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Project 2025: Voters oppose the far-right playbook

Kenan Thompson

"Saturday Night Live" cast member Kenan Thompson talks about Project 2025 during day three of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Steve Corbin
By Steve CorbinAug 26, 2024
Steve Corbin
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Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross-partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

Of the nearly 200 op-eds I have published since 2013, none received more readership than my June 4 article in The Fulcrum headlined "Project 2025 is a threat to democracy." In fact, that op-ed inspired The Fulcrum's exhaustive analysis of Project 2025.

The series of cross-partisan op-eds, which are void of pre-determined left- or right-wing solutions, explores the nuances and complexities of Project 2025.

If you’re not familiar with Project 2025, it is a playbook specifically created for Donald Trump to use in the first 180 days of his second presidential administration. The far-right Heritage Foundation spent $22 million to create the 887-page policy book; it involved 34 authors, 277 contributors, a 54-member advisory board and a coalition of 110 conservative organizations (including the American Legislative Exchange Council, The Heartland Institute, Liberty University, Middle East Forum, Moms for Liberty, the NRA, Pro-Life America, Tea Party Patriots). Formally called the “Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise,” it is available to read online.

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It’s important to know that Heritage President Kevin Roberts has close affiliations with Trump, vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He referred to Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Hungarian dictatorship as “the model” of conservative politics.

The 30 chapters of Project 2025, described by Politico as an authoritarian Christian nationalist movement with the purposeful intention of moving America from a democracy to an autocracy-fascist-oriented country, are a daunting read.

Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, though at least 140 people who worked in his administration were involved in writing the plan. Vance wrote the foreword to Roberts’ upcoming book, though — interestingly — due to mounting controversy over Project 2025, sales have been delayed until after the Nov. 5 election.

Additionally, 23 videos with 14 hours of content have been prepared to coach future Trump administration appointees on how to implement Project 2025’s plan changing America’s form of government to a dictatorship and undermine the rule of law, separation of powers, civil liberties, and separation of church and state. Twenty-nine of the 36 speakers in training videos have worked for Trump or Vance.

At 9:39 a.m. on July 5, Trump posted on Truth Social: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying.”

National columnist Will Bunch responded: “I wish Trump luck in getting a single person, on either side of the political divide, to believe that he knows nothing about Project 2025, yet somehow knows that he disagrees with most of it. Indeed, this is Trump’s 2024 version of the big lie.”

There’s a preponderance of evidence — a standard of proof used in most civil trials — that links Trump and Vance to Project 2025.

A July 8-11 YouGov poll found 59 percent of American adults are aware of Project 2025; including 71 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of independents.

Another YouGov survey found 68 percent of the proposed Project 2025 policies are opposed by Americans. Might this suggest about one of every three adults, possibly MAGA Republicans, favor presidential dictatorship, Christian nationalism and the power of white male supremacy?

Project 2025 is an issue every registered voter ought to become very knowledgeable about. If Trump is elected, there is an exceedingly high probability he will act upon the multipronged recommendations contained within the 30 chapters.

This is not an election to sit out. Your vote on Nov. 5 will identify the future of our country for your children, grandchildren and heirs down-the-road.

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