Project 2025: A Nothing Burger Being Used to Rally the Democrat Base

These are the same people who denied Joe Biden is suffering from cognitive decline, so...

AI rendering: A Handmaid's Tale

At the June 27 presidential debate and at Thursday’s “Big Boy” presser, President Joe Biden slurred something about “Trump’s Project 2025.” I follow a ton of liberals and leftists on Facebook, and they immediately received the bat signal. So I’ve been subjected to utter nonsense memes and commentary about Project 2025 since then.

Like this one:

What is being promoted by right-of-center think tank The Heritage Foundation as “Project 2025” was culled from a 90-page policy blueprint publication last updated in 2023. Aside from the authors and people involved in this project having been in or around the Trump administration, Project 2025 has nothing to do with Trump or his Trump campaign. Trump himself has said so on his social media platform.

Yep. Transparency has never been the Democrat’s friend and it isn’t now. It is not like The Heritage Foundation has tried to keep this a secret. Since 2023, you have been able to purchase the book Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, which documents and outlines the tenets of Project 2025 from the Heritage website. Nobody is trying to hide it. In fact, these tenets have been revised and rewritten throughout many years and many election cycles. One of the authors took to Newsweek to debunk the ridiculousness, particularly that Project 2025 wants to suspend Constitutional government and set up a “Christo-fascist theocracy,” whatever the heck that is.

Really?

“These claims have things completely backwards. Project 2025's proposals would reinforce our system of government, not depart from it. They would strengthen our checks and balances, not weaken them. "Fundamentally transforming the United States of America," as Barack Obama put it, is the stated mission of the Left, not the Right. Far from encouraging the exercise of unchecked power, Project 2025 is an ode to the Constitution.”

But people who think we live in a democracy and that conservatives want to destroy it have no concept of what Constitutional governance should look like. Frankly, we haven’t understood these tenets for a long time. Case in point: the COVID years of 2020-2022, which bastardized and sought to destroy every civil liberty and constitutional right in the name of a virus that was neither new or novel, and was definitely treatable. So, these same people will swallow this concept of the evils of Project 2025 whole cloth, without any question or investigation, while never questioning the hundreds of think tanks left, right and center that peddle wares that are far more diabolical and intent on stealing their representative freedoms and destroying civil liberties.

On July 9, Project 2025 also put up an X post doing its own debunking of the outright lies going around about what the policy book says. They have it pinned at the top of their profile—that’s how hidden this agenda is. <insert *eyeroll* emoji>

I have linked the post above, and inserted the thread:

MYTHS VS. FACTS ABOUT PROJECT 2025 We are not affiliated with former President Trump. We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy and personnel recommendations.

1. End no fault divorce: FALSE Divorce is not mentioned in our policy handbook, Mandate for Leadership.

2. Complete ban on abortions without exceptions: FALSE Mandate for Leadership calls for the government to comply with laws that prevent federal funding of abortion. It also calls for federal support for alternatives to abortion, including adoption.

3. Ban contraceptives: FALSE Mandate for Leadership says nothing about banning or restricting contraception.

4. Additional tax breaks for corporations and the 1%: MISLEADING Mandate for Leadership calls for LOWER taxes for ALL Americans, to stimulate economic growth and put more money in Americans’ pockets.

5. Higher taxes for the working class: FALSE Mandate for Leadership calls for LOWER taxes for ALL Americans. Individuals spend their money in more productive ways than the government does.

6. Elimination of unions and worker protections: FALSE Mandate for Leadership presents different ideas about a conservative labor policy. It calls for combatting the excesses of the Deep State’s bloated federal employee unions, which have ensured that federal employees keep their jobs even if they engage in illegal behavior or perform their jobs poorly.

7. Raise the retirement age: FALSE Raising the retirement age is nowhere advocated in Mandate for Leadership.

8. Cut Social Security: FALSE Mandate for Leadership does not advocate cutting Social Security.

9. End Affordable Care Act: FALSE Mandate for Leadership offers policy suggestions to curb the abuses of the Affordable Care Act.

10. Raise prescription drug prices: FALSE Mandate for Leadership offers proposals to lower drug prices through competition and innovation.

