{"id":32403,"date":"2024-03-18T22:43:38","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T05:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=32403"},"modified":"2024-03-18T22:43:40","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T05:43:40","slug":"project-2025-the-rights-dystopian-plan-to-dismantle-civil-rights-and-what-it-means-for-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/03\/18\/project-2025-the-rights-dystopian-plan-to-dismantle-civil-rights-and-what-it-means-for-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Project 2025: The Right\u2019s Dystopian Plan to Dismantle Civil Rights and What It Means for Women"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2\/8\/2024<\/strong>\u00a0by\u00a0CARRIE N. BAKER<\/a> (msmagazine.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With careful planning, conservatives today are working to make their policy priorities permanent\u2014no matter what happens in future elections. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, during a news conference on government funding with the House Freedom Caucus outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (Tom Williams \/ CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wealthy right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation<\/a> has published a detailed plan for the next Republican president to use the executive branch of the federal government to attack the rights of women, LGBTQ people and the BIPOC community, by eliminating the agencies and offices responsible for enforcing civil rights laws and placing trained right-wing ideologues in staff positions throughout the federal government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Called the 2025 Presidential Transition Project\u2014or \u201cProject 2025,\u201d for short\u2014the plan has \u201cfour pillars\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. an 887-page policy agenda<\/a>,<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. a presidential personnel database<\/a> of vetted conservatives,<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. a Presidential Administration Academy<\/a> to train these people to achieve the Project 2025 policy agenda, and<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. a 180-day playbook<\/a>, which is what they hope to achieve in the first 180 days if Trump takes office in January 2025.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    To develop this plan, the Heritage Foundation organized a broad coalition of over 90 conservative organizations<\/a>\u2014a who\u2019s-who of groups that have led attacks on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, gender studies, the Equal Rights Amendment and #MeToo initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"
    The white male leadership team of Project 2025. (\u201cAbout Project 2025<\/a>,\u201d The Heritage Foundation)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    The coalition includes Concerned Women for America, the Independent Women\u2019s Forum<\/a>, the Eagle Forum, the Susan B. Anthony Foundation, Moms for Liberty<\/a>, AAPLOG<\/a> (the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists<\/a>), Students for Life of America, Alliance Defending Freedom<\/a>, First Liberty and Turning Point USA<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Heritage Foundation claimed over 400 \u201cscholars and policy experts\u201d participated in writing the policy agenda, titled \u201cMandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n

    \u201cIt is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration.<\/strong>\u201c\u2014Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

    Their main target: what they call \u201cthe totalitarian cult known today as \u2018The Great Awokening.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Throughout \u201cThe Conservative Promise,\u201d they rail against \u201cwoke progressivism,\u201d \u201cwoke culture warriors,\u201d \u201cwoke bureaucrats at the Pentagon,\u201d \u201cwoke extremism,\u201d \u201cwoke propaganda,\u201d the \u201cwoke agenda,\u201d \u201cwokeism,\u201d the \u201cwoke-dominated system of public schools and universities,\u201d \u201cwoke revolutionaries,\u201d the \u201cradical, supposedly \u2018woke\u2019 faction,\u201d the \u201cwoke policies in corporate America\u201d and the \u201cwoke gender ideology.\u201d They describe the Department of Education as a \u201cconvenient one-stop shop for the woke education cartel.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    They have particular vitriol for colleges and universities, which they describe as an \u201cestablishment captured by woke \u2018diversicrats\u2019 and a de facto monopoly enforced by the federal accreditation cartel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The authors invoke their first Mandate for Leadership<\/em> book series, written in 1979, which guided the Reagan presidency: \u201cIn 1979, the threats we faced were the Soviet Union, the socialism of 1970s liberals, and the predatory deviancy of cultural elites. Reagan defeated these beasts by ignoring their tentacles and striking instead at their hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Like their current leader, Donald Trump<\/a>, they dehumanize Democrats by likening them to animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The plan has four goals:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
      \n
    1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Defend our nation\u2019s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely\u2014what our Constitution calls \u201cthe Blessings of Liberty.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

      The contradictions are glaring:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The authors of \u201cThe Conservative Promise\u201d claim to support equality, while advocating for dismantling the government agencies that enforce laws ensuring equality, such as Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They claim to support freedom and liberty, while advocating for a total ban on abortion, rolling back the rights of LGBTQ people and closing the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They claim to support free speech, while advocating for banning any mention of \u201ccritical race theory\u201d and \u201cgender ideology\u201d from schools and other societal institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They claim to support the working class, while calling for tax cuts for the rich, elimination of labor protections and deregulation of big business and the oil industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n

      \u201cThe next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (\u2018SOGI\u2019), diversity, equity, and inclusion (\u2018DEI\u2019), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.<\/strong>\u201c\u2014Heritage Foundation president Kevin D. Roberts, p. 4, foreword to \u201cThe Conservative Promise<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

      Throughout \u201cThe Conservative Promise,\u201d the authors condemn \u201cruling elites,\u201d which they refer to as \u201cWashington elites,\u201d \u201cestablishment elites,\u201d \u201cMarxist elites,\u201d \u201csocialist elites,\u201d \u201cHollywood elites,\u201d \u201centrenched elites,\u201d \u201cglobalist elites,\u201d \u201cpro-open border elites\u201d and\u201d cultural elites.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They explain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n

