Earlier this year, The Fulcrum ran a 32-part series on Project 2025. It was the most read of any series we’ve ever published, perhaps due to the questions and concerns about what portions of Project 2025 might be enacted should Donald Trump get elected to a second term as president of the United States.
Project 2025 is a playbook created by the Heritage Foundation to guide Trump’s first 180 days in office. Our series began June 4 with “Project 2025 is a threat to democracy,” written by University of Iowa professor emeritus Steve Corbin. He wrote:
“The 30 chapters are a daunting read. Project 2025 proposes, among a host of things, eliminating the Department of Education, eliminating the Department of Commerce, deploying the U.S. military whenever protests erupt, dismantling the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, removing protections against sexual and gender discrimination, and terminating diversity, equity, inclusion and affirmative action.
“Additional mandates include: siphoning off billions of public school funding, funding private school choice vouchers, phasing out public education’s Title 1 program, gutting the nation’s free school meals program, eliminating the Head Start program, banning books and suppressing any curriculum that discusses the evils of slavery.
“Project 2025 also calls for banning abortion (which makes women second-class citizens), restricting access to contraception, forcing would-be immigrants to be detained in concentration camps, eliminating Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, recruiting 54,000 loyal MAGA Republicans to replace existing federal civil servants, and ending America’s bedrock principle that separates church from state.”
Now that Trump has been elected, The Fulcrum has again decided to publish a series on Project 2025. Now, rather than speculating what might happen, we will analyze which portions of Project 2025 are actively being considered, which portions have been modified and which portions are eventually enacted.
As with the first series on Project 2025 we will approach this one from a cross-partisan perspective, void of pre-determined left or right solutions. We want the series to serve as a guide for citizens and perhaps even elected representatives to ensure the healthy democratic republic we all desire.
In the words of the late management guru Peter Drucker, “I am not in favor of big government. I am not in favor of small government. I am in favor of effective government.”
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And that is what The Fulcrum works in support of — effective government.
If we are to have a healthy and thriving democratic republic, we need a cross-partisan approach to many of the issues outlined in Project 2025.
As in series one, we will use a solutions journalism approach that focuses on:
We will explore the nuances and complexities of the subjects and issues covered in Project 2025. In the coming weeks, The Fulcrum staff and a selection of our regular contributors will report on components of Project 2025 from the above perspective.
We will not shy away from Project 2025’s most controversial components and will call attention to dangerous thinking that threatens our democracy when we see it. However, in doing so, we are committing to not employing accusations, innuendos or misinformation. We will advocate for intellectual honesty to inform and persuade effectively.
Round two of “The Cross-Partisan Project 2025 series” offers The Fulcrum a unique opportunity to provide reporting that banishes the old ways of demonizing “the other side.” We will be committed to implementing critical thinking, reexamining outdated assumptions, and using reason, scientific evidence, and data in formulating and testing public policy for 2025 and beyond. Our reporting and analysis will be based on a philosophy that seeks out diverse perspectives and experiences to find common ground.
Our nation must reshape our collective sense of civic responsibility, community building, and political engagement. We must nurture new generations of thoughtful citizens and committed leaders who will promote a multidimensional approach to America's most important domestic and foreign policy issues.
A complete collection of Fulcrum articles on Project 2025 can be found here.
Becvar is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and executive director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund. Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Only one out of an estimated 44 financial abuse cases receive service in the formal system (help other than from family and friend networks). This obscures the labor involved in helping older victims of family financial abuse. Older adults are reluctant to report to authorities to avoid embarrassment or menacing perpetrator’s aggravation.
Despite the private and hidden nature of the problem, some extreme cases of family financial exploitation have made public headlines. In January, Maxine McManaman, the Transportation Security Administration’s assistant federal security director, was arrested on charges of financially exploiting a family member with dementia. Eight years ago, a case of financial exploitation by David Vanzo, a “caregiving” son, made headlines due to suspicion of his mother being dead in a wheelchair when he brought her to a bank to withdraw money. In 2011, actor Mickey Rooney testified before a special U.S. Senate committee recounting his own financial exploitation by family members.
Unlike policies protecting vulnerable children, policies protecting vulnerable older adults have historically lacked direction, assessment tools, national reporting system, federal response and, importantly, funding. The Credit for Caring Act, introduced in January 2024, would give qualifying caregivers, of whom there is an estimated 53 million, a federal tax credit of up to $5,000. But this credit is not associated with caregiving related to financial abuse. It is associated with frailty and illness-related caregiving, aggregated by the National Institute on Aging in a 27-item caregiver task list.