11. Eliminate the Department of Education: TRUE Mandate for Leadership calls for an end to the Department of Education. Since the Department was created, educational outcomes have not improved, and the American school system has increasingly fallen behind other countries. Giving more control back to state and local governments and expanding school choice would improve education outcomes for all Americans, especially underprivileged communities. Some functions of the Department would be moved to other departments including Labor, Justice, and Commerce.

12. Use public, taxpayer money for private religious schools: TRUE Americans are able to use taxpayer money to choose where they shop for groceries, attain housing, and obtain higher education. Religious schools often outperform public schools, and families should have the choice to send their children to these schools.

13. Teach Christian religious beliefs in public schools: FALSE Mandate for Leadership advocates for all educational opportunities, and for parental rights in education.

14. End free and discounted school lunch programs: FALSE Mandate for Leadership advocates that the Food and Nutrition Service be moved from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Health and Human Services. Mandate condemns the Biden administration’s decision to threaten schools that do not comply with radical transgender policies by taking away their funding for school meals for needy students. Additionally, Mandate supports prioritizing school meal programs for those students who are truly needy, not creating an entitlement for almost all students regardless of family income levels.

15. End civil rights and DEI protections in government: MOSTLY FALSE Mandate for Leadership calls for respecting the civil rights of all Americans, including those who have been censored by the government or had it weaponized against them. Mandate advocates for the end of divisive, race-based, anti-American propaganda in the federal workforce.

16. Ban African American and gender studies in all levels of education: FALSE Mandate for Leadership does not mention African American studies or gender studies.

17. Ban books and curriculum about slavery: FALSE Mandate for Leadership does not advocate for banning books or curriculum about slavery.

18. Ending climate protections: FALSE Mandate for Leadership advocates policies that will produce economic growth through abundant, affordable energy. Famers, hunters, and fishers know how to protect our environment better than D.C. bureaucrats. The Biden administration’s relentless focus on climate has made America less competitive and wasted crucial taxpayer dollars.

19. Increase Arctic drilling: TRUE The Arctic is of immense strategic importance to America. Mandate for Leadership advocates a strong pursuit of American interests in the region, through economic freedom, through ensuring free and open shipping lanes, and through the development of the vast energy resources of the Arctic.

20. Deregulate big business and the oil industry: MOSTLY TRUE America needs energy that is plentiful and affordable. Mandate for Leadership calls for an all-of-the-above energy policy that would promote the development of our domestic energy supply, and for fewer burdensome regulations for ALL businesses.

21. Promote and expedite capital punishment: TRUE The appropriateness of capital punishment divides Americans, and conservatives, of good will. Mandate for Leadership calls for the enforcement of the federal death penalty where appropriate and applicable, and recommends a future presidential administration pursue the death penalty for the most heinous crimes, including those involving violence and the sexual abuse of children, unless Congress says otherwise through legislation.

22. End marriage equality: FALSE The legal recognition of same-sex marriage is not discussed in Mandate for Leadership. Mandate calls for the protection of faith-based grant recipients who maintain support for the traditional definition of marriage. Mandate also supports conscience protections for those who do not wish to participate in same-sex marriages.

23. Condemn single mothers while promoting only “traditional families”: FALSE Mandate suggests that a future HHS Secretary replace the policies of the Biden administration that prioritize LGBTQ+ equality, subsidize single motherhood, disincentivize work, and penalize marriage with policies that instead encourage marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families.

24. Defund the FBI and Homeland Security: FALSE Mandate for Leadership supports de-weaponizing the federal government, including the FBI. Mandate’s chapter on the Department of Homeland Security advocates the legislative creation of a standalone Cabinet-level agency with a focus on the border and immigration, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), and the Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL). It also recommends that legislation be pursued to move other component parts of DHS to other agencies, including the Department of Transportation, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Treasury, and the FBI.

25. Use military to break up domestic protests: FALSE The “protests” referenced in Mandate for Leadership are protests in Iran against its anti-American leadership; and protests of parents at school board meetings in opposition to critical race theory and COVID mandates. Both protests are referenced positively. Mandate also protests the FBI’s harassment of protesting parents and condemns the arrest by armed FBI agents of a man who had protested at an abortion clinic a year earlier.

