
<p>The first thing you need to understand is that “Project 2025” – also known as the “Presidential Transition Project” &#8212; is a 900-page series of policy proposals assembled by an independent conservative think tank – in this case, the Heritage Foundation. It is something think tanks do all the time. The political left is served by similar think tanks, such as the Brookings Institution and the Institute for Citizens and Scholars</p>



<p>(Up until 2020 the Institute for Citizens and Scholars was known as the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. ; ; That’s when the Democrats’ left wing suddenly discovered that Wilson was a White supremacist and admirer of the Ku Klux Klan. They have yet to rename the Washington-based Woodrow Willson International Center for Scholars that focuses on globalization. ; But I digress.)</p>



<p>Democrats and their media cronies talk a lot about Project 2025, but they mostly misrepresent the truth. ; According to them, the Project is the work of a few evil people associated with the Trump administration. ; Actually, the input for Project 2025 was provided by 54 think tanks, universities and organizations. ;</p>



<p>The Project provides a list of 277 contributors with a wide range of political, academic and public policy backgrounds. ; It was then drafted by three dozen individuals with equally impressive resumes. ; Their collective sin – according to those on the left &#8212; is simply that they represent the conservative side of the political divide &#8212; that prefers people power over a massive federal bureaucracy controlled by a permanent elitist establishment in Washington. ; As it states in the Forward, “this book is the work of the entire conservative movement.”</p>



<p>It lays out four broad missions.</p>



<p>1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.</p>



<p>2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.</p>



<p>3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.</p>



<p>4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”</p>



<p>(Pssst! ; It is that number 2 mission that has the left’s hair on fire.)</p>



<p>The first 70 pages deal with the office of the President and Vice President and all the boards, commissions and agencies under direct control of the White House. It basically is a 1-0-1 college level poli-sci course.</p>



<p>The next pages deal with managing the bureaucracy. ; If you believe that the federal government has grown too large, too powerful, too expensive and too unaccountable to we the people, you will probably like that portion of the document a lot.</p>



<p>Section Two deals with national security and defense. ; If you think the armed services’ first priority is to fight wars – as opposed to being a vanguard of cultural woke policies, political correctness and identity politics, you will definitely like Section Two. ; If you think allies should take on more of the burden of defending the world democracies, you will like the proposals of Project 2025. ; If you believe that the border should be secured and in the restoration of legal immigration, you will like the proposals in the document.</p>



<p>Project 2025 is not the Republican Platform. It is not the work of President Trump’s campaign – although some Trump officials have been among the large number of contributors. Trump is not one of them. Trump is not likely to have even read the 900-page document. </p>



<p>Still, Democrats are trying to link Trump to every word in the document AND describing the document as some sort of modern-day “Mein Kampf.” ; While they refer to the document with the most negative and fearmongering platitudes, they rarely talk about the wide range of proposals – other than a couple of cherry-picked examples. ; And those they spin as some evil conspiracy against the people of America.</p>



<p>If there is a common thread that runs through the long highly academic document, it is the underlying effort to reduce the size and oppressive regulatory powers of the federal government &#8212; and restore the foundational concept of federalism as envisioned by the Founders. ; The overriding purpose is to shift power and influence back to the states – closer to the influence of people.</p>



<p>So, what has made the radical left lose its collective mind over Project 2025? ; The first explanation is that Project 2025 is the work of a conservative organization and offers generally conservative policies. ; The ideas proposed in the document are no threat to the rights and freedoms of the American people. ; However &#8230; the thousands of proposals and recommendations do threaten the entrenched elitist progressive political/media establishment in Washington – those who believe that a strong central regulatory government is the ideal, as long as they control it <em>ad infinitum</em>. ; It is the source of their authoritarian power – and they are loath to have that power returned to the people.</p>



<p>Since the 1960s, the pendulum of government policy has been swinging to the left – greatly expanding the power and cost of the federal government in Washington. ; The result has been an explosive expansion of the bureaucracy and regulatory edicts crushing both state and personal constitutional rights – and usurping the legislative role of Congress. ; Liberal courts in the past have ruled in favor of the federal establishment. ; It has also resulted in enormous and unsustainable growth in spending at burdensome costs to the American taxpayer.</p>



<p>The pendulum appears to be swinging back to the right. ; The 2016 election of President Trump – and the philosophy and policies he represented &#8212; was a pushback by the people against the increasingly radical, woke and oppressive policies of the left. ;</p>



<p>In response, the left engaged in an all-out political war not only on Trump, but on conservative Republican leaders and voters – and on the GOP brand itself. ; The result has been the most extreme accusations and narratives – essentially making the Republican Party the enemy of the state. ;</p>



<p>They have concocted an absurd campaign narrative that conservative principles, politicians and voters are an existential threat to American democracy. ; They spin a riot into an insurrection. ; They accuse the Republican Party of planning a coup. ; They claim that the return of Trump to the White House will mean dictatorship and the end of future elections.</p>



<p>The left’s hysteria over the possibility of losing their entrenched power is seen in the insane reactions to proposals by a think tank. ; The left is running a hyperbolic fearmongering campaign based on the most outrageous false narratives. ; It is a sign of desperation.</p>



<p>To be sure &#8230; Project 2025 is intended to offer up policies that will reduce the power of the ruling class in Washington – and return power to the people by keeping government lawmaking close to the citizens who are most affected.</p>



<p>One of the problems with the Project 2025 document is that at 90 pages it is too long &#8230; too detailed &#8230; too academic. ; The proposals are written for serious policymakers and political scholars. ; The percentage of the public who will read the document is in the low single digits – perhaps even less than one percent. ; That makes it easy for Democrats and the media to engage in platitudes of disinformation, false narratives and even lies about the content. ; They take a few provisions and use spin and fearmongering to smear the document, and all associated with it – and even those not associated with it.</p>



<p>Like so many theoretical documents like Project 2025, it explores ideas that have pragmatic potential. ; But it also contains ideas that are impractical when considered against current political reality. ; I doubt even those who contributed to Project 2025 would endorse each and every proposal.</p>



<p>Unfortunately, those who misrepresent the facts about Project 2025 have the distinct advantage of a compliant and cooperative news media that serves as the left’s propaganda agency.</p>



<p>In a very real sense, Democrats are running against a document produced by a think tank. ; The absurdity of that should be self-evident. ; They are attempting to run against a hypothetical rather than address the real issues of concern to the American public. ;</p>



<p>But before, you buy into the Democrats&#8217; fearmongering hair-on-fire hysteria, you should read &#8212; or at least peruse &#8212; the document. ; You may find it a lot less scary than the left portrays it. ; In fact, you might even like a lot of the hundreds of recommendations.</p>



<p>So, there ‘tis.</p>

Project 2025 has Democrats losing their minds
