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Protestors rally against Project 2025 and Donald Trump in New York's Times Square.
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 The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.
Willie Carver has been a teacher in Kentucky since 2007, now working with college students. For over two years, he has worked with the American Federation of Teachers’ National LGBTQ+ Task Force, an advocacy arm of the influential labor union created to counter the rise and repression brought by anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
One of the country’s most draconian anti-trans measures became law in Carver’s home state last March. The law has required teachers to put politics before the wellbeing of their own students and reshaped how students see and treat each other. It bans them from being taught about gender identity or sexual orientation, using restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity and learning about human sexuality. The law also made gender-affirming care illegal for trans youth.
In October, after the new school semester started, Carver noticed a woman staring at him as he walked off stage at a Pride event in rural Kentucky after talking about issues faced by LGBTQ+ educators and students. He could tell she needed to talk.
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“Her voice was shaky,” he recalled. “She cried as she spoke to me.”
The woman, a fourth-grade teacher, told Carver about one of her students, a boy who was being bullied because he has two moms. His tormentors — two boys about the same age — lobbed slurs at him and chased him around. The teacher intervened, saying to all her students, “In this classroom, all families get treated with respect.”
And that’s when her problems started. Carver said the school administration reprimanded the teacher, telling her that she had broken state law by talking about gender and doing it in a way that infringed on the political choices of the boys’ families. The teacher became terrified of the prospect of losing her job and torn about what to do. If she tried to save the student from being bullied, she could endanger her own child by losing access to her income and their health insurance.
“She was trembling by the end of the story,” Carver said.
Kentucky teachers want to do the right thing, but they are “desperately scared,” he said. They are exhausted and afraid of repercussions if they speak out. Some have chosen to leave Kentucky, including the state’s previous education commissioner, Jason Glass, who decided to resign last September instead of enforcing the state’s new law.
After watching what has happened in his own state, Carver was not surprised to hear that conservative forces are pushing a vision and version of the country where trans-affirming teachers could be labeled as sex offenders.
As he sees it, war has been declared on LGBTQ+ people — and the idea of protecting children is a linchpin for that war.
“What they want is a very clearly defined society in which straight White men are on top, men earn money and women are subservient,” Carver said. That society is built on strict definitions of marriage, family, femininity and masculinity — a binary lens that excludes many Americans and creates a divisive narrative that ascribes value to people based on gender.
This vision is articulated in a 920-page policy blueprint known as Project 2025. Created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in the nation’s capital, it lays out a far-right Christian vision for Donald Trump’s second term in the White House if he wins in November and draws on the same harmful rhetoric that states have written into anti-transgender legislation.
Though these laws target LGBTQ+ communities, advocates say that their reach and harm impact all families because of the exclusionary version of country they embrace.
“No one fits the very narrow view of what a person is supposed to be under Project 2025,” Carver said.
Project 2025 equates being transgender — or adopting “transgender ideology” — to pornography and declares that it should be outlawed. Under this plan, the federal government would enforce sex discrimination laws on the “biological binary meaning of sex,” and educators and public librarians who spread the concept of being transgender would be registered as sex offenders. The plan says that children should be “raised by their biological fathers and mothers who conceive them,” unless those biological parents are found unfit by a court.
These ideas have drawn national attention for their far-reaching scope, but they didn’t appear out of thin air. They all have roots in anti-LGBTQ+ state legislation that conservative lobbying groups and think tanks have supported for years, like the law that took effect in Kentucky. Contributors to Project 2025 include senior staff from Alliance Defending Freedom, whose lawyers have helped write anti-transgender legislation in a number of states and defended those laws in court. Members of the conservative groups Family Research Council and the American Principles Project, which have similarly pushed anti-LGBTQ+ bills and anti-trans rhetoric, have served on the Project 2025 advisory board.
“The content of Project 2025 has been the goal of the people pushing anti-LGBTQ legislation at the state level and across the country. It's been their goal all along,” said Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that tracks LGBTQ+ legislation.
