{"id":72973,"date":"2024-07-11T15:05:22","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T19:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=72973"},"modified":"2025-04-29T11:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T15:12:12","slug":"project-2025-what-women-should-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/project-2025-what-women-should-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Project 2025 \u2013 What Women Should Know"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Protesters of Project 2025, like those seen here, are sounding an alarm. We should heed their warning. (Credit: Elvert Barnes, Flickr<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Let\u2019s talk about Project 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve likely seen several news items mention it the past few days. Over the weekend, former President Donald Trump \u2013 currently the presumptive Republican nominee in this year\u2019s presidential election \u2013 tried to distance himself<\/a> from it in an online post. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and his supporters have been hammering Project 2025, with the likes of Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas calling it \u201cterrifying,\u201d adding in a recent campaign<\/a> email that it’s a proposal \u201cthat puts women’s lives at risk, that puts our country at risk, that puts our future at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, perhaps you\u2019ve just seen the deluge of memes and TikToks that encourage progressive voters to be more concerned about Project 2025 than Biden\u2019s decidedly lacking debate performance. (I\u2019ve seen a fair few of those posts in my own social media feeds.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So \u2026 what is it? If you\u2019re unsure, you\u2019re not alone \u2013 as of now<\/a>, most Americans don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the short answer: Project 2025 is a collection of policy proposals<\/a> and more, crafted by the Heritage Foundation<\/a>, a right-wing political research center that has maintained significant influence over conservative politicians and politics since the 1980s, when former President Ronald Reagan\u2019s administration first adopted many of its proposals and ideologies. Project 2025, if enacted, would herald radical changes to many of the social and economic policies presently on the books \u2013 as well as to the very structure of our federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s more to it than that, including dire implications for women\u2019s rights and wellness \u2013 everyone\u2019s rights and wellness \u2013 should the roadmap laid out by Project 2025 be followed. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\n \n \"conservative-men-womens-rights\"\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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\n \n Behold! The Smallness of Man\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

What May Come<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For starters, reproductive rights<\/a> would be eradicated under Project 2025, as it calls for the government to “institutionalize the post-Dobbs environment\u201d through executive orders and regulations that further roll back abortion access, as well as the reversal of FDA approval for abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. It also wants to stop the Department of Health and Human Services from assisting with sex education, to keep lessons on abortions out of schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, it suggests that states should be individually encouraged to defund Planned Parenthood under their respective Medicaid plans. \u201cThis isn\u2019t about protecting life,\u201d Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono said at a press conference<\/a> on Project 2025\u2019s implications for women\u2019s health. \u201cThis is about power \u2026 and the Republicans\u2019 obsession with controlling women\u2019s bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sweeping proposal also takes aim at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts here and abroad, and within a host of government entities, including<\/a> the U.S. Agency for International Development. \u201c[T]he Biden Administration has deformed the agency by treating it as a global platform to pursue, overseas, a divisive political and cultural agenda that promotes abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived systemic racism,\u201d it reads, before calling for the next POTUS to \u201cissue a directive to cease promotion of the DEI agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project 2025 additionally suggests the elimination<\/a> of the Department of Education, as well as any federal funding or oversights provided to schools; it calls for withholding<\/a> federal disaster-relief dollars from states that fail to comply with its proposed immigration laws and mandates around sharing citizens\u2019 information; and it calls for the next president<\/a> to “make the case to the American people that nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantor of their freedom and prosperity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this is starting to sound like a lot \u2013 that\u2019s because it is. In truth, it\u2019s hard to effectively summarize Project 2025, as its creators\u2019 overarching desire is to upend almost every policy and every department. There are suggestions<\/a> that would nullify efforts to mitigate climate change, place additional burdens on low-income individuals and immigrants seeking asylum, and mandate efforts to curb what drafters of the plan refer to as “anti-white racism.\u201d I could go on. And on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a metaphorical blitzkrieg. And one could be forgiven for thinking the overwhelming nature of its intended scope and reach is strategic \u2013 after all, the harder it is for Project 2025 opponents to focus their efforts, the easier it is for supporters to pull off its aims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But confusion wouldn\u2019t be necessary for effectiveness if Election Day goes their way, as Project 2025 also goes after the country’s purported core values, and the very structure of our political apparatus. Not in pursuit of radical liberation, but rather, to circumvent the standards and norms that keep leaders in check by simply eradicating them entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, it seeks to demolish<\/a> tenets like the separation of church and state, a value that is quite literally enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. And, Project 2025 proposes a reorganization of the government itself: First, with amendments that place the entire executive branch<\/a> under the president\u2019s direct purview; then, by reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers as appointees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meaning the president could replace vetted employees with loyal followers, as he sees fit. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\n \n As Gen Z Women Lean Left, Gen Z Men Trend Right. Here’s Why\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

The \u2018Why\u2019<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s this all about, in a word? Once again, it’s control, as Sen. Hirono said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In more words? Well, Project 2025 lists four main objectives<\/a>: \u201crestore the family as the centerpiece of American life\u201d with an emphasis on heterosexual marriage and children as defining familial characteristics; \u201cdismantle the administrative state;\u201d \u201cdefend our nation\u2019s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats;\u201d and \u201csecure our God-given individual rights to live freely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFreely\u201d by the specific and quantifiably harmful parameters set forth by its white, male, conservative leadership, that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revoking our reproductive rights and prioritizing fetuses over human beings, restructuring our government around a single figurehead, further bolstering our already-swollen military industrial complex while fiscal aid for schools falls by the wayside, eliminating efforts to make our nation and world more supportive and inclusive for all \u2013 these are not the moves of freedom fighters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s instead call them what they are: Modern-day conquistadors. Columbuses in gray suits and red ties weaponizing stale bits of language from America\u2019s past, rather than ships and guns, so that they might relegate all women to \u201ctradwife<\/a>\u201d status, reverse progress and hard wins for people of color, revoke what little institutional support we do receive, and overall reconfigure the U.S. into a nation that\u2019s equal parts early 1960s and Hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And let\u2019s be clear: If Trump is at the helm, Project 2025 \u2013 and all of this \u2013 could become our reality. Because despite his attempts at putting space between himself and the proposal, at least 140<\/a> former Trump staffers were involved in its creation. And, the Heritage Foundation had outsized influence<\/a> on both the staffing and policy calls made by Trump during his first term, including breaking from the Paris Climate Accord, increasing military spending and hiring 70 foundation picks for his transitional and administrative teams \u2013 all of that just within his first year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of what also makes Project 2025 so potent is that it\u2019s not just a policy agenda or \u201cwish list\u201d \u2013 it also includes detailed plans for hiring and training personnel, and a 180-day playbook to guide a new leader forward. Or in this case, decades backward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The individuals behind Project 2025 say their aim is to \u201crescue the country from the grip of the radical Left.\u201d Lofty, vapid language that does little to blanket the actual aim of instituting a autocracy that subjugates citizens, robs us of once-inalienable rights, and punishes resisters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those memes in our feeds may be on to something.◼<\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\n \n Joe Jonas, Luis Rubiales and Men’s Sense of Entitlement to Women\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A conservative think tank has drafted plans to enact if the GOP wins the White House. None spell good news for women \u2013 or anyone, writes Candice Helfand-Rogers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":72974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":false,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[19637,19645,21308,21201,19714],"class_list":["post-72973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-election-2024","tag-opinion","tag-political-control","tag-social-policy","tag-womens-rights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRead About Project 2025, Election 2024, Women\u2019s Rights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Heritage Foundation drafted plans to enact if Republicans take back the White House. 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