On July 3, Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat , author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, commented that “one of the most alarming things” about “Project 2025” is the blatant admission that Donald Trump did not accomplish everything he intended to in his first administration. “They got a slow start […] so their codeword is ‘day one,’” Ben-Ghiat told MSNBC’s Katie Phang of the think-tank’s proposal document, which is assumed to represent a considerable percentage of a Trump’s policies should he be successful in earning a second term. The distinguished New York University historian further stated, “Already, politically vetted people are in place and will immediately implement the plans if Trump wins.”

Project 2025 is an alarming agenda the right intends to enact. Fortunately, it appears that more Americans have become aware of this treatise, also known as an almost 900-page document vowing to rework the executive branch: every department, every agency, and every office. Composed with extensive articles by multiple conservative thinkers and activists under the tutelage of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the 900-page handbook declares itself as part of a “unified effort to be ready for the next conservative administration to govern at 12:00 noon, Jan. 20, 2025.” “There is much work ahead,” it states, “just to undo the significant damage that will have been done during the Biden years.” (That’s what it says!) Suffice it to say that it is George Orwell’s novel 1984 meets Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale.

As can be imagined, such a manifesto is impossible to fully analyze in one brief column, so the most efficient way to sum it up is to emphasize that Project 2025 has four agendas to advance conservative influence throughout the US government, starting with a long roadmap. Alongside the document, the organization is developing a database of possible staff for an incoming Trump administration and, as part of a “Presidential Administration Academy,” is teaching new hires about how the government should function. The penultimate step consists of a presidential transition playbook that seeks to help the next president hit the ground running in his effort to gain total control over the executive branch.

The intended actions of the organization are as follows:

·  Redefine the way society functions,

·  Dismantle the social safety net,

·  Cut wages for working people,

·  Undermine our economy, and

·  Reverse decades of progress in civil rights,

Among other retrograde intentions.

Donald Trump, in his typical “hear no evil, fear no evil, see no evil” stance when confronted about the document, wrote in a post on his Truth Social network: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.” Anyone who believes Trump did not have any knowledge of this plan, is as gullible as they come.

Not surprisingly, many conservative organizations are behind the effort. Part of the plan includes terminating federal employees that conservatives believe are prohibiting right-wing policies from being implemented and replacing them with their own choices, as several news outlets have reported . The handbook describes “a top-to-bottom overhaul” of the Department of Justice and puts an end to the FBI’s efforts to curb the spread of misinformation. The handbook said that “the FBI have absolutely no business policing speech.”

(Charlie Neibergall / Associated Press)

Reproductive rights are targeted. The plan wants the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to cease promoting abortion as health care. Furthermore, Project 2025 urges the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to stop promoting and approving requests for creating abortion pills, referring to them as “the single greatest threat to unborn children in a post-Roe world” while insisting that the approval process was “politicized” and “illegal.” Rather, the group argues that “Alternative options to abortion, especially adoption, should receive federal and state support.” Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), immigration policies, sanctuary cities, and other immigration policies are in their line of fire.

Not surprisingly, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-diversity policies are mentioned throughout the education recommendations sections in Project 2025 and in Trump’s platform. The project proposes ridding education programs of any “gender ideology and critical race theory,” such as a “non-binary” category in data collection or the ability of trans youth to participate in sports aligned with their gender. It also calls for parental approval for the use of names or pronouns other than those on their children’s birth certificates. And it wants to abolish protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The mandate targets anything the project considers to be “critical race theory,” arguing that any such measures should be abolished. Notably, these include “mandatory affinity groups,” training programs for teachers that require them to “confess their privilege,” and assignments in which “students must defend the false idea that America is systemically racist.”

Many other critics besides Dr. Ben-Ghiat have labeled Project 2025 as “authoritarian.” In fact, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation stated “We need to understand what time it is in America. And right now, Donald Trump, whether someone likes it or not — I happen to like it — is the standard bearer for conservatives.” He further stated that the project mandate “would be implemented smoothly without bloodshed if liberals and progressives do not challenge it.” Really?! Talk about arrogance unbridled arrogance!

To paraphrase renowned legal attorney Sherilynn Ifill, former head of the NAACP legal defense fund and more recently, the Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq., Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University, if Mr. Roberts and his band of right wing acolytes believe that most American women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ and other historically marginalized groups are going to passively stand by and allow their hard earned rights to be revoked by a band of a right wingers with a fascist agenda, they have another thing coming! Indeed! Include me along with Ms. Ifill as well! Such language presents an unmistakably ominous, threatening, declarative and dangerous prospect. It is an alarming ultimatum that must be taken very, very seriously! Democracy is on the ballot.