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There is no such organized list, enumeration of tasks or estimate of caregiving associated with elder family financial exploitation despite intervening family and friends spending countless hours of personal time, time off work and personal financial resources, to help and care for exploited aging family members. For some reason, our concept of caregiving does not include the care provided to help victimized older people. Yet, $28.3 billion is lost annually by older victims to financial exploitation of which 72 percent is lost to family and friends. In many cases, caregivers perform financial abuse-related caregiving in addition to illness-related caregiving as many perpetrators take advantage of the older person’s deteriorating health to start exploiting.
One might ask, isn’t helping victimized older people what families are supposed to do? Well, isn’t illness-related caregiving what families are supposed to do, too? In fact, many groups do not call illness-related caregiving “caregiving.” They call it being there for your family. Still, distinct policies reward illness-related caregiving valued at $600 billion annually. Consider the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Caregiver Advise, Record and Enable Act as examples.
When older adults lose money and resources, taxpayers also lose. Older victims may need to draw on public programs such as Medicaid to fund their costly long-term care because their own resources were depleted by financial exploitation.
By 2035, older people will outnumber children at 23.4 percent versus 19.8 percent for the first time in the nation’s history. At the same time, an estimated $53 trillion in wealth will be transferred from households in the baby boomer generation to heirs and offspring. These conditions foretell disputes over what happens to the deceased person’s money and property, and foreshadow financial exploitation. We may all know someone with a related family scenario.
We need formalized policies that acknowledge caregiving labor related to elder family financial exploitation. The Financial Exploitation Prevention Act of 2023 would allow “for the delay of the redemption of a security” if an investment company “reasonably believes the redemption involves the financial exploitation of an individual age 65 or older.”
Such policies are a step in the right direction. Estimates and policies related to informal caregiving associated with family financial abuse should account for efforts aside from health care as family members navigate adult protective services, social services, the courts, law enforcement, financial institutions, attorneys, community-based agencies, Area Agencies on Aging, long-term care settings and many more.
Kilaberia is an assistant professor at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work and a public voices fellow with The OpEd Project.
A woman watches Vice President Kamala Harris' concession speech on Nov. 6 after Donald Trump secured enough voters to win a second term in the White House.
This feeling of overwhelming loss of safety and trust in the government is known as political grief. Minority groups — such as individuals who identify as LGBTQA+, immigrants who are currently residing in the United States with or without visas and women of child-bearing age — are currently experiencing political grief due to the possibility of bills being passed in support of Project 2025’s initiatives.
New concerns about adherence to checks and balances have arisen due to Trump’s suggestion that Republican Senators consider agreeing to recess appointments. This is problematic for two reasons. First, recess appointments allow the president to bypass the time taken by the Senate to vote on the appointment of the presidential Cabinet, judicial openings or any vacancies within the executive branch that may occur when the Senate is not in session. In doing this, Trump could authorize temporary appointments to his Cabinet and expedite Senate legislative action.
Second, by encouraging Republican Senators to adhere to recess appointments, Trump is essentially suggesting that he will be more willing to consider endorsing their rise up the leadership ladder. Additionally, the new Trump administration will be operating with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, increasing the chances that bills regarding initiatives from Project 2025 could be approved.
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With these developments, fear of what is to come is now plaguing LGBTQA+ and immigrant families, as well as women and their right to reproductive health. For non-heterosexual families, the possibility of losing their right to marriage, having fostered or adopted children removed from their care or requiring transgender teachers to register as sex offenders are just a few concerns.
Project 2025 also calls for state and local law enforcement to adhere to stricter federal immigration laws. Families of immigrants will now be at risk of expedited deportation following Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids of public areas such as schools and religious institutions. These non-violent immigrants would be placed in massive detention centers for months or years while waiting for deportation. Further, immigrants could expect the elimination of visas for children and adults who have come to the United States for education or seeking asylum from war-torn countries, as well as complete denial of access to the U.S. from the southern border.
Project 2025 aims to restrict access to birth control, and eventually eliminate access to medication abortion by nullifying Food and Drug Administration approval for safe, effective and commonly used drugs such as mifepristone and misoprostol. Hospitals will be allowed to deny abortion care to women who are at risk of losing their lives due to pregnancy complications, placing more pressure on already overwhelmed and under-funded clinics. Businesses will also be prosecuted for transportation and dissemination of abortion pills and associated medical supplies.
