Massachusetts North Shore Democrats
Phillips Beach at Dawn, Swampscott, Massachusetts.
Project 2025

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: A CHOICE BETWEEN FREEDOM AND FASCISM



DONALD TRUMP: CHOOSING FASCISM


Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project

Also known as Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, this 920 page manifesto is the Republican plan to transform the United States, courtesy of the Heritage Foundation. It is a detailed roadmap for concentrating power in the Executive Branch of government (the President) and thereby eliminating the checks and balances which have been central to our democracy since the founding of our country.
NPR Link

The implications of Project 2025 are discussed in the following summaries and videos—and they are much easier to digest than the 900-plus page manifesto.

July 15, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson Talks Project 2025

Now is the time for action, not distraction! Project 2025 threatens our democracy. While we know that Project 2025 will destroy civil rights, reproductive freedom and turn our country towards extremist Christian Nationalism — too many of our friends and family are completely unaware. But we can change that together! No one is better equipped to help us meet this challenge than our favorite historian Heather Cox Richardson. Join us to hear from Heather on what we can do together to win this battle in November.

Heather Cox Richardson is an American historian. She is a professor of history at Boston College, and she previously taught history at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Richardson has authored seven books on history and politics. In 2019, Richardson started publishing Letters from an American, a nightly newsletter that chronicles current events in the larger context of American history. The newsletter accrued over one million subscribers, making her, as of December 2020, the most successful individual author of a paid publication on Substack.

Heather Cox Richardson: Facebook

Letters from an American: Apple Podcasts | Substack Newsletter

Red Wine & Blue: Web site

YouTube Link

Commentary from the Harris for President Campaign

Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins. Trump’s campaign advisors and close allies wrote it — and are doing everything they can to elect him so he can execute their playbook immediately.
Link

Trump’s Second Term: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

John Oliver discusses Donald Trump’s plans for a second term, why it could be much worse than his first term, and what Trump has in common with a hamster. Project 2025 is not a joke: it is deadly serious—fuguratively and literally. But if you need a break from this seriousness, tune into John Oliver here. (June 20, 2024)

How Project 2025 would change American Life

by Jacob Knutson, Axios.com, July 20, 2024

Project 2025 could reshape daily life for millions of Americans if some of its less publicized recommendations are adopted.
Link

Here is some of what it wants during a second Trump presidency:

Democracy Forward is a national legal organization that advances democracy and social progress through litigation, policy and public education, and regulatory engagement. It issues reports that may be downloaded, including:

The People’s Guide to Project 2025

This 47-page report covers Project 2025 which is among the most profound threats to the American people. The Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project is a well-funded (eight-figure) effort of the Heritage Foundation and more than 100 organizations to enable a future anti-democratic presidential administration to take swift, far-right action that would cut wages for working people, dismantle social safety net programs, reverse decades of progress for civil rights, redefine the way our society operates, and undermine our economy.

A central pillar of Project 2025 is the“Mandate for Leadership,” a 900+ page policy playbook authored by former Trump administration officials and other extremists that provides a radical vision for our nation and a roadmap to implement it.

The Impending Danger to the Nation’s Civil Service

This 16-page report details the methodical and wide-ranging plans by far-right organizations and activists to dismantle the civil service under a future anti-democratic administration.

The report highlights how Project 2025, a coalition led by former Trump administration officials, the Heritage Foundation, and more than 80 other organizations is already reportedly vetting ideologically-aligned workers to replace career civil servants that would be purged by a future, anti-democratic administration, among other tactics. Project 2025, as well as other aligned organizations, are lending their significant capacity to dismantling the federal civil service, posing a perilous threat to American democracy.

Link

The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) was founded to address the gap in efforts to stop transnational hate and far-right extremism movements, particularly U.S.-based activity that is exported to other countries and across borders. GPAHE tackles the issue of hate and extremism by working to reduce the associated violence that terrorizes communities and our society and tackling systemic problems rooted in hate in our governments and societies. As we’ve seen in recent years in the U.S., as well as in countries around the world, we can no longer separate hate and extremism from our leaders and politics.
Web site

Project 2025 reports include:

Project 2025: The Far Right Playbook for American Authoritarianism

Full analysis of Project 2025 and profiles of Project 2025 organizational supporters.
Link

Project 2025: The Road to Authoritarianism: A Primer

One pager on Project 2025.
Link

Media Matters For America

A guide to Project 2025, the extreme right-wing agenda for the next Republican administration

by Sophie Lawton, Jacina Hollins-Borges, Jack Wheatley, John Knefel & Ethan Collier, Media Matters, March 20, 2024.

Project 2025 aims to roll back civil rights and destroy the federal government, among other proposals. It focuses on packing the next GOP administration with extreme loyalists to former President Donald Trump. Written primarily by former Trump officials and conservative commentators connected to The Heritage Foundation, these proposals would severely inhibit the federal government’s protections around reproductive rights, LGBTQ and civil rights, and immigration, as well as its climate change efforts. The initiative is backed by a coalition of over 100 organizations and individuals, at least two-thirds of which receive funding from the Koch network or conservative philanthropist Leonard Leo.

The Trump campaign has attempted to distance itself from efforts to promote or speculate about “future presidential staffing or policy announcements.” However, Project 2025 is significantly more developed than the Trump campaign’s analog initiative, called Agenda47. And given that the Heritage plan has the backing of virtually the entire conservative movement and links to numerous former Trump officials and advisers, it appears all but inevitable that Trump and his allies will rely on the policies and personnel assembled by Project 2025 if he is reelected in November.
Link

This Media Matters analysis of Project 21 focuses on 10 areas:

Pete Buttigieg interview with Brian Taylor Cohen

July 21, 2024
This interview covers a wide range of topics, including Project 2025.
Donald Trump, July 5, 2024:

I know nothing about Project 2025.

Note: Paul Dans, mentioned in this video, is no longer the Director of Project 2025, according to the Heritage Foundation. Apparently, this move is the consequence of widespread revulsion among many Americans when they recently became aware of the Project, resulting in Trump’s efforts to distance himself from the Project—at least for now, prior to the election.

Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, strongly supports the Project, saying, This tool was built for future administration use. Our collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels—federal, state, and local—will continue.

Source: Project 2025 Director Steps Down Amid Trump Criticism, by Neil Vigdor and Shane Goldmacher, The New York Times, July 30, 2024. Link

American Autocracy Threat Tracker

This document, produced by experts at Just Security, can be read online and also can be downloaded as a 174-page PDF. It includes an introduction, twenty-three sections, and a bibliography.

American Autocracy Threat Tracker, by Norman L. Eisen, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Siven Watt, Joshua Kolb, Andrew Warren, Jacob Kovacs-Goodman and Francois Barrilleaux, Just Security, July 22, 2024.
Link

Freedom 2025 — 10 Principles

By Principles First / State Democracy Defenders Action / Democracy Forward / and individual signers. Based upon the proceedings of Autocracy in America—A Warning and a Response.

The following list is a summary. For details, see: Link

  1. We believe in the foundational idea of rule of law.
  2. We believe in truth, facts, science, and evidence.
  3. We believe that the right to vote in free and fair elections is the foundation of our democracy.
  4. We believe in civil discourse about our differences. Accordingly, we strongly oppose political violence.
  5. We believe in the importance of an independent, non-partisan civil service.
  6. We believe in the importance of ethical government.
  7. We believe in the United States’ leadership role in the world.
  8. We believe in an economy that brings prosperity for all.
  9. We believe in a free press and the First Amendment.
  10. We believe in equality and civil rights for all and the importance of American diversity.

Additional Project 2025 Sources