26. Mass deportation of immigrants and incarceration in “camps”: MISLEADING Mandate supports an orderly and lawful immigration system. It advocates that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Removal Operations be primarily responsible for enforcing civil immigration regulations, including the removal of those who have violated our immigration laws. It also calls for additional resources to put an end to President Biden’s border crisis and enforce immigration laws.

27. End birthright citizenship: FALSE There is no mention of ending birthright citizenship in Mandate for Leadership.

28. Ban Muslims from entering the country: FALSE There is no mention of banning Muslims from entering the United States in Mandate for Leadership.

29. Eliminate federal agencies like the FDA, EPA, NOAA and more: FALSE Mandate for Leadership’s plan would not eliminate the FDA or the EPA, and NOAA’s functions would be transferred to other agencies, the private sector, and states and territories.

30. Continue to pack the Supreme Court and lower courts with right-wing judges: FALSE The only people calling for packing the judiciary are those on the Left, who do it every time the Supreme Court or a lower court makes decisions they don’t like.

The Heritage Foundation has been around since 1973. For 60 years they have been writing policy documents like Project 2025 that are geared toward influencing electoral politics and governance from a conservative lens.

Again, THIS IS NOTHING NEW.

Heritage’s mission is to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

Heritage is also no different than The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that writes policy papers and lobbies to influence free trade and the markets, or The Center for American Progress, which was founded by Clinton allegiant John Podesta and George Soros, and lobbies and pours millions into leftist causes and political advocacy. All of these organizations write policy documents that with a cursory search on or off the internet, you can locate and read for yourself, and all of their policies are peppered with their own philosophies and legislative agendas. This happens no matter what the partisan leanings of the administration occupying the Oval office—Democrat, Republican, or otherwise, and it also doesn’t mean that these administrations have to choose to adopt—or not adopt—any of them.

So, why do Democrats and leftist have their panties in a wad? Better yet, why are they intent on creating a bogeyman where none exists? The clear answer: everyone smells what they’ve been shoveling, and they hate the stench. Killing babies up to birth, mutilating children, removing parental rights, eschewing women’s rights and removing established protections from women’s sports to women’s prisons, nothing they have to offer aligns with individual freedom or constitutional liberties. Add that to the record inflation that plagues the nation, prices of goods and services skyrocketing, and the rampant crime, illegal immigration and drug deaths, and you have a political party that has a track record of failure, destruction, and policies that harm Americans, rather than help them.

Then there’s the problem of Joe Biden and his cognitive decline. This is something that I and other alternative media outlets have been talking about since before the 2020 election, but we’ve been mocked, maligned, and called conspiracy theorists. The debate two weeks ago suddenly made it a point of concern for the legacy media and the Democrat Party, who pretended to be shocked—shocked I tell you!—that they had been deceived about the president’s mental and physical condition.

Sure, Jan.

Now we have Democrats jockeying for position and backstabbing out in the open for all to see, and a president who is clearly not in control of himself, let alone the nation. The faithful who will vote Blue no matter who don’t care. All they see is “Orange Man, bad!” and will tow the party line. But for people who don’t really have partisan leanings or find what used to be their party turned into the crap car it now is? They watch in horror, and are even looking across the aisle at that other party. Republicans may be painted racist, sexist, blah, blah, blah… but compared to the outright lies and gaslighting going on in the Democrat Party, the Republican Party looks almost sane.

If the Democrats continue imploding before the nation, we just might see a second Donald Trump presidency—and that is what scares them the most. Hence the invention of the Project 2025 madness to create a boogeyman that they can use to distract and misdirect from what is really is going on and the damage they have done, and continue to do, to the nation.

But don’t take my word for it. As I said above, Project 2025 is available on the Heritage website. There’s a few chapter snippets floating around on the internet, and some manufactured ones that align with the leftist propaganda that is also floating around. But here’s my question: If an entire political and media apparatus has lied, obfuscated, and deceived about not just the health of the president, but inflation, crime, the Southern Border, and so many other concerns that worry the American people, why would anyone believe anything they have to say about Project 2025? Why wouldn’t someone do their own research, not just from their preferred sources, but all the sources available, including the organization that actually produced the policy publication?

I could not care less what anyone chooses to believe or how they vote, but I do care when people choose to be willfully stupid. Anyone who gets gaslighted by what the Democrats and the left have to say about Project 2025 and how it is affecting our nation is doing just that.

Yeah, I said it.