Democrats have pointed to Project 2025 as evidence of a Republican party gone off the rails. The project’s director, who once had a role in the Trump administration, recently stepped down after Trump and his campaign publicly disavowed Project 2025. Despite the Trump campaign’s insistence that Project 2025 does not speak for the former president, many of Trump’s own proposals align with those laid out by the Heritage Foundation, as The Washington Post reported. This includes policies targeting LGBTQ+ Americans.
“It is a big escalation of attempts that we’ve seen on the state level, and they’re trying to find ways to nationalize this and to continue to take this to the extreme,” said Julie Millican, the vice president of progressive research group Media Matters. Republicans have been most effective at implementing anti-LGBTQ+ state legislation in schools, she said, in part by framing the issue around “parental rights.”
To Carver, requiring that educators who spread “transgender ideology” are classified as sex offenders would impact all families and students, if anything because of the simple fact that broad policies with unclear language and enforcement risk impacting everyone. In the face of such a vague policy, teachers would back away from any topic that might be tangentially related to “transgender ideology,” he said.
“The real effect is that you’re going to have teachers in the classroom who start maintaining these hyper-rigid forms of gender that are being enforced on everyone,” he said. “Even if you are the politically conservative family that has a boy who’s a little sensitive, you’re going to start seeing that boy criticized in class for his sensitivity.”
States have tried — and failed — to define “male” and “female” based on reproductive organs and to base definitions of “mother” and “father” on rigid views of gender defined by “biological sex.” In many ways, these attempts were early previews for Project 2025 proposals, drawing on the same narrow definition of sex that underlines the majority of anti-trans state policy.
For example, in Missouri, a failed state law introduced this year would have placed teachers and school counselors on the sex offender registry for providing any support to a child regarding their social transition. When someone socially transitions, they start using a new name and new pronouns, or they might change outfits or hairstyles to better match their gender expression or identity. Although this is a standard part of gender transition for many transgender people, cisgender people also express themselves in similar ways as they explore their own identities.
Under Project 2025, narrow definitions of sex and parenthood would become the official stance of the federal government.
The plan states that policies supporting single mothers and LGBTQ+ equity should be replaced with those “that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families,” the authors write — and it lays out specific ideas of how American families should have kids. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate with ties to the Heritage Foundation's president, Kevin D. Roberts, has shared similar views publicly.
A year before he was elected to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate, Vance suggested that parents should have a greater ability to use their voice in the country’s democracy than people without kids, by being able to cast more votes. During his campaign, he also pledged to oppose federal protections for same-sex married couples.
It’s a vision that dovetails into a Project 2025 proposal to ban three-parent embryo research. (Mitochondrial replacement therapy, a controversial procedure that treats infertility via a three-parent embryo when conventional in vitro fertilization has failed, is already effectively banned in the United States due to FDA requirements, but is legal in the United Kingdom and a few other countries). Although the document does not suggest restricting IVF, it does suggest that adults trying to conceive or have children in alternative wayswould be subject to higher scrutiny by the federal government.
“In the context of current and emerging reproductive technologies, HHS policies,” write the authors, using the abbreviation for the federal Department of Health and Human Services, “should never place the desires of adults over the right of children to be raised by the biological fathers and mothers who conceive them.”
At least 17 states have laws in place that protect parents who have children through in vitro fertilization or through the use of egg or sperm donors, regardless of their marital status, according to the Movement Advancement Project. These laws ensure that such parents are legally recognized. Casey sees Project 2025as a threat to these protections for same-sex couples and heterosexual couples who rely on assisted reproductive technology.
“I think it’s not only a threat to assisted reproduction statutes, I think it’s a threat to marriage equality itself, to basically any pathway to parental recognition for people who are not in Project 2025’s vision of a heterosexual, nuclear, married family,” Casey said. “So it’s not just about LGBTQ+ people.”
