We are living in troubling times. We’ve watched as our Democracy and its freedoms have unraveled as a result of careful funding, planning, and execution by organized, extreme conservative forces. Town by town, state by state, and, now, on the national stage.
Inform
This is a right wing policy blueprint and personnel project prepared for the next Republican president. It’s a collaborative effort across the conservative ecosystem led by the Heritage Foundation.The website also notes that the project is backed by over 100 conservative organizations, many led by close allies of Trump, including
The Center for Renewing America
The Claremont Institute and here
Two years into Trump’s presidency, The Heritage Foundation touted that he had instituted 64% of its policy recommendations, ranging from leaving the Paris Climate Accords, increasing military spending, and increasing off-shore drilling and developing federal lands.
Other Project 25 policies include less federal intervention in education and more support for school choice; work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults on food stamps; and a secure border with increased enforcement of immigration laws, mass deportations and construction of a border wall.
The agenda calls for the Food and Drug Administration to reverse its 24-year-old approval of the widely used abortion pill mifepristone. It also recommends the Justice Department enforce the Comstock Act against providers and distributors of abortion pills. It proposes to eliminate a long list of terms from all laws and federal regulations, including “sexual orientation”, “gender equality”, “abortion” and “reproductive rights”.
Project 2025 aims to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs in schools and government departments as part of what it describes as a wider crackdown on “woke” ideology. in addition to calling for the abolishing the Department of Education, aims to boost school choice and parental control over education and criticises what the party calls the “inappropriate political indoctrination of our children”.
It proposes that the entire federal bureaucracy, including independent agencies such as the Department of Justice, be placed under direct presidential control – a controversial idea known as “unitary executive theory”.
The document proposes slashing federal money for research and investment in renewable energy, and calls for the next president to “stop the war on oil and natural gas”.
Christian Conservatives
Christian Conservatives march ahead for God, for country, and for Trump . Only eight years ago, during the 2016 presidential campaign, many conservative Christians supported Mr. Trump pragmatically, for his promises to nominate conservative Supreme Court justices who would end abortion rights. He earned favor for his promise that Christians would have power in America.And they did. Even after his loss in 2020, a segment of Christians on the far right became emboldened, calling for the end of the separation of church and state. At the same time, the rituals of Christian worship became embedded in Republican rallies
The National Assault on Reproductive Rights
State legislative activity in the first half of 2024 included attacks on reproductive care for young people, restrictions on contraceptive access and criminalization of pregnancy outcomes. The harms caused by these attacks are compounded by the total abortion bans enforced in 14 states and the early gestational bans enforced in seven states that would have been unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade. Such harms fall particularly hard on those with lower incomes.
Now conservative attacks on birth control could threaten access. Far-right conservatives are sowing misinformation that inaccurately characterizes IUDs, emergency contraception, even birth-control pills as causing abortions. Lawmakers in many states focused on curtailing youth access to sexual and reproductive health care. These types of laws affect youth regardless of income status, but youth with the fewest resources will be the most affected. Requiring parental consent for contraceptive and STI care is another way lawmakers limit youth access to reproductive health care. In a recent decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling from 2022 that blocked clinics in Texas receiving federal Title X funding from providing prescription contraceptives to minors without parental consent. In addition, an Idaho law that was signed into law in March requires minors to get parental consent to access health care such as STI treatment.
A Threat to In Vitro Fertilization
U.S. Senator Patty Murray and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth outlined how Republican attacks on IVF are serious, real, and on the rise across America.
19 states have either broad personhood provisions in their law, language on personhood or defining “unborn children” in their criminal code or case law expanding the definition of child under state law to include fetuses, according to a report from Pregnancy Justice. The Texas Republican Party’s platform committee narrowly rejected a proposal classifying embryos created through IVF as “human being(s)” and calling for a state law to designate their destruction as a “homicide.”
