Donald Trump and Taraji P. Henson, who brought Project 2025 to public attention. Image - The Mirror US
Project 2025 is just the latest in a series of conservative think pieces which outlines how republicans should wield presidential power. The outrage surrounding it ignores democrats’ collusion with republican policies when they are in office and is a cynical effort to scare especially Black voters into continuing support for the Biden/Harris ticket.
The right wing counter-revolution has been going on for more than 50 years. The Powell Memo was a 1971 directive from soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, instructing the US Chamber of Commerce how to defeat the “attack on the American free enterprise system". In other words, how to defeat any leftist or even leftish policies. The Contract with America outlined Newt Gingrich’s plan for republican control of congress. These are just two examples of conservative narratives that periodically receive public attention. They are declarations of how the right wing have been working to counter the gains of the New Deal and the Black liberation movement that resulted in benefits to everyone in the U.S.
The latest iteration of this dynamic is Project 2025, a project of the Heritage Foundation which states clearly its intention to, “...take back the country from the grip of the radical Left.” Project 2025 is a blueprint for presidential policy should Donald Trump be elected again.
We should be so lucky to be in the grip of the radical left. Even milquetoast social democrats have been consigned to the sidelines of U.S. electoral politics. Joe Biden is president because the Democratic Party bosses feared the possibility of liberal reformer Bernie Sanders winning the nomination in 2020.
Project 2025 is replete with right wing red meat, from banning abortion to ending the Department of Education and also funding for public television. These have been staples of right wing think tank rhetoric since the very same Heritage Foundation played a large role in the Ronald Reagan administration. Project 2025 is an effort to expand cutting government spending, including for programs like Head Start, which millions of people use, and expanding presidential powers over federal agencies and replacing civil servants with political appointees.
This columnist urges caution in allowing Project 2025 to become a Democratic Party tool used to silence critics and to advocate for unquestioning support for Joe Biden’s re-election. There is always a right wing bogeyman trotted out when democrats are in trouble and need to silence their own people, especially Black people.
The frenzy over Project 2025 is such an example. We are suddenly supposed to cease criticism of Joe Biden, stop believing our own eyes when we observe his physical frailties and diminished capacity all in order to keep Donald Trump and Project 2025 at bay.
It has also been conveniently forgotten how often democrats have assisted in bringing right wing policies to fruition. It was Bill Clinton whose Crime Bill, assisted by then Senator Joe Biden, sent thousands of Black people to jail. It was Clinton whose Telecommunications Act ended Federal Communications Commissions regulations and resulted in media consolidation so complete that only six corporations control most of what we watch and hear.
Clinton’s welfare “reform” came straight from the Heritage Foundation and other right wing think tank playbooks. The right to seek public assistance from the federal government which had existed for 60 years ended. States were free to do as they pleased, with some making assistance nearly impossible to secure. Clinton’s plan required states to digitize their food stamp programs which were handed over to private corporations such as xerox. The conservative bogeymen could not have done any better as their dreams came true in a democratic administration.
The concept of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, was one that Richard Nixon proposed and in 1989 the very same Heritage Foundation called for mandates to purchase insurance, a foundation of the Obamacare plan. Republican Mitt Romney put what became Obamacare in place as governor of Massachusetts. Nixon, Romney, and the Heritage Foundation all eschewed any concept of a publicly run health care system and insisted on enshrining health care as being run by corporations.
Now that Biden is suffering from anemic approval ratings and a bad debate performance the campaign pulled out their secret weapon, scaring Black people into voting for them. What better way to do so than to mix popular culture with their campaign.
The BET Music Awards was the venue for their latest gambit. The event included a cringe worthy faux interview between host Taraji P. Henson and Kamala Harris. Between the bad, fake R&B playing in the background and Harris saying, “I’m out here in these streets,” the painful performance and Henson’s pronouncements about Project 2025 struck a chord. "The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up! I’m talking to all the mad people that don’t want to vote. You’re going to be mad about a lot of things if you don’t vote."
Henson’s words were magic to millions of Black voters. The inclination to feel trapped by the duopoly was suddenly in full effect and anyone expressing the slightest doubt about supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is now targeted with vote shaming harangues.
The reality is that Project 2025 has been going on since 1776 with only infrequent successes in subduing the white power structure. The marketing may change and in 2024 conservatives over played their public relations hand and gave democrats a cudgel to use against them. So much so that Donald Trump tried to distance himself. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.” Of course, some of Project 2025’s authors were staffers in Trump’s administration. His clumsy attempt at denial proves how much traction the democrats gained from amplifying it.
Now millions of people who were stunned by Biden’s debate performance are back on board pledging to keep the barbarians from the gates. Not to be outdone with scaring Black people, Biden made the obligatory appearance at a Black church, Mt. Airy Church of God in Christ, in Philadelphia.
Conservatism and white power are the foundations of this country. There are moments when that dynamic is openly supported and praised and sometimes a place called Hope and Hope and Change are the means of masquerading what conservative think tanks say very openly.
Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter, Bluesky, and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at [email protected].
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