Project 2025 – Surely you want to know more!
/Hey! It’s only 920 pages!
… but who’s counting? After about a month of careful reading – and copying/pasting sentences and phrases I feel must be captured verbatim for full understanding – I have about 50 pages of notes and am 40% finished reading the document. Understand: I am not scanning or skimming. I’m seeking actual comprehension to the point that I can communicate to others the meaning supported by legitimately quoted passages. Call me a nerd – because that’s exactly what I am – but I find the process of careful reading and then explaining what I’ve read to be an actual learning experience. (And nerds like me would rather learn than do pretty much anything else.)
So, I’m taking a break from the project for a few hours now with the intention of offering to the public some background information; call it a bait, if you wish, thrown into the water to keep you circling my hook. (grin) I want to finish my careful read, and I want to share an accurate, honest synopsis of this 920-page document, but it takes time. Each day I hear Project 2025 mentioned more frequently, and I hear people making comments on it, while I’m pretty sure they haven’t read a word of it. So I’ll keep going – and learning. But, for now, I want to give you a little interesting background: 1) Who is behind this Heritage Foundation project? 2) What would it take for me – or someone more appropriate for the job – to apply to be part of this new administration? Let’s see...
Project 2025 identifies itself as a “mandate for leadership,” asserting that it is based on “four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook... The time is short, and conservatives need a plan. The project will create a playbook of actions to be taken in the first 180 days of the new Administration to bring quick relief to Americans suffering from the Left’s devastating policies.”
So, who’s behind all this?
Quite by accident, as I set out to learn firsthand about this 4-pillar playbook, I quickly discovered the logos of 211 organizations that seem to have thrown their weight behind this “mandate for leadership.” I’ll mention a few of them here because, as a true nerd, I spent the first few days trying to understand who supports this Heritage Foundation and its dictum. Of the 211 orgs whose logos I found displayed, I learned, by visiting endless websites, about a handful of them:
The 1792 Exchange: “to steer public companies back to neutral on ideological issues”
American Accountability Foundation: “has educated thousands of Americans on the liberal bias and woke ideologies of many Biden Administration officials”
Alliance Defending Freedom for Faith and Justice: “an alliance-building legal organization with the goal of keeping the doors open for the Gospel”
America First Legal: “against lawless executive actions and the Radical Left... the long-awaited answer to the ACLU”
American Principles Project: “the only national pro-family organization engaging directly in campaigns and elections...If they [the Left] want to attack parental rights, confuse young children about changing their gender, undermine the ability of parents to protect their children’s innocence, or drive a wedge between parents and children in education, they are going to be punished at the polls.”
Center for Renewing America: “The Center for Renewing America was founded in 2021 by Russ Vought who served in President Trump’s Cabinet... President Trump’s dogged commitment to keeping his promises led to great adoration within his conservative base of supporters... God, country, and community are at the heart of this agenda.”
Coalition for a Prosperous America: “The mission of the Coalition for a Prosperous America is to advocate the implementation of strategic trade, tax and growth policies so our members can prosper... We are a bipartisan coalition of farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and labor organizations that make and grow things in the United States.”
Defense of Freedom Institute: “Teacher Unions and their allies have used their political power to push aside parents, families, and classroom teachers to dominate public education in ways that harm students and limit their opportunities. Rather than focus on academic rigor, individual learning, and innovative teaching, union activists pursue a woke ideological agenda in classrooms that ignores sound academics...”
Ethics and Public Policy Center: “We equip Americans who cherish our founding ideals and our nation’s rich Jewish and Christian heritage to think through the ethical, political, and cultural questions facing them in the twenty-first century, and find the help they need to live those truths out.” [founded in 1976]
Gun Owners Foundation: “...exists in order to educate the public about the importance of the Second Amendment and to provide legal, expert and support assistance for law-abiding individuals involved in firearms-related cases.”
The Heritage Foundation: “...empowering parents in education, reversing growing spending and inflation, and protecting the unborn, to securing America’s borders, countering the threat of Communist China, holding Big Tech accountable, and ensuring free and fair elections...”
Patrick Henry College: “Our mission is to prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding...”