In the House and Senate, hundreds of Republicans have signed on to legislation, the Life at Conception Act, that could threaten the use of IVF for pregnancy, a process in which unused embryos or those with abnormalities can be discarded. The Heritage Foundation has launched a concerted effort to “regulate”—thereby restricting access and advancing personhood principles and measures—IVF. The Southern Baptist Convention moved to adopt a resolution opposing in vitro fertilization.
More than a dozen other U.S. states have laws in place that could be interpreted as bestowing personhood rights on an embryo, even if it has not yet resulted in a pregnancy. And yet, in June, Republican senators—including Trump’s current running mate, J.D. Vance—voted against a bill that would have established a federal right to IVF care.
The Campaign Against Transgender Rights
About 1.3 million adults and 300,000 children in the United States identify as transgender. Today, the effort to restrict transgender rights has supplanted same-sex marriage as an animating issue for social conservatives at a pace that has stunned political leaders across the spectrum. It has reinvigorated a network of conservative groups, increased fund-raising and set the agenda in school boards and state legislatures. At least 20 states, all controlled by Republicans, have enacted laws that reach well beyond the initial debates over access to bathrooms and into medical treatments, participation in sports and policies on discussing gender in schools. Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans attacked transgender rights on RNC opening night.
The Education Department last month unveiled a final set of sweeping changes to Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in schools and education programs that receive government funding, after more than a year of delays. The new regulations, slated to take effect Aug. 1, also cover discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Fifteen Republican-controlled states sued the department last week in four federal lawsuits that argue the new regulations are “plainly illegal” and undermine protections meant for cisgender students.
Recently, the Supreme Court, for now, blocked expanded protections for transgender students in several Republican states that mounted challenges. All nine members of the court said that parts of the new rules — including the protections for transgender students — should not go effect until the legal challenges are resolved.
The Plan to Attack and Block Elections and Results
Election officials are facing a deluge of disinformation. They are staring down new conspiracy theories, political pressure and threats. The new generation of elections officials must multitask as defenders against disinformation and its consequences. On any given day, they are debunking claims that masses of dead people are contaminating the voting pool or that mail-in balloting is susceptible to fraud. They have faced harassment campaigns targeted at their female family members, received intimidating letters laced with fentanyl and been subjected to fake threats of bombings and break-ins.
In response to these threats, state legislatures have taken action to protect them and make elections more resilient. So far, 20 states have passed urgently needed reforms to protect election officials since January 2022. At least 21 states introduced additional protective bills since 2022.
Trump allies test a new strategy for blocking election results. In five battleground states, county-level officials have tried to block the certification of vote tallies — which election experts worry is a test run for trying to thwart a Democratic victory. Trump has instructed the Republican National Committee, now led by his daughter-in-law and a close ally, to prioritize building out a team of poll watchers and lawyers to monitor the vote and litigate potential post-election challenges.
Some of The Billionaires and Millionaires Supporting all MAGA Objectives
The Aug. 2 dinner at the Bridgehampton, N.Y., home of Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive, was a high-powered affair. Among the roughly 130 people who dined under an air-conditioned tent were some of Donald Trump’s wealthiest supporters, including the billionaire hedge-fund financier Bill Ackman, who sat next to the former president, and Omeed Malik, the president of another fund, 1789 Capital. Elon Musk committing around $45 Million a Month to a new Pro-Trump Super PAC Other backers of America PAC include Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale and the Winklevoss twins.
Respond
Become informed. Open the links of the eight conservative groups listed above and peruse their agendas. Then read what Project 2025 is all about. It’s not just jargon. Once you have read this post you can see how their goals have translated into action in all of the national news stories. Understand what’s at stake in this election, as organized and wealthy groups are attempting to dismantle the underpinnings of our Democracy.
“We will not go back” is more than a campaign phrase. The conservative movement in this country can fracture whatever gains we’ve made over the decades. It’s up to each of us to prevent that from happening, in whatever way we can,
Join organized groups in your state and volunteer whatever way you can. Some are:
Indivisible
Vote Forward
League of Women Voters
When We All Vote
Resolve (IVF advocacy group)
Next Post(s): The Harris-Waltz Platform, the Swing States of 2024, and the Crucial Congressional Races
* King Lear
Determined 