Project 2025

The Conservatives' Plot to Fundamentally Reshape America

Up until very recently, most Americans did not know who The Heritage Foundation was, and were similarly, unaware of their signature initiative, Project 2025. Fortunately, Americans are waking up to the horrifying implications of the project’s goals and just this month, Google searches of “Project 2025” have overtaken those of Taylor Swift and the NFL. This must certainly outrage conservatives who waged an outright war on Taylor Swift this past NFL season. 

Americans are finally waking up to The Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, and the conservative plan to radically redefine the Executive Branch. This is a good thing, and long overdue. Before diving into the ramifications should the plan be successfully implemented, it is important to understand what Project 2025 is and who is behind it. 

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank founded in 1973, with a membership of over 500,000 conservatives. According to their website, their mission is “to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”  This does not sound radical on the surface, but when one digs deeper and explores the policies the foundation proposes to achieve its goals, it becomes clear they are not merely attempting to redefine the Executive Branch. The overarching goal of The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is to “lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right” and to strip Americans of rights that took decades, sometimes generations, to achieve.  

Project 2025 consists of four pillars that will be used to achieve its goals. The fourth pillar is a 180-day playbook, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” that lays out “actions to be taken in the first 180 days of the new Administration to bring quick relief to Americans suffering from the Left’s devastating policies.”  

It is critically important going into November’s election that voters understand the devastating consequences millions of Americans would suffer should Project 2025 be successfully implemented. Here is what conservatives hope to accomplish through Project 2025: 

Increase and Concentrate the Power of the President 

The primary goal of The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 is to give Donald Trump and his appointees increased power over the executive branch by replacing permanent, nonpartisan civil service professionals (whom he calls “the deep state”) with Trump loyalists. Rick Dearborn, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff under Trump has called for the dismantling of the administrative state and the virtual installation of a king. “In order to carry out the President’s desires, political appointees must be given the tools, knowledge, and support to overcome the federal government’s obstructionist Human Resources departments. More fundamentally, the new Administration must fill its ranks with political appointees.” He goes on to say, “When it comes to ensuring that freedom can flourish, nothing is more important than deconstructing the centralized administrative state. Political appointees who are answerable to the President and have decision-making authority in the executive branch are key to this essential task. The next Administration must not cede such authority to non-partisan ‘experts,’ who pursue their own ends while engaging in groupthink, insulated from American voters.” Boiling it down, Dearborn is calling for a president with absolute power. (Source: The Well Said by David Guilbault)

Implement Long-Desired Conservative Policies 

Conservatives have long wanted, and are working to impose specific policies on the American people. This would include significantly reducing regulations that directly impact the economy and environment, slashing federal spending on the poor, increasing the country’s $2.13 trillion defense budget, and scrapping climate change initiatives. In June, the U.S. Supreme struck down their own landmark 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council significantly limiting the power of federal agencies to interpret the laws they administer. The court’s decision will have devastating effects on our country’s ability to enforce environmental regulations and control health care costs. 

Implement Public Policy Based on Christian Values 

Conservatives would ultimately like to end all abortions, and Project 2025 proposes using the power of the federal government to prevent abortions and ban certain contraceptives that have been for years legal, and deemed safe. Texas already has a number of abortion bans in place that restrict nearly all abortions unless a woman’s life is at risk. A Texas woman said she had to “wait until she developed sepsis before physicians could provide her with lifesaving abortion care.” If successful, conservatives will likely issue a similar nationwide ban that would strip women of their reproductive rights and put the lives of millions of Americans in jeopardy. 

While Project 2025 does not directly call for a ban on same-sex marriage, it would work to undermine LGBTQ+ rights by diverting funds and encouraging a “biblically based” or nuclear definition of the family as one consisting of “a married mother and father, and their children” while eliminating policies that have provided equal rights to the LGBTQ+ community. According to cbsnews.com, in the section titled “The Family Agenda” it encourages the Health and Human Services chief to “proudly state that men and women are biological realities...and married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure, because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.” When it comes to the transgender community, authors of the plan have referred to gender affirming care as a “social contagion” and call for it to be outlawed. 

Labor and Worker’s Rights 

If successful, the project will result in a significant loss of worker rights and even suggests calling on Congress to “consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place.” Conservatives have recently taken to demonizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and according to Forbes, Project 2025 “would widen systemic inequities in the workplace” by ending “ideological” DEI initiatives. The project will also aim to amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, “the legislation that protects against discrimination based on a set of protected classes that includes race, color, religion, sex, and national origin” (Source: Forbes.com). This would risk causing the same workforce disparities our country saw before the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. 

Project 2025 also aims to ease federal child labor laws saying, “Some young adults show an interest in inherently dangerous jobs.” Just last summer, 16-year-old Duvan Perez was killed while working on a Mississippi farm after he "became entangled" in the poultry processing machine he was cleaning. Federal regulators later called it "a preventable, dangerous situation" that no worker should have encountered, "let alone a child." With child labor laws eased nationwide, the country would undoubtedly see an exponential increase in these types of workplace injuries among youth. 

Education 

Project 2025 plans to make significant changes to public schooling and aims to eliminate funding for federal programs like Head Start that serve poor and low-income students. The plan goes on to state that, “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the Federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” Additionally, the authors of the plan want to repeal a Biden-era change to the 1972 law (Title IX) that prohibits sex-based discrimination by educational programs and strengthened protections for students in the LGBTQ+ community. They go on to instruct, “The President should direct agencies to focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of ‘sex.'” 

Can They Pull It Off? 

With a sizable budget of $22 Million, strategies to implement the plan immediately should Trump win in November and take office in 2025, and a sizable database of conservatives ready to fill government positions, The Heritage Foundation has all the tools they need to pull off their radical conservative agenda.  

An Effort to Thwart Project 2025 

In response to Project 2025, Democratic Representative Jared Huffman (CA-02) says, “Project 2025 is more than an idea, it’s a dystopian plot that’s already in motion to dismantle our democratic institutions, abolish checks and balances, chip away at church-state separation, and impose a far-right agenda that infringes on basic liberties and violates public will.” To counter Project 2025, Huffman has started the Stop Project 2025 task force in hopes of stopping the “rightwing plot to undermine democracy.” 

While Taylor Swift and the NFL may long for a return to the good old days when they were the focus of America’s attention, it is heartening to see people waking up to the horrifying implications should Project 2025 achieve its goals. Yet, knowledge of The Heritage Foundation’s agenda is not enough. As Americans come to understand the rightwing effort to undermine our country’s democracy, preventing it must become a top priority. EVERY American must make a plan to vote in November and prevent Donald Trump from taking the White House.  

Your vote matters. 

For more information on Project 2025 read Democracy Forward’s The People’s Guide to 2025.