Well, I didn’t even get through the foreword before the first post hit my limit, so I’m picking up on page 3. Here are the Heritage Foundations’s “four broad fronts that will decide America’s future.” I quote directly from the document and insert my comments below each point.
“1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.”
P25’s discussion on this point says some things about community and family that are not wrong. Unfortunately, it limits “family” to binary cis parents plus children, then devolves into a screed against “woke” culture, stating that all Federal documents should be stripped of language that recognizes diversity (pages 4-5). It goes on to clutch its pearls about pornography, stating that anyone involved in producing, publishing, or distributing pornography should be jailed, classified as sex offenders, and (if a business) shut down. They are calling for a rewrite of the First Amendment here.
Takeaway: You don’t get to say you’re all about freedom and liberty at the same time you’re telling people what they can and can’t create, read or view.
The discussion of Promise 1 continues to public school curricula (whitewash it); transgender rights (there shouldn’t be any); and abortion (ban it).
“2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.”
Note: “the American people” here means Congress. P25 thinks Congress can run the entire government, when they’re not busy impeaching the past administration, submitting bills that benefit their corporate cronies, and debating who can use which Capitol bathrooms.
Steve Bannon and his cohort said it openly in 2016: the goal of the conservative far right was the deconstruction of the administrative state. They start here with a complaint about how Congress hasn’t kept to its legal obligation “to pass a budget – and 12 issue-specific spending bills comporting with it – every single year (page 6).”
Well, sorry, but that’s not the fault of the administrative state; it’s a direct consequence of bombastic, antagonistic party politics, always present, that have worsened with the global disinformation campaigns now broadcast on social media.
The “administrative state” is the array of agencies that handle all the bits of Federal business. If you dismantle those agencies, as DJT’s incoming second administration is poised to do through his appointments of blatantly unqualified and destructive loyalists, you end up with a government that has a very small scope of work – including, of course, the military establishment.
The document does at least acknowledge that Republican governments have added just as much (if not more) to the Federal scope of work as Democratic governments (pages 7-8). Unfortunately, they then descend once more into anti-diversity pearl clutching, illustrating their primary concern, before veering off into a call for war against China (page 9).
“3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.”
Comment at the jump: the US has the highest military spending of any country in the world. The US hasn’t been attacked by another nation’s military force since 1941. The US has a standing fighting force of over 1.2 million, plus all the civilian, reserve, and support personnel. Our national defense position is the opposite of weak.
The discussion of Promise 3 on pages 10-11 implies, or openly states, that multinational corporations, institutions of higher learning, and international bodies such as the United Nations are threats to American liberty, before veering off into a rant against environmental extremists.
Sub-comment: Environmental extremists = those people who’ve made the air safe to breathe and the water safe to drink.
On pages 11-12, Promise 3 discussion goes on to the scourge of economic globalization, as embodied by China.
“4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely – what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”
On page 13, Promise 4 launches with equating the Declaration of Independence to a religious document, saying that “pursuit of Happiness” ought to be understood as “pursuit of Blessedness.” Here is where the Christian Nationalist bones of P25 really show, and where their embrace of the Originalist interpretation really fails.
The First Amendment, without which the Constitution would not have been ratified at all, states that:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
You can find the full text of the Constitution and all Amendments HERE.
Various governments have tweaked at the founding documents over the years, but the trend has been for greater, not lesser, liberty. The statement that “all men are created equal,” which in the founders’ context meant “all white property-owning Christian men are created equal,” is now understood to mean “all persons are created equal.”
And all persons in the US are not coreligionists. There are over 200 different Christian sects in the US, plus all the other religions, plus all the people who don’t buy into any specific religion, plus all the people who don’t even believe in a god.
Here’s what the First Amendment means:
You don’t have to believe in a god or go to a specific church to have equal rights under the law.
The discussion of Promise 4 purports to be concerned with liberty, even calls out freedom of religion and freedom of speech on page 16, but concludes with another call to shut down “woke progressivism” (i.e., speech they don’t agree with) in the name of economic growth.
Whew. The Foreword finally ends on page 17 and I’m exhausted. Should you decide to read Project 2025 for yourselves, note that getting through the Foreword will get you to page 50 of the 922-page PDF document (there’s a lot of white space in this thing … no pun intended).
Also note that if you want to start considering the issues for yourself and engaging with your local government, the agenda is pretty clear within the Foreword. I’ll be going on to the rest of the damn thing, but for now, I need a break.