Trump’s Project 2025 wants to take us backwards
Anyone who thinks that our democracy isn’t at stake in November is not paying attention to Donald Trump’s Project 2025. Project 2025—spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and backed by Leonard Leo’s dark money network—aims to take America backwards and start a “second American Revolution.” We have to take them at their word.
And what does the second American Revolution look like? Banning abortion, birth control, and IVF across the country. Cutting Social Security and Medicare. Enabling corporations to pollute. Stripping the government of the ability to combat climate change. Defunding public schools, and ending marriage equality.
These radical right-wing objectives are not theoretical: this is what Republicans will fight for if Donald Trump is elected once again. Let’s not forget, Trump was presented with a similar blueprint from the Heritage Foundation in 2016 and within his first year in office, he embraced, enacted, or advocated for nearly two-thirds of the policies. Pundits may call Democrats Cassandras or chicken littles for sounding the alarm about Trump’s Project 2025. They did the same when Democrats warned that the MAGA Supreme Court would overturn Roe.
Trump’s Project 2025 is a roadmap to a MAGA authoritarian takeover of our government and poses a clear and present danger to our democracy. Voters must be informed of this threat and Donald Trump must be held accountable for these extreme policy positions.
Trump’s Project 2025 wants to take over the federal government like MAGA has taken over the Supreme Court
The way the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation used Donald Trump to seize the Supreme Court is exactly how Project 2025 would take over the executive branch. Because Donald Trump does not care about anything other than his ego and fortune, he handed over the president’s power to appoint judges to the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. Those groups then pushed forward authoritarian judicial nominees who overturned Roe, tore down the regulatory state, and gave handouts to corporations and their billionaire friends. And now they have their eyes set on overturning Obergefell, Griswold, and other cases protecting Americans’ rights and freedoms.
The Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation’s plan to take over the Supreme Court worked. If there was any doubt that the MAGA movement had completely captured the Supreme Court, it was dispelled with the right-wing majority’s decision to grant Donald Trump sweeping immunity for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The Supreme Court is officially fully authoritarian, and without fundamental structural reforms, that could remain the case until 2065. If Trump is elected again, the MAGA Court may add one, two, even three new justices to its authoritarian rank.
Project 2025 is running that same playbook. Trump has no interest in policy implementation: He is running for president to stay out of prison and get revenge on his political opponents. So, MAGA extremists and their corporate benefactors will deploy Trump as their puppet, taking complete control over a Trump administration, enabling Trump to pursue his dictatorial ambitions. They will purge the government of qualified public servants and hire extremist MAGA loyalists. Trump’s Project 2025 will take over the executive branch to implement their dangerous agenda to attack Americans’ rights and freedoms, hurt working families, and undermine our democracy.
The puppet masters behind the capture of the Supreme Court are now ready to grab power of the executive branch.
Voters need to understand that democracy is at stake this election
Taken together, if Donald Trump wins this November, America will be faced with a president who wants to be King, an administration that wants to turn us into a white nationalist country, and an authoritarian Supreme Court that will greenlight whatever unconstitutional actions Trump and Project 2025 take. We need to call this scenario what it is: MAGA authoritarianism.
And if MAGA Republicans hold the House and take back the Senate, there would be no check on this MAGA authoritarianism.
Trump’s Project 2025 and its calls for a second American Revolution are so extreme and unpopular that Trump is now trying to distance himself from the plan—despite the fact that it’s written by his top aides, he frequently advocates for its policies, and his running mate JD Vance has been its biggest cheerleader. Recent polling from Navigator has found that voters are most scared of Project 2025 because it threatens rights and freedoms, hurts middle class families, and threatens democracy. Each of these fears ties directly into a pro-democracy, anti-corruption messaging framework.
As ECU laid out in Winning on Democracy in 2024, voters across the political spectrum know democracy is under threat and list preserving democracy as a top priority in this year’s elections. Yet threats to democracy are not just MAGA’s attack on free and fair elections, voter suppression, and authoritarianism (although voters do care about those). Voters identify attacks on rights and freedoms and the government working for special interests, not regular Americans, as two of the biggest threats to democracy. This is exactly what Project 2025 will do if Trump wins and they get power.
Democrats need to make the choice clear this election: democracy or MAGA authoritarianism.
Voters need to know how the people behind Trump’s Project 2025 have already threatened our democracy and what they will do if Trump wins this November. We hope the below resources help you in making the choice clear.
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Trump’s Project 2025: Attack on Rights and Freedoms
Trump’s Project 2025 is another MAGA plot to take control over our personal lives, target Americans that don’t look like them, and take our country backwards. Below are examples of how Trump’s Project 2025 threatens our democracy by attacking Americans’ most fundamental rights and freedoms.
Trump’s Project 2025: Attack on the Freedom to Vote
How the MAGA movement has already attacked the freedom to vote
- The MAGA Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act and permitted extreme partisan and racial gerrymanders.
