To the Journal editor:

Project 2025, a 992-page conservative “mandate” for a potential second Trump term, rose to the top of the news again recently when its director, Paul Dans, stepped down amid controversy from all sides. You may be puzzled by the buzz. This is the first of two letters to the editor explaining the blueprint and its implications for our country.

Project 2025 was written by 360 pro-Trump authors assembled by the Heritage Foundation, a D.C. conservative think tank. The changes to federal policy and agencies proposed by Project 2025 are considered extreme. [Forbes magazine 8/1/2024]. When the Heritage Foundation released Project 2025, push back came quickly, as it was learned just how radical many of its proposals are.

All Americans–regardless of party preference–should be alarmed by Project 2025’s mandate to concentrate power in the Presidency, place the Justice Department and the FBI under Presidential control, and give the President the ability to use the armed forces to quell 1st Amendment-protected protests by U.S. citizens.

Cronyism and Incompetence: Project 2025 calls for America to return to the nineteenth-century “spoils system” of government by purging nonpartisan career civil servants and replacing them with inexperienced Trump loyalists as political appointees. [Forbes magazine 7/1/2024]. Instead of fairness and equal treatment, the next Trump bureaucracy will be pressured to favor Red States over Blue States in distributing federal grants and infrastructure spending.

Project 2025 will breakup and privatize many Federal agencies with the goal of rolling back what they call the “regulatory deep state,” whatever that means. The Departments of Homeland Security and Energy would be eliminated, along with the Department of Education and its Title I and HeadStart programs that help educate low-income children.

State religion is coming: Project 2025 is written by adherents of Christian nationalism who believe in replacing America’s tradition of religious pluralism with their narrow view that conservative Christianity should control government and society.

The Project plans to dismantle long-standing civil rights protections–thus undermining decades of progress towards racial equality. Project 2025’s position on abortion is extreme as it calls for a national statutory ban on abortion and an end to contraceptives. (Project 2025, Foreword).

Forbes magazine warns that Project 2025 is anti-union as it plans to dismantle existing workers’ rights to organize and bargain for better wages and job security by replacing unions with “employee involvement organizations. [Forbes 7/8/24]. If you like your Medicare insurance plan, watch out, they intend to privatize Medicare and allow states to cut Medicaid payments. Concerned about the climate crisis? Project 2025 returns America to the old days of climate change denial. It ends renewable energy supports, increases fossil fuel supports and removes the U.S. from cooperative climate agreements.

Globally, Project 2025 will reverse eight decades of United States leadership of the free world. Project 2025 takes a transactional view of our allies, ending or reducing long-standing treaties and participation in international organizations. [Project 2025, Foreword].

The next letter will cover whether Donald Trump’s attempt to distance himself from Project 2025 is credible.