Whether President Biden remains on the ballot in November or another Democrat replaces him, the fascist-adjacent Project 2025 is not going away.
Even if Donald Trump is defeated, it won’t go away. But at least its imposition on the nation will be delayed. Delay can ultimately mean destruction. And it very much needs destroying.
I’m reasonably sure that, whatever our differences, almost everybody here opposes Project 2025 however much they know about it. But how many of us while canvassing door-to-door (or even just talking to that fence-straddling cousin in Nebraska) could deliver a clear, accurate 5-minute version of what Project 2025 is all about, a description that can stir an independent or reluctant Democrat to vote to smash it?
It was gratifying to see Mark Sumner’s analysis this weekend, annieli’s hammering for some time, as well the several diarists who have taken a stab at it in the past couple of days.
But more, much more, is needed to educate ourselves so we can educate other people who have never or barely heard of the project so far.
Whether at a door or in longer, deeper conversations, spotlighting the nefarious nature of the manifesto should be coupled with spotlighting the accomplishments of the Biden administration, some of which directly conflict with specific proposals Project 2025 advocates.
The 922 pages of the manifesto are laced with obscurities and abstractions and opaque policy options. To make our educating about these often dangerous, anti-democratic options more powerful, they need to be translated into the impacts their implementation would have on individuals. That can take considerable effort. But let’s say you have a neighbor who is a public school teacher. Here are a couple of things he or she might find disturbing in the manifesto:
The new Administration must take immediate steps to rescind the new requirements and lessen the federal restrictions on charter schools.
[...]
Return to the Original Purpose of School Meals. Federal meal programs for K–12 students were created to provide food to children from low-income families while at school. Today, however, federal school meals increasingly resemble entitlement programs that have strayed far from their original objective and represent an example of the ever-expanding federal footprint in local school operations. [...]
To serve students in need and prevent the misuse of taxpayer money, the next Administration should focus on students in need and reject efforts to transform federal school meals into an entitlement program.
Adopting some of what that teacher says in your conversation about this could be very helpful as an example when canvassing or otherwise discussing the election. Nurses, teachers, engineers, cops, scientists—there are proposed policies in the manifesto to screw with everybody.
Tackling Project 2025 isn’t, of course, our only task. But it’s likely to be a prominent one for a long time. If and when the Donvict is defeated, down the road we’ll still have Project 2028—or whatever they decide to call it.