- MAGA Republicans used the Big Lie to pass dozens of extreme anti-voter laws in the states.
What Trump’s Project 2025 will do if Trump wins
- Stop enforcement of voter discrimination laws.
- Use the Justice Department to perpetuate the Big Lie in order to make it harder to vote.
- End the agency keeping our elections secure from foreign influence.
- Prohibit the FBI from investigating election misinformation and disinformation.
- Ensure the FEC remains dysfunctional so corporations and the rich can buy elections.
Trump’s Project 2025: Attack on Reproductive Freedom
How the MAGA movement has already attacked Reproductive Freedom
- The MAGA Supreme Court overturned Roe, ending nearly 50 years of precedent protecting abortion rights.
- Anti-choice Republicans then passed extreme anti-choice laws across the country.
What Trump’s Project 2025 will do if Trump wins
- Ban or restrict access to abortion and birth control across the country.
- Prevent Americans from starting and growing families with IVF and restrict surrogacy.
- Cut health insurance benefits for reproductive care.
- Require that state governments monitor women’s periods and pregnancies to possibly prosecute them if they miscarry.
Trump’s Project 2025: Attack on Civil Rights
How the MAGA movement has already attacked civil rights
- The MAGA Court legalized businesses discriminating against LGBTQ+ customers.
- The MAGA Court ended affirmative action, preventing colleges and universities from considering diversity in admissions.
- MAGA Republicans passed laws banning gender-affirming care.
What Trump’s Project 2025 will do if Trump wins
- Weaken enforcement of the Civil Rights Act to make it easier to discriminate against Americans.
- End efforts to promote diversity, equity, and upward mobility.
- Attack LGBTQ+ Americans by targeting marriage equality, preventing same sex couples from adopting children, reinstating the transgender military ban, ending anti-discrimination protections, and requiring harassment of trans kids in schools.
- Use the military to target protesters and deport Americans for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Other Freedoms Under Attack by Trump’s Project 2025
- Attacking Americans’ freedom to live in a healthy environment. The MAGA Court has already undercut the EPA’s ability to stop polluters and combat climate change. Trump’s Project 2025 plans to chop agencies responsible for monitoring and addressing climate change, leave the Paris Accords, cut renewable energy programs, and deregulate Big Oil.
- Undercut Americans’ freedom from gun violence. The MAGA Court has struck down common sense gun safety laws and legalized bump stocks used in mass shootings. MAGA Republicans want to continue to deregulate gun sales and force states to allow individuals to carry guns wherever they want.
- Eroding religious freedoms. Trump, his MAGA loyalists, and the MAGA Court have enacted and upheld the Muslim ban, passed laws requiring the Ten Commandments in government buildings, and pushed to use taxpayer dollars on religious schools. Project 2025 wants to allow employers to discriminate against employees based on their religious beliefs.
Trump’s Project 2025: Attack on Working Families
Project 2025 wants an America that empowers corporations and the wealthy and keeps the middle class down. Below are examples of how Trump’s Project 2025 threatens democracy because it will just work for corrupt big money special interests, not regular Americans.
Trump’s Project 2025: Attack on Workers
How the MAGA movement has already attacked working Americans
- The MAGA Court is the most pro-corporate court in history. They have weakened public unions’ ability to collect dues, prohibited employees from filing class-action lawsuits, weakened unions’ ability to take collective action, and made it easier for workers to be fired for supporting a union.
What Trump’s Project 2025 will do if he wins
- Raise taxes on middle class and working families.
- Rollback progress for workers made in the Biden Administration by cutting overtime pay.
- Make it easier for kids to work in dangerous jobs.
- Prevent workers from suing employers for discrimination in the workplace.
- Decrease the housing supply and raise costs for buying a home.
- Eliminate programs to help single mothers.
- Heritage and Project 2025 authors support cutting social security and raising the retirement age.
Trump’s Project 2025: Handouts to Corporations and the Rich
How the MAGA movement has already given handouts to corporations and the rich
- Trump and MAGA Republicans passed a $1.7 trillion tax cut for corporations and the rich.
- The MAGA Court has prioritized cutting government regulations for massive corporations and special interests like Big Oil.
What Trump’s Project 2025 will do if he wins
- Cut corporate taxes by $500 billion per year.
- Cut taxes for the rich and huge corporations.
- Cut funding to enforcement laws against wealthy tax cheats.
- Cut regulations for corporations that will make life less safe for regular Americans.
Trump’s Project 2025: Attack on Americans’ Healthcare
How the MAGA movement has already attacked America’s healthcare
- MAGA Republicans’ top priority when Trump took office was to take healthcare away from millions of Americans by repealing the Affordable Care Act.
What Trump’s Project 2025 will do if Trump wins
- Cut Medicaid and create barriers to qualification.
- Give a handout to private insurers by cutting and privatizing Medicare.
- Raise drug prices by repealing the insulin cap, Medicare’s ability to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices, and the cap on out-of-pocket drug expenses for seniors.