As Project 2025 purports to protect families, it also lays out familiar anti-trans policies in an effort to protect children from being exposed to LGBTQ+ people. This playbook that has been carried out in states as politicians portray gender-affirming care as the mutilation and forced sterilization of children. This kind of anti-trans rhetoric is an entry point to restrict freedoms elsewhere, Millican said. It capitalizes on a lack of public knowledge about trans people in order to garner support for the government restricting what kind of medical care people can have.
Part of that effort to limit children’s exposure to LGBTQ+ identities has been taking place online. Within the last several years, at least two states, Florida and Iowa, removed online content geared towards the safety of LGBTQ+ and transgender students with little to no explanation.
Project 2025 calls for the closure of telecommunications and technology firms that spread the concept of being transgender. To Casey, the proposal to restrict online information about trans identity is related to the federal Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Major national LGBTQ+ rights groups now support the revised legislation, but when it was first introduced, the Heritage Foundation appeared to endorse the bill in a commentary piece falsely claiming that big tech turns children trans.
Last year, two West Virginia bills aimed to protect minors from “indecent displays of a sexually explicit nature” — including “transgender exposure.” The bills failed to pass in 2023 and again this year. Many other states have tried to ban drag performances in the name of protecting children from sexually explicit content, but West Virginia stands out for making the effects of its proposed law on transgender people especially clear. Now,Project 2025 declares that “transgender ideology” should be labeled as pornography and outlawed.
In Kentucky, Carver, who advises the American Federation of Teachers on the needs of LGBTQ+ educators and students, has seen how anti-LGBTQ+ laws that pledge to protect children from harm actually enable it. The story he heard from the fellow teacher at the Pride event is one example of how the state has instituted bullying as a formal policy.
Teachers in his state are terrified, he said — and looking for answers in situations that have become impossible to navigate.
“There is no easy way out of this other than better laws. There’s no easy way out of this other than protections for teachers, who try to keep students safe,” he said.
Originally published by The 19th.
More in The Fulcrum about Project 2025
Opponents of Project 2025 hold a rally at Times Square on July 27.
Casey is a former editorial writer for The New York Times and has worked with the Kettering Foundation since 2010.
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.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is a “presidential transition project” created as a blueprint for recruitment and indoctrination should Donald Trump become the next president. The plan calls for establishing a government that would be imbued with “biblical principles” and run by a president who holds sweeping executive powers.
The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank and sponsor of the Republican National Convention, is directing the effort, along with hundreds of additional organizations. Despite Trump’s disavowal of Project 2025, the effort includes 140 staff members, advisors and agency heads who served in the former Trump administration.
Project 2025 touts four “pillars” to accomplish its goals:
The Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, recently said, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
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He’s not exaggerating.
The plan is ambitious. “Mandate for Leadership” is both specific in detail and vengeful in tone. Its central agenda is to impose a form of Christian nationalism on the United States.
Christian nationalists believe the Christian Bible, as God’s infallible law, should be the basis of government and have primacy over public and private institutions. Its patriarchal view does not recognize gender equality or gay rights and sanctions discrimination based on religious beliefs. Christian nationalist ideas are woven through the plans of Project 2025 and the pages of “Mandate for Leadership.” Its thousands of recommendations include specific executive orders to be repealed or implemented. Laws, regulations, departments and whole agencies would be abolished. It portrays anyone who opposes its sweeping ambitions as being enemies of our republic.
Page 4 sets the tenor:
“The next conservative president must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights, out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”
Presumably, First Amendment freedoms would be reserved for only those who agree with this dystopian view.
In addition to erasing the rights of women and minorities, “Mandate for Leadership”
The major means to bringing about such deep and lasting change is by eviscerating the federal civil service and enabling a president to fire 50,000 civil servants. Loyalists would be hired in their place to return the federal government to the patronage system (also known as a “spoils system”) that existed in the 19th century. Education and experience would be secondary to right-wing ideology. Loyalty to a president with conservative principles would become a prospective employee’s primary qualification.
In these and other ways, Project 2025’s vision for America would make the president a strongman. Institutions and departments that are now independent or answerable to Congress would instead be weakened or put under his control. Serving the public would become an afterthought.
