I read all 920 pages of Project 2025 a few months ago. It took a while, because I had to stop several times to regain control over my disbelief before I could continue reading with an open mind. And I needed an open mind to fully grasp what these people were attempting.
In a nutshell, Project 2025 is a plan for an entirely new country, with “brand” new social, economic, religious, political and governance systems.
The large number of authors and organizations that contributed to and undersigned Project 2025, merits more attention. Simply put, it is impossible for that many people to agree on such a grand vision, without dedicating a tremendous amount of time and money to hammer out the details. In fact, we only need remember how much time it took America’s “original” founders to grasp the complexities involved in producing Project 2025.
The authors of Project 2025 have decided that the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution and Bill of Rights were waaaaaaaaaaaay too “liberal”.
To rectify that “mistake”, Project 2025 seeks to replace the original founders’ liberal project with their own “conservative project”. To that end, the authors – or shall we call them the new founders? – “conserve” power for the uber-wealthy who currently occupy America’s upper-crust (aka the one-percent). Since billionaires funded Project 2025 and paid the authors’ salaries, that makes sense. It also pays to remember that billionaires have been working towards Project 2025 since 1971, when U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Lewis Powell, united them with his famous memorandum (aka the Powell Memo).
“Justice” Powell and his billionaires had a vision for corporate control of the United States. They wanted proven “businessmen” to run the country. And in their minds, “a proven businessman” was uber-wealthy (and yes, businessmen always meant men to them). Eventually, conservative-minded Supreme Court justices thought that depriving a businessman of his civil rights just because he’d incorporated his businesses was wrong. And that’s how we ended up with the Citizens United decision that granted corporations civil rights.
Conservatives will not stop pushing their project until the American people stop them – or surrender.
Once I’d given Project 2025 fair consideration, I concluded that the question before me was really simple. Do I want to live in a Republic or a Democracy? If I want a Republic, I must surrender to the uber-wealthy who want to run the country like a business – and vote the Republican ticket. If I want a Democracy, I must hold on to my civic life – and vote the Democratic ticket.
For me the choice boiled down to the results of the 2000 election. As folks used to say, united we stand, divided we fall. The 2000 election showed the whole world that America had been severely weakened by the ever-deepening divide between billionaire activists and everybody else. Soon enough, terrorists attacked the United States (9/11), then the economy collapsed, the housing market crashed, and the American people were engaged in what would become the longest, most expensive, unwinnable war in all American history.
After living through that fiasco, I am on the side of Democracy. Collectively, the American people have proven themselves wiser, more moral and intelligent than all the billionaires combined.
JD, I wrote this comment for Super Mrs. C’s article on Project 2025 and hope you don’t mind my pasting it here as well.
https://untiredteacher.medium.com/project-2025-in-a-page-or-two-or-three-more-or-less-0a93fc2af85f
PS. If you haven’t already read it, I recommend, Lewis Lapham’s essay… Tentacles of Rage, the Republican propaganda mill, a brief history. Lapham wrote that essay in September 2004 and it has served as my political research guide ever since.
https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gned/laphamtentacles04.pdf
