.

But what does the Right really want? Yes, clearly they want to send LGTBQ back to the shadows where even their existence is denied. But it’s clear they want more. Why not send women back to the kitchen? Why do black and brown people enjoy entrance to so many schools and companies that were once the province of ….the white male.  And there you have it.

These policies, and really the Project 2025 document overall, is a call to arms to the most abused, ignored, downtrodden American subgroup of them all – the white male.  Isn’t that the real dog-whistle of the whole MAGA movement? Make America Great Again means roll the clock back to a time when the white male unilaterally ruled all aspects of the home, the government, and the work world.

Conclusion: An Appointment in Samarra

What exactly is an Appointment in Samarra? The term comes from an old Babylonian fable where a servant in Baghdad goes to the market to shop for goods for his Master, and while there, bumps into Death. Death turns, gives the man a surprised, penetrating look, then moves on into the crowd. The servant, understandably frightened, goes home to his master and tells him of the meeting. Convinced that Death has come to Baghdad for his life, the servant asks his master to borrow a horse so that he can ride to Samarra to escape a second meeting with Death. The master grants his wish and the servant rides off to Samarra. Angered by his servant’s trauma, the master goes down to the market, confronts Death, and asks him why he frightened his servant. Death replies, “I wasn’t angry, I was just surprised to see him in Baghdad today, because I have an appointment with him tonight… in Samarra.”

The author John O’Hara wrote a well-known novel in 1934 called “Appointment in Samarra” which has a well-deserved spot in the American Wasteland literary syllabus. The novel’s protagonist has everything a man could want: a thriving business, wealth, a beautiful wife and family, status, etc. Yet, he sets off on a course of relentless self-destruction. Most of the man’s acts are pointlessly risky; it’s like he destroys himself just for the sake of destruction, as if the tedium of success was too much to bear.

Which brings us to Project 25, America, and our appointment on November 5^th.

Project 2025 is more than just a policy platform. It is a blueprint for autocracy. The document’s authors understand very few of their proposals enjoy popular support in the U.S. Nothing could be more irrelevant to them.

America became a successful empire because it’s government for the last 250 years has enjoyed the consent of the governed. For the second time in our history, we are experiencing a serious challenge to that fundamental principal. The Heritage Foundation, the Republican Party, and Donald Trump do not see the consent of the governed as a necessity. It might be nice to have, but by no means is it a priority. Project 2025 gets the GOP where they want to go without the consent of the American voter.

So yes, November 5^th just might be our appointment in Samarra, the last election in U.S. history.