If Project 2025 were put in place, America would change from a beacon of democracy to a superpower version of Viktor Orban’s Hungary. The extreme right-wing of the Republican Party has been openly besotted with Orban: his autocratic rule, his takeover of Hungarian government institutions and especially his patriarchal Christian nationalism, which embraces traditional gender roles and marriage while demonizing LGBTQ+ individuals. The implication is clear: The values of Christian fundamentalism would hold sway, not separation of church and state, secular science or the current rule of law.
An example of this is found in the document’s denunciation of actions taken by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the pandemic: “How much risk mitigation is worth the price of shutting down churches ... as happened in 2020? What is the proper balance of lives saved versus souls saved?” Rights in the Constitution are praised as God-given; Project 2025 claims that the federal government should “maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.”
Should a conservative president put the tenets of Project 2025 into practice, America would no longer be a shining city on a hill, or even a democracy where every person matters. Instead, it would be refashioned as a religious autocracy that is intolerant, patriarchal and discriminatory. It is a dark future against which every American should fight.
This article was first published by the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
More in The Fulcrum about Project 2025
Former President Donald Trump's campaign exploits racist dog whistles, demonizing immigrants and endorsing white nationalist rhetoric, writes Johnson.
Johnson is a United Methodist pastor, the author of "Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community" and program director for the Bridge Alliance, which houses The Fulcrum.
The 2024 presidential campaign is shaping to be a racial reckoning for America.
With Vice President Kamala Harris positioned to shatter the glass ceiling as the first woman and person of color in the Oval Office and Donald Trump's candidacy fanning the flames of racial hatred, the election is laying bare the nation's ongoing struggle with whiteness and racial justice. As a pastor and advocate for racial reconciliation, I believe this moment will test our democracy's commitment to liberty and justice for all.
Whiteness isn't just about skin color; it's about the privileges and power bestowed to those perceived as white in a society built on racial hierarchy. America was founded by white men of property who established a system where whiteness equaled power — advantages that persist to this day. Whiteness is often invisible to those who possess it, but it shapes every aspect of American life. It's a fluid concept, defined in opposition to other racial identities and intersecting with factors like gender, class and nationality.
Whiteness is a powerful social construct that must be acknowledged and dismantled if we hope to achieve true democracy.
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The influence of whiteness on American politics runs deep. Politicians have long used racial dog whistles, subtle references to race that can be interpreted as racist by some. In contrast, others may see them as innocuous in mobilizing white voters. Trump's campaign exploited this tactic, demonizing immigrants and endorsing white nationalist rhetoric.
Such language has real-world consequences, emboldening bigotry and dividing the nation. Policies also entrench racial inequality. Recent voting restrictions, predominantly in Republican-led states, have disenfranchised voters of color. These actions are echoes of Jim Crow laws and segregation, perpetuating a cycle of racial hierarchy.
As a person of faith, I see a theological imperative to confront racial injustice. Christianity teaches that the created are endowed with dignity and worth in God's image. Disciples of Christianity are to love our neighbors, seek justice and care for the marginalized. Yet religion has often been complicit in racial hierarchy, from justifying slavery to the racial homogeneity of many congregations. This legacy is a stain on religious communities, a betrayal of our principles. People of faith must commit to addressing racial injustice as a moral imperative.
The construct of whiteness masks the systemic forces undermining our democracy. We must confront and dismantle racial hierarchy if we hope to build a just, inclusive society that reflects America's multiracial reality. Such an exercise requires acknowledging our biases, engaging in difficult conversations and using privilege to amplify marginalized voices. For instance, if you're a white person in a position of power, you can actively promote diversity in your workplace or community.
The future of our nation depends on our willingness to face the unfinished business of race and create a more perfect union for all. This November is a choice between two visions of America: one rooted in racial hierarchy and another in multiracial democracy. The former perpetuates a system where whiteness confers power and privilege. At the same time, the latter envisions a society where everyone, regardless of race, can thrive.
