There has been much talk about Project 2025. But I found that most people including the media that are commenting on it have never read it. And I understand, it is 922 pages. The recent publication is actually called "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise" (2023), this is part of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project. This publication is pillar 1 of their four pillar plan which they say is:
this volume—puts in one place a consensus view of how major federal agencies must be governed and where disagreement exists brackets out these differences for the next President to choose a path. (Page xiv)
This is a review of the forward of the book, pages 1-17. I plan to read and review the following sections of the book not adding my commentary, just informing a summary of what it is about. I will share my thoughts if anyone is interested. If you would like to comment in this thread on the content feel free to do so. I would like to keep this civil and fact based. I will try as well. We can model what a productive and civil discussion can be without gaslighting or name calling etc. For the record, I am a conservative and an atheist so that is where my perspective and biases may be. I expect to agree and disagree with some of the topic and ideas covered in this but as least I will know what the document actually says.
Link to book: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
A PROMISE TO AMERICA
This section outlines why they wrote this book. It is actually an updated or rewriting of the book they published in 1981, they say:
It was in early 1979—amid stagflation, gas lines, and the Red Army’s invasion of Afghanistan, the nadir of Jimmy Carter’s days of malaise—that Heritage launched the Mandate for Leadership project. (Page 2)
This is a pro conservative and anti left publication and what they believe to be in the best interest of the country:
The bad news today is that our political establishment and cultural elite have once again driven America toward decline. The good news is that we know the way out even though the challenges today are not what they were in the 1970s. Conservatives should be confident that we can rescue our kids, reclaim our culture, revive our economy, and defeat the anti-American Left—at home and abroad. We did it before and will do it again. As Ronald Reagan put it:
Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation. (Page 2)
THE CONSERVATIVE PROMISE
This volume—The Conservative Promise—is the opening salvo of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, launched by The Heritage Foundation and our many partners in April 2022. Its 30 chapters lay out hundreds of clear and concrete policy recommendations for White House offices, Cabinet departments, Congress, and agencies, commissions, and boards. (Page 2)
This document is an outline and instruction manual for the next conservative president they hope to have in 2025. They list four broad fronts they will talk about in more depth in the book:
1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.” (Page 3)
PROMISE #1: RESTORE THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE OF AMERICAN LIFE AND PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.
They summarize this as protecting the well being of the family (Page 4). Here are the points they make:
1. The most important community in each of our lives in the family.
2. Fatherlessness is one of the principle problems of our society.
3. They list some ideas to help the family thrive like eliminating marriage penalties in welfare programs and the tax code and installing work requirements for food stamps. They want to ensure charities and churches have tax exempt status. I agree , however, churches should have the same reporting requirements as all non profit organizations.
4. Pornography should be made illegal. They even go as far as saying this:
It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered. (Page 5)
5. Promote parental authority in schools: Schools serve parents,not the other way around (Page 5)
6. Abortion should be illegal across the country.
President should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent life and vigorously complying with statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion. Conservatives should ardently pursue these pro-life and pro-family policies while recognizing the many women who find themselves in immensely difficult and often tragic situations and the heroism of every choice to become a mother. Alternative options to abortion, especially adoption, should receive federal and state support. (Page 6)
PROMISE #2: DISMANTLE THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE AND RETURN SELF-GOVERNANCE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
They make the statement: Conservatives desire a smaller government ot for its own sake, but for the sake of human flourishing. (Page 6)
Some points they make are:
1. Federal budgets are no longer passed per the constitution and gives examples how they are passed.
2. How they define Administrative State:
The term Administrative State refers to the policymaking work done by the bureaucracies of all the federal government’s departments, agencies, and millions of employees. Under Article I of the Constitution, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” That is, federal law is enacted only by elected legislators in both houses of Congress. (Page 7)
They point out that administrators are making law and appropriating money they are not authorized to do. Here are some of their examples:
A combination of elected and unelected bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes;
Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity;
Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms;
Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists;
Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training” seminars about “white privilege”; and
Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion. (page 7 and 8)
It advocates congress taking back their constitutional duties from the administrative state. The last point in this section it makes is:
The next conservative President must end the Left’s social experimentation with the military, restore warfighting as its sole mission, and set defeating the threat of the Chinese Communist Party as its highest priority. (Page 9)
