How Democrats are plotting against Project 2025, the ‘dystopian’ manifesto for Trump’s second term
A group of House Democrats have launched a task force to combat a right-wing think tank’s roadmap for Donald Trump’s agenda if he returns to the White House.
Project 2025 — a blueprint for Trump’s presidency spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and Trump’s former aides and allies — is essentially a wishlist for his administration with plans to expand his executive authority and replace civil servants with ideologically aligned appointees.
At the core of the plan is the gutting of checks and balances that would give Trump unprecedented, concentrated executive authority over federal agencies.
As The Independent previously reported, the plan would roll out a blitzkrieg of firings across federal agencies to open the door for an army of Trump loyalists to weaponize the government against his rivals.
The plan recommends abolishing the US Department of Education, slashing funds for federal law enforcement agencies, and subverting agencies that regulate the airwaves and campaign financing to choke out dissent.
That consolidation of power would also insulate him against legal threats and usher in a wave of attacks against immigrants, reproductive healthcare and civil rights protections for LGBT+ people.
House Democrats led by California Rep. Jared Huffman created a Stop Project 2025 Task Force to coordinate with members of Congress, pro-democracy and civil rights groups and impacted communities “to coordinate on examining, highlighting, preempting, and counteracting this right-wing plot to undermine democracy.”
“Project 2025 is more than an idea, it’s a dystopian plot that’s already in motion to dismantle our democratic institutions, abolish checks and balances, chip away at church-state separation, and impose a far-right agenda that infringes on basic liberties and violates public will,” Huffman said in a statement on June 11.
“This is an unprecedented embrace of extremism, fascism, and religious nationalism, orchestrated by the radical right and its dark money backers,” he said. “We need a coordinated strategy to save America and stop this coup before it’s too late.”
Project 2025 was drafted by dozens of former Trump administration officials and other loyalists, nearly half of which are the recipients of dark money contributions from groups tied to conservative donor Leonard Leo, who helped usher in Trump’s radical restructuring of the federal judiciary.
The plan’s overhaul of the federal government also poses threats to marriage equality and public school funding and could “trample the wall of church-state separation and upend our democracy,” according to Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The nearly 1,000-page plan opens with a “promise” to eliminate abortion access, and “abortion” is mentioned nearly 200 times.
“And their attacks don’t stop with abortion,” according to Karen Stone, vice president of public policy and government relations with Planned Parenthood Action Fund. “They’re also planning to restrict funding for birth control and other preventive care and attacking gender-affirming care and sex education.”
The task force also will serve as a public messaging campaign as interest on Project 2025 surges on social media.
Members will hold public forums in the months leading up to Election Day. But the task force could also function as a key bulwark in Congress against Trump’s agenda, if elected.
“Project 2025 will not be ‘stopped’ by an unserious, mistake-riddled press release or a task force of House Democrats lacking a basic understanding of federal governance,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said in a statement. “The task force launched by House Democrats only underscores the Left’s fear of losing its grip on their authoritarian bureaucracy ... We will not give up and we will win.”