      \u201cToday, nearly every top-tier U.S. university president or Wall Street hedge fund manager has more in common with a socialist European head of state, than with the parents at a high school football game in Waco, Texas. Many elites\u2019 entire identity, it seems, is wrapped up in their sense of superiority over those people. But under our Constitution, they are the mere equals of the workers who shower after work instead of before.\u201d<\/strong>
      \u2014p. 10<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

      They assume the worst of intentions of people they brand elites, whom they charge with \u201cmaking decisions for us\u201d and working to \u201cserve themselves first and everyone else a distant second.\u201d They describe the \u201celites\u201d as power-hungry socialists: \u201cFor socialists, who are almost always well-to-do, socialism is not a means of equalizing outcomes, but a means of accumulating power. They never get around to helping anyone else\u201d (p. 15). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The irony is that the Heritage Foundation and many of the organizations in their coalition are led and funded by billionaire capitalists, most of whom don\u2019t want to pay their fair share of taxes or be limited by labor laws<\/a> or environmental regulations<\/a> designed to protect the public from economic abuse, pollution and climate change. The conservatives criticizing the elites are themselves elites<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They argue that \u201cthe Left\u201d opposes equality and liberty established in the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution: \u201cIt\u2019s this radical equality\u2014liberty for all\u2014not just of rights but of authority\u2014that the rich and powerful have hated about democracy in America since 1776. They resent Americans\u2019 audacity in insisting that we don\u2019t need them to tell us how to live. It\u2019s this inalienable right of self-direction\u2014of each person\u2019s opportunity to direct himself or herself, and his or her community, to the good\u2014that the ruling class disdains\u201d (p. 14).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Yet this \u201cinalienable right to self-direction\u201d does not appear to extend to pregnant women or LGBTQ people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They even invoke women\u2019s rights to call for the destruction of women\u2019s rights: \u201cLeft to our own devices the American people rejected European monarchy and colonialism just as we rejected slavery, second-class citizenship for women,mercantilism, socialism, Wilsonian globalism, Fascism, Communism, and (today) wokeism\u201d (p. 14).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Yet banning abortion makes women second-class citizens<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They charge the left with trying to control other people\u2019s lives, while they themselves are the ones who propose and champion state-level and federal bans on abortion and gender-affirming care<\/a>: \u201cThe Left does not believe that all men are created equal\u2014they think they<\/em> are special. They certainly don\u2019t think all people have an unalienable right to pursue the good life. They think only they themselves <\/em>have such a right along with a moral responsibility to make decisions for everyone else. They don\u2019t think any citizen, state, business, church, or charity should be allowed any <\/em>freedom until they first bend the knee\u201d (p. 16).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Yet they want to use the force of law to impose their religious beliefs on others by determining intimate bodily decisions for pregnant women and LGBTQ people. Lawmakers that identify with the political left supports laws to empower individuals to make their own decisions about their bodies and lives, whereas the political right is passing laws limiting people\u2019s ability to make these choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They explain what they believe freedom means in the Constitution: \u201cAn individual must be free to live as his Creator ordained\u2014to flourish. Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought. This pursuit of the good life is found primarily in family\u2014marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like\u201d (p. 14). Thanksgiving dinners? What we ought? His Creator?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      On immigration reform, they say, \u201cThe only direct impact of open borders on pro-open borders elites is that the constant flow of illegal immigration suppresses the wages of their housekeepers, landscapers, and busboys\u201d (p. 11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      On \u201cbillionaire climate activists,\u201d they say their concern for the environment \u201cis not a political cause, but a pseudo-religion meant to baptize liberals\u2019 ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the holy water of environmental virtue\u201d (p. 11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Climate-changing oil and gas is not the problem; it\u2019s the solution, they say: \u201cAmerica\u2019s vast reserves of oil and natural gas are not an environmental problem; they are the lifeblood of economic growth\u201d (p. 13).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They condemn socialism and push free market capitalism, private property and deregulation in the name of liberty:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n

      \u201cIn socialist nation after socialist nation, the only way the government could keep its disgruntled people in line was to surveil and terrorize them. By contrast, in countries with a high degree of economic freedom, elites are not in charge because everyone is in charge. People work, build, invest, save, and create according to their own interests and in service to the common good of their fellow citizens.\u201d<\/strong>\u2014p. 15<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

      In reality, free market policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations have generated tremendous wealth inequality<\/a> and environmental pollution<\/a> that targets the most vulnerable communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Despite a longstanding American tradition that career employees of the federal government are not political appointees, \u201cThe Conservative Promise\u201d calls for removing any federal government employee who disagrees with their beliefs and replacing them with conservative ideologues. They boast about \u201chow to fire supposedly \u2018un-fireable\u2019 federal bureaucrats; how to shutter wasteful and corrupt bureaus and offices; how to muzzle woke propaganda at every level of Government\u201d (p. 9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      They promise the total destruction of the federal government: \u201cThe solution to all of the above problems is not to tinker with this or that government program, to replace this or that bureaucrat. These are problems not of technocratic efficiency but of national sovereignty and constitutional governance. We solve them not by trimming and reshaping the leaves but by ripping out the trees\u2014root and branch\u201d (p. 12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Some of the specific action items include:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n

      Department of Education:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n