If passed, bills and laws solidifying Trump’s plans will harm hundreds of thousands of citizens, immigrants and women. Project 2025 will instigate the separation of loving families, cause the death of thousands of women, incite nation-wide trauma, displace hundreds of thousands of people and potentially provoke economic collapse due to the major loss of workforce. Even U.S. citizens who are not in these minority populations have begun to experience political grief for their friends, neighbors and colleagues.
In preparation of events to come, many individuals are seeking resources and services to protect their rights. Immigration and LGBTQA+ lawyers will soon be in high demand, as immigrants, residents and citizens fight to maintain their rights in the United States. If you or someone you know is in need of legal or mental health services during this time, please reach out for assistance.
National Mental Health Hotline: 9-8-8
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK (8255)
The Trevor Project (LGBTQA+ Crisis and Suicide Prevention Hotline): 866-488-7386 Lambda Legal (LGBTQA+ Legal Support System): 212-809-8585
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: 800-375-5283 (TTY 800-767-1833, VRS 877-709-5797)
Liley publishes editorial content as well as peer-reviewed scientific publications in the field of behavioral neuroscience.
When I was the U.S. ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, a small, African nation, the long-serving dictator there routinely praised members of the “loyal opposition.” Serving in the two houses of parliament, they belonged to pseudo-opposition parties that voted in lock-step with the ruling party. Their only “loyalty” was to the country’s brutal dictator, who remains in power. He and his cronies rig elections, so these “opposition” politicians never have to fear being voted out of office.
In contrast, the only truly independent party in the country is regularly denounced by the dictator and his ruling party as the “radical opposition.” Its leaders and members are harassed, often imprisoned on false charges and barred from government employment. This genuine opposition party has no representatives at either the national or local level despite considerable popular support. In dictatorships, there can be no loyal opposition.
In fact, the term “loyal opposition” was coined during the 19th century in democratic Great Britain. It referred to members of parliamentary opposition parties who, as long as they pledged loyalty to the crown, could criticize the incumbent government’s policies. This allowed members of the British Parliament’s loyal opposition to dissent without fear of being accused of treason.
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The concept of a loyal opposition also exists in our country albeit in somewhat different form. Members of Congress as well as those who serve in government and the military swear an oath of loyalty not to a president, but rather to the U.S. Constitution. Protected by the First Amendment, the party out of power as well as the media, civil society and citizens are free to oppose policies of the president and members of his party by doing so peacefully and abiding by our laws.
But this has not always been the case. In 1798, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts and the Alien Enemies Act, which not only imposed restrictions on immigration, but also limited free speech. Specifically, the Sedition Act criminalized what the Federalist Party then in power deemed to be false and malicious statements against it. Members of the opposition Democratic-Republican Party, as well as journalists supporting them, were sometimes prosecuted. After the Democratic-Republicans came to office, Congress repealed the Sedition Act. But this was not the last time the U.S. government used its power to repress free speech in violation of the First Amendment.
The Sedition Act of 1918, passed during World War I, threatened prosecution of anyone who expressed opinions viewed as undermining the war effort. Beyond that, it prohibited language judged to be “disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive” against the U.S. government, the American flag and the U.S. armed forces. Justified as necessary in wartime, the act was repealed in 1920.
Sadly, this history could be repeated. At an October rally in Colorado, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump announced Operation Aurora. He said his plan would employ the Aliens Enemies Act of 1798 to arrest and deport criminal gang members allegedly here illegally. And while Trump has not called upon Congress to pass new sedition laws, he has threatened to abridge free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. This includes silencing domestic critics he claims are “enemies from within” who imperil U.S. security. Additionally, the president-elect has said he may cancel broadcast licenses of network-affiliate television stations due to their “unfair” coverage of him and his campaign.
In the coming months, Trump will assume the presidency, and his Republican Party, which already has a Senate majority, is likely to control the House of Representatives as well. For this reason, it is essential they regard the Democratic Party as the loyal opposition. In a democracy, there is a distinction between “enemies” and “adversaries” that should never be forgotten.
Democrats will certainly differ with Republicans and President Trump on major policy issues, but this does not mean the Democratic Party will be “disloyal” in its opposition. Although in the minority, Democratic lawmakers have the right to be heard. Along with President Joe Biden, they are committed to the peaceful transfer of power as required by the U.S. Constitution.
The bedrock of U.S. democracy is showing respect toward political opponents who are loyal to our system of government, its values and our country. Regardless of how you voted, this is what must unite us as Americans.
Asquino is a retired career diplomat and author of “Spanish Connections: My Diplomatic Journey from Venezuela to Equatorial Guinea.