One candidacy represents a step towards a more inclusive America where everyone, regardless of race, can thrive. The other candidacy is a reaction against this progress, a desperate attempt to cling to power and privilege.
Confronting whiteness means dismantling systems that have entrenched racial inequality for centuries. It means engaging in difficult conversations about race and privilege, bias and bigotry. This will not be easy. But it is the only way forward.
The noblest example of a democratic republic is that its populace is valued, has a voice and can thrive. The 2024 election could be a moment of truth.
Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework," has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
Candidates for president of the United States typically run for office as though they were running for prime minister in a parliamentary democracy where their own party would have a clear majority in parliament. In such systems, which make up the vast majority of democracies in the world, the prime minister has enormous power to set policy.
In the United States, you would think that presidents are prime ministers because they always talk about what "I" will do as president based on where "I" stand on a great range of issues. While the president admittedly has much more power to set foreign policy, all major domestic policies must be passed by Congress. Indeed, Congress makes laws, while the president and the Cabinet execute them.
Presidents, however, can issue executive orders, which have increased in the past 20 years. Those can be overturned by Congress or the Supreme Court, or revoked by the president who issued them or future presidents. Presidents also have the power to nominate federal judges and Supreme Court justices (subject to Senate confirmation), and voters should definitely be thinking about this function of the presidency when they vote.
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The race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump has lately been focused on where the candidates stand on specific policies. What is Harris' view about fracking and border control? What is Trump's view on abortion and tariffs? It is important to hear what the candidates say about these issues. But it is much less important than you think.
Whatever a candidate says, even if it is entirely candid and truthful, what matters in the end is what the president and Congress will get done together. Congress cannot make laws without the president's approval, unless it enjoys the supermajorities necessary in both chambers (which actually almost never happens) to override a veto.
In addition to hearing where the candidates stand on policies — immigration, gun safety, climate change, health care, child care and paid parental leave, abortion, and a host of foreign policy issues — the public needs to learn about how the potential president would work with Congress. Candidates need to tell the public how they would negotiate with Congress, even if they have control of both chambers because it still frequently takes 60 votes to pass a major policy bill in the Senate.
We need to learn about past success the candidate has with working with members of their own party as well as the opposition party. We need the candidate to talk about concepts like compromise, putting yourself in the other person's shoes, and schmoozing as this relates to both domestic and foreign policy. These qualities are really part of what political scientists traditionally have called the character of the candidate rather than their policy agenda. Indeed, an old debate exists about whether campaigns should be policy-centered or character-centered. They should probably be neither, since both topics are important.
Yet beyond this general distinction, candidates must paint pictures or visions of the future as they imagine it as well as create conditions for citizens to hear the future. Yes, our culture, as various philosophers and literary critics have noticed, is too focused on ocular metaphors. Especially in these times of intense polarization in Washington and considerable though less polarization across the country, citizens want to hear and not just visualize the future. What we hear or will hear can affect our feelings as much or certainly more than what we see or will see.
Hearing arguments, fighting, crying and screaming can have a greater impact on us than watching people argue or looking at a chart of projected revenues for the country and changes in the system of taxation.
Getting more answers from Harris and Trump on immigration policy, health care, fracking and abortion is important. But the other issues combined outweigh these details on where they stand on policies, since, unlike prime ministers with clear majorities, the next president will surely have to negotiate and compromise with Congress in order to pass major policies.
The budget can continue to be moved through with reconciliation, and modest majorities in both houses would enable the president to negotiate with their own party to get this done. Yet it is not likely that either Trump or Harris will have modest majorities in both houses. And even if they do, the major domestic policies will, unless the filibuster is scrapped, require 60 votes, and it will take a highly skilled president to work with the Senate to reach that threshold.
The inflammatory rhetoric, meaningless speculation and lack of fact checking by the media may result in young adults rejecting traditional platforms in favor of their well-being.
Rikleen is executive director of Lawyers Defending American Democracy and the editor of “Her Honor – Stories of Challenge and Triumph from Women Judges.” Beougher is a junior at Amherst College and a co-founder ofStudents Strengthening American Democracy.