Protect our Kids: “POK is a coalition of parents, community leaders, attorneys, physicians, pastors, teachers and concerned citizens united in the belief that today’s public schools threaten our children’s welfare. We acknowledge that public schools have a role in educating children on matters of basic biology, anatomy, and reproduction. However, the promotion of sexual intimacy, sexual orientation and fluid gender identities are matters far exceeding the rightful boundaries of the public-school system. So too is the advancement of Marxist Critical Theory and the “re-framing” of American history to indoctrinate children into politically driven and misleading narratives... POK exists to inform parents about the scope of these combined threats, their rights as parents, and to protect our kids from the harms of public-school indoctrination.”
STARRS: “... one of the few military oriented organizations that vigorously challenged Critical Race Theory (CRT), wokeism, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the military.”
Students for Life of America: “Exists to recruit, train, and mobilize the pro-life generation to abolish abortion”
A little more background
Well, that is, of course, just a sampling of the organizations behind this treatise. I found some introductory material before I launched into Project 2025 itself; here’s a bit of that: “The actions of liberal politicians in Washington have created a desperate need and unique opportunity for conservatives to start undoing the damage the Left has wrought and build a better country for all Americans in 2025... It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on day one of the next conservative administration... The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is being organized by The Heritage Foundation and builds off Heritage’s longstanding “Mandate for Leadership,” which has been highly influential for presidential administrations since the Reagan era. Most recently, the Trump administration relied heavily on Heritage’s “Mandate” for policy guidance, embracing nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office. Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) during the Trump administration, serves as the director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Spencer Chretien, former special assistant to the president and associate director of Presidential Personnel, serves as associate director of the project.”
There’s a place for YOU in all this!
Now, let’s get personal! Do you want to be part of the 2025 conservative administration? You do realize that a database of applicants is being compiled, right? And, inquisitive as I am, I just had to investigate. So I signed on as a potential applicant for the administration and took a careful look at the application form. Here are samples of the questions I found there:
Political and Philosophical Approach: Select the option(s) that best describe your political philosophy:
Traditional Conservative
Moderate
Liberal
Fiscal Conservative
Social Conservative
Paleoconservative
Libertarian
Neoconservative
Progressive
Name one person, past or present, who has most influenced the development of your political philosophy.
Name a book that has most significantly shaped your political philosophy, and please explain its influence on your thinking.
Name one living public policy figure whom you greatly admire and why.
Name the one public policy issue you are most passionate about. Why are you passionate about this issue and how would you like to see it addressed in the future?
[For each of the following statements, the applicant is asked to “please select” one choice:
Agree
Disagree
Neither agree nor disagree]
The U.N. should have authority over the citizens or public policies of sovereign nations. Please select:
The U.S. has the right to select immigrants based on country of origin. Please select:
The education industry should be opened to increased competition through vouchers or tax credits for private schools. Please select:
Life has a right to legal protection from conception to natural death. Please select:
The permanent institutions of family and religion are foundational to American freedom and the common good. Please select:
Government should subsidize the use or production of energy, particularly for new and innovative energy technologies. Please select:
Union membership should be at the option of the employee, not a requirement for employment. Please select:
The federal government should guarantee a universal basic income. Please select:
The U.S. needs nationalized health care. Please select:
The U.S. should increase legal immigration. Please select:
The police in America are systemically racist. Please select:
The gender wage gap is the result of prejudice and discrimination. Please select:
The U.S. should scale back its strong military presence overseas. Please select:
In combatting censorship by Big Tech, we must look to more than just the free market. Please select:
The President should be able to advance his/her agenda through the bureaucracy without hinderance from unelected federal officials. Please select:
The U.S. should impose tariffs with the goal of bringing back manufacturing jobs, even if these tariffs result in higher consumer prices. Please select:
Well, that pretty well summarizes the first steps I took in trying to understand this Project 2025 that seems to be all over the news these days. Having read all of that, do you think I could not have jumped into the actual report to see for myself what it’s all about? And now, with 40% of it under my belt, I’m going to return to that comprehensive plan to give Donald Trump absolute control of the executive branch of the government – and twist it into something you can’t even imagine. When I come up for air, I’ll be back in touch...