BY EMERSON LAYNE

In recent news, Project 2025 has been a hot debate topic in the political sphere. Project 2025 is a political project organized by the Heritage Foundation in the conservative movement, aiming to reform the government from its current state into something that is more conservatively aligned. Polls show that quite a few Americans are concerned about some of the policies presented in this plan, though conservatives claim the concern is fear mongering as the left’s attempt to stay in power in the government. So what’s wrong with Project 2025?

Well, according to Project 2025, its goal is to reframe the government and fix decades long issues within the United States. One of the main targets Project 2025 aims to fix is the major issues at the US-Mexico border, by enforcing existing immigration laws and deporting any individuals who are ‘illegal aliens’ within the United States. Another solution Project 2025 aims to do is increase oil and gas extraction to have more energy flow in the United States and to stop collaboration with progressive institutions who advocate for ‘climate fanaticism’. Another solution Project 2025 presents is dismantling the deep state and removing all ‘woke propaganda’ from each level of government. The final main plan that Project 2025 plans to implement is getting rid of the Department of Education and to get rid of critical race theory and ‘gender ideology’ from all public schools.

Project 2025’s website has a “The Truth About Project 2025” section, which is just a long list of statements that they claim are true or false about Project 2025. For example, Project 2025 claims  they support all forms of consensual marriage and that those who say they want the erasure of marriage equality by LGBTQ+ individuals are not telling the whole truth. Project 2025 believes their take is more nuanced and simply grants protections and privileges to people who participate in traditional marriage. For some people, they see the marital beliefs of Project 2025 as biased and homophobic from the privileges Project 2025 wants to give people who are in traditional marriages. In another example, Project 2025 states they don’t support the complete ban on abortion, but wants the government to promote alternate options to abortion, like adoption or surrogate. To some people, they see this as a backwards way of outlawing abortion, by promoting adoption, fostering, or surrogate, while at the same time completing removing abortion as an option for pregnant individuals.

From more progressive individuals and others, they show concern and worry over Project 2025. One of the main concerns is the ban of abortions without exception, due to anti-abortion laws being implemented by conservative politicians. Though Project 2025 states they don’t support the outright ban on abortion, it does support removing abortion pills within the market and wants the government to not financially support medical institutions who conduct abortions. Another concern is the pushing of the nuclear family in Project 2025, though Project 2025 doesn’t outright state they don’t support LGBTQ+ individuals and families. They do believe that Democrats push sexual orientation and gender ideology upon children in schools, though it is debunked that the ‘woke ideology’ that conservatives describe is being pushed upon in public schools. People backing Project 2025 believe Democrats and the woke crowd are fear mongering and lying about Project 2025 so it won’t get implemented. 

These are just a couple concerns in the conservative movement and with Project 2025. To name a few more examples, Project 2025 plans to remove student loan forgiveness, disbandment of climate change research and policy, removal of IVF, and to abolish the Department of Education. Many people are concerned about the true motives of Project 2025, not just the face value policies Project 2025 wants in the government. They are concerned that Project 2025 will implement other more controversial and unpopular policies that they don’t outline in their book or website. When people do bring up the possibility of secret policies or motives, Project 2025 quickly shuts it down and claims Democrats are spreading fear propaganda about Project 2025 so Democrats can stay in power.

One major debating point of Project 2025 is the connections to the current Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump. Though Donald Trump and Project 2025 state they are unrelated to one another, some people who wrote Project 2025 contradict the connection between the two. Stephen Moore, an adviser of the Trump campaign and an author of Project 2025, Mandy Gunasekara, former chief of staff of Trump’s EPA who penned Project 2025, William Perry Pendley, former Interior official of Trump who wrote in the blueprint of Project 2025, Bernard McNamee, Trump’s pick of FERC who supports the climate and energy reconstruction of Project 2025, and even JD Vance, Trump’s vice presidential candidate, had wrote a foreword to one of the architect’s of Project 2025, Kevin Roberts, which he admitted to back in June, the foreword noted by Democrats had similar language to Project 2025. On Project 2025’s website on the About Project 2025 section, it states, “Most recently, the Trump administration relied heavily on Heritage’s ‘Mandate’ for policy guidance, embracing nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office.” If Project 2025 and Donald Trump have no connections with each other, then why does Trump’s administration use the Heritage’s Foundation, the organizer of Project 2025, policies? As much as both don’t want to admit it, Donald Trump has connections to Project 2025. Some people fear that if Trump gets elected president for the upcoming 2024 election in November, he will implement Project 2025 and all its policies. 

One thing they didn’t mention was the vague, ambiguous language of Project 2025, which is the stemming reason of concern for some people of the true motive of Project 2025. One example of this is Project 2025’s view on IVF, which they state was never mentioned in Project 2025, but the definition of it was described. In Project 2025, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, it states, “There is never any justification for ending a child’s life as part of research, and the research benefits from splicing or growing aborted fetal cells and aborted baby body parts can easily be provided by alternative sources. All research should be prohibited as a matter of law and policy”(p. 455). Project 2025 states that they don’t talk about IVF in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, but they describe the definition of IVF and the removal of it. Project 2025 doesn’t understand what IVF is anyway, IVF is when an egg and a sperm are combined outside of the human body, like in a test tube, then is frozen so it can be planted in a woman so she is able to have a fertilized egg. The “aborted fetal cells” Project 2025 talks about doesn’t even happen during IVF, nothing is aborted during the process. To some people, this is just a demonization of IVF and blatant misinformation of the process, while at the same time the authors claim Project 2025 doesn’t talk about IVF. 

Though Project 2025 doesn’t outright support certain actions, like abortion bans, removal of LGBTQ+ rights, and biases against immigrants, their underlying actions and people within the conservative movement shows a far darker agenda in Project 2025. Project 2025 shows a dangerous future for the United States if it gets implemented, as much as they dismiss it. The conservative movement’s actions of banning abortions without exception, bills negatively targeting LGBTQ+ individuals, and removing immigrants from the United States regardless of citizenship, etc., show major contradictions in what they say they believe in. Project 2025 shows the importance of voting in the upcoming presidential election, by inadvertently showing why research must be done about a party or a candidate and what policies they support, plan to implement, and connections to those policies.