- MAGA Republicans will remove protections for Americans with preexisting conditions and put a new tax on Americans who receive insurance through their employer.
Trump’s Project 2025: Attack on Education
How the MAGA movement has already attacked our education system
- The MAGA Court struck down President Biden’s student debt relief for millions of Americans.
- MAGA Republicans have implemented “school choice” programs, sending taxpayer money from public schools to private, religious schools.
- MAGA Republicans have prioritized banning books in schools.
What Trump’s Project 2025 will do if he wins
- Eliminate the Department of Education.
- End President Biden’s student debt relief programs.
- Eliminate Head Start, closing preschools across the country.
- Cut school lunch programs and other programs that help low-income students.
- Send taxpayer money from public schools to private schools.
Trump’s Project 2025: Attack on Democratic Institutions
Trump’s Project 2025 seeks to turn our government into an authoritarian tool to carry out Trump’s vendettas. Below are examples of how Trump’s Project 2025 is an existential threat to our democracy by grabbing power, removing essential checks and balances, and attacking our nonpartisan institutions.
Trump’s Project 2025: Increase Authoritarianism
How the MAGA movement has already increased authoritarianism
- The MAGA Court gave President Trump near absolute immunity for his work to overturn the 2020 election and has placed the president above the law.
- The MAGA Court has refused to enforce its ethics code against Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito despite their shocking corruption scandals. Chief Justice John Roberts has also refused to demand Thomas and Alito recuse themselves from cases involving the January 6 insurrection even though their wives organized efforts to overturn the 2020 election and showed support for the insurrection and attempts to overturn the election, respectively. Roberts has also refused to testify before the Senate—a coequal branch of the government–about the MAGA Court’s ethics scandals.
What Trump’s Project 2025 is planning to do if he wins
- Gut checks and balances to carry out Trump’s authoritarian agenda, including impoundment (refusing to carry out congressionally mandated spending).
- End the independence of the Justice Department and FBI use them to target Trump’s political and personal enemies.
- Target local law enforcement officials if they do not follow Trump’s policies.
- Tear apart families by conducting militarized raids to deport millions of immigrants who have been living here for decades and building mass internment camps by the border.
- Deploy the military under the Insurrection Act to suppress anti-Trump activity.
Trump’s Project 2025: Grab Power from Nonpartisan Civil Servants
How the MAGA movement has already grabbed power from civil servants
- The MAGA Court made a huge power grab by overturning the Chevron doctrine. The MAGA Court took away the ability of nonpartisan experts in federal agencies to enforce laws and gave itself the power to create policies that will hurt Americans.
What Trump’s Project 2025 is planning to do if he wins
- Fire tens of thousands of nonpartisan civil servants and replace them with Trump loyalists.
- Eliminate the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- Consolidate power for Trump so he has total control over the executive branch.
25 questions on Trump’s Project 2025 that Republicans need to answer
Attacking Rights and Freedoms
- Do you support plans to use an obsolete law from the 1800s to ban medical abortion across the country?
- Do you support plans to restrict access to IVF? Birth control? Surrogacy?
- Do you support plans to surveil women’s pregnancies?
- Do you support plans to cut enforcement of the Civil Rights Act?
- Do you support plans to enable discrimination against LGBTQ+ Americans, end marriage equality, and require the harassment of transgender kids in public schools?
- Do you support plans to stop the Department of Justice from protecting Americans from discrimination in voting?
- Do you support plans to use the Big Lie to make it harder to vote?
- Do you support plans to end all of our country’s efforts to combat climate change, end pollution, and grow our economy through renewable energy investment?
- Do you support plans to criminalize pornography and Heritage’s efforts to end recreational sex?
Attacking Working Families
- Do you support plans to cut overtime pay for Americans?
- Do you support plans to increase child labor and remove safety protections for child workers?
- Do you support plans to cut social security and raise the retirement age?
- Do you support plans to increase child labor and have kids work in dangerous jobs?
- Do you support plans to cut taxes for corporations and the rich and raise them for middle class and working families?
- Do you support plans to cut healthcare for Americans with preexisting conditions?
- Do you support plans to raise prescription drug prices?
- Do you support plans to cut Head Start and close preschools across the country?
- Do you support plans to send taxpayer money for public schools to private and religious schools?
- Do you support plans to cut the Biden-Harris Administration’s student debt relief programs?
Attacking Democratic Institutions
- Do you support plans to fire tens of thousands of nonpartisan civil servants and replace them with Trump loyalists?
- Do you support plans to remove checks and balances and give even more power to Trump if elected president?
- Do you support plans to deploy the military under the Insurrection Act to shut down anti-Trump activity?
- Do you support plans to use the Justice Department and FBI to target political opponents and personal enemies?
- Do you support plans to rip families apart through militarized deportation of 20 million immigrants and create mass detention camps?
- Do you support plans to use impoundment, refusing to carry out congressionally mandated spending?
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