As attacks on democracy and the rule of law continually increase, much of the media refuses to address its role in intensifying the peril.
Instead of asking hard questions and insisting on answers, traditional media outlets increasingly trade news and facts for speculative commentary that ignores a story’s contextual significance. At the same time, social media outlets and influencers stoke anger as an alternative to thoughtfulness.
Examples abound every day. The New York Times just posed 21 detailed policy questions that Vice President Kamala Harris should answer, without offering a similar set of questions for former President Donald Trump. Most traditional and social media outlets have ignored detailed investigative reporting into whether, days before the 2016 election, the president of Egypt gave Trump an illegal $10 million donation. That failure of reporting has also allowed Trump’s last attorney general, William Barr, to evade scrutiny about whether he prematurely shut down the government’s investigation into the gift.
This is not simply about candidates being treated differently. It reveals an abrogation of responsibility with grave implications, particularly for younger generations seeking trusted sources of information and exploring how to marshal arguments based on facts. Instead, they are bombarded by media outlets that sacrifice accuracy, analysis and truth for speculation, anger and disinformation, resulting in a pervasive distrust of the media.
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By using algorithms that consistently select content that evokes anger and outrage, engagement is maximized, and media sources profit from the attention. Information that enlightens and informs takes a back seat to hyped emotions that increase viewership and interaction, leading to greater profits. The result is an upside-down world of incentives that promote less factual reporting and more rampant speculation that drives emotions and deepens the divisions in this country.
But the incentives may prove to offer only short-term benefits. Traditional and social media outlets that seek a younger demographic to grow their future revenues may find themselves thwarted by a generation taking measures to protect their own mental health. The incessant inflammatory rhetoric, meaningless speculation and failures to fact check may be resulting in young adults rejecting these platforms in favor of their well-being.
Moreover, the greatest hazard resulting from a disinformation environment where the incentives lead to increased toxicity and a less-informed electorate is alienation, driving young and future voters away from the polls.
Historically, when an intervention was warranted to curb societal dangers, we could look to legislative solutions to shape some form of relief. The toxic nature of our public square itself, however, has contributed to the paralysis of Congress. And Supreme Court decisions under Chief Justice John Roberts have repeatedly prevented the government from protecting the public from speech that spreads lies or that can lead to serious harm to targeted groups.
If neither Congress, the Supreme Court nor the media can be counted on to deliver interventions, it may be up to each of us to try to alter the algorithms that promote anger and division.
The first step is to recognize that every click on a video, news article or post that is spreading inflammatory and potentially false information teaches that algorithm that you will respond to similar stimuli. Fortunately, we are already seeing signs that members of Gen Z are trying to retrain algorithms and regain power over their own feeds.
It is important to offer media outlets different incentives — ones that will focus on facts and reject outrage. We do so when we seek information sources that care about truth, accountability and well-being. This task involves ingenuity and energy but the reward is finding truthful information that can be shared widely. For example, before clicking on a story that appears designed to induce anger and disinformation, test its veracity through sources such as FactCheck.org.
Become an explorer who finds new sources and resources. Consider the work of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, which has launched the Media Roundtable to help shift incentive structures away from rewarding the exploitation of differences. Younger activists are channeling their own anger into mobilizing and sharing facts and information on causes of deep concern.
Universities are becoming increasingly involved in the important work of teaching media literacy, particularly in the engagement of young people. Projects such as the Media Education Lab and Teach for Chicago Journalism offer resources and approaches to building savvier media consumers.
Demanding truth, refusing clickbait, and turning away from disinformation and speculation sends a strong message to traditional and social media sources and advertisers that it is time to listen to those seeking responsible information. Media outlets that thrive on rage, prognostication, speculation and division must be thwarted by alternatives that speak truth to power.
For democracy and the rule of law to survive and flourish, anger and disinformation cannot be business as usual. Media outlets that focus on facts and truth build trust with future consumers, particularly the younger generations on whom their survival ultimately depends.