The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise proposes to erase American citizens. They wish to eliminate language about them in government documents. As a predominately white and male organization, the Heritage Foundation wants to make decisions about the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, women who think equal pay for equal work is reasonable, and women who want to make decisions about their bodies.
This is an excerpt from Project 2025.
The 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 (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), 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. (pp. 4-5)
Problems with this Paragraph
First, God created all people in his image and likeness. He did not make “first-class citizens,” or “second-class citizens”. Greed, racism, sexism, homophobia or any other means to create social inequity violates God’s intentions.
Second, “Woke culture warriors” is an inaccurate label for people who want every American to participate and belong in society. Just because members of the Heritage Foundation fear people who differ from them does not mean that they should go away nor should their concerns. Non-white or disabled Americans will not disappear because conservatives do not want people to learn what it means to walk in their shoes through diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
The First Amendment
Third, did you notice the claim that so-called culture warriors have denied Americans their First Amendment rights? I cannot imagine what they mean. The Heritage Foundation’s effort to abolish words in official government documents threatens First Amendment rights! The First Amendment reads,
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. (The Bill of Rights: A Transcription | National Archives)
Forbidding people from using language that describes themselves or their needs is an attempt to deny individuals freedom of speech and compromise their ability to petition for a redress of their grievances. These conservatives have not suffered a violation of rights but they state their intent to violate the rights of others.
These words above bother conservatives perhaps because they make them uncomfortable or do not align with their religious beliefs. No one has taken away the right’s ability to discuss the issues they want or forbid them from using certain terminology. Authors of Project 2025 want to eliminate words from government documents that pertain to the queer community; terms that educate others about differences; words that relate to equality between the sexes and that discuss women’s reproductive systems.
Diversity
Fourth, it is telling that the terminology the Heritage Foundation wants to erase refers to people who can experience themselves as outsiders. Their mandate does not suggest erasing words that describe or affect men, straight, or white Americans.
I wish we lived in a country where we looked at one another and first saw unique persons. Unfortunately, many categorize others by sexual preference, race, or gender. We certainly cannot count on the white men (and few women) at the Heritage Foundation to provide equally for all Americans. I do not know why the people at the Heritage Foundation are thin-skinned and cannot bump elbows with people who differ. Just because an organization dislike some people or how they act, it does not mean they can make them and their rights disappear, at least in a democratic society.
Censorship
Fifth, eliminating words from government documents is censorship. Merriam-Webster supplies two definitions for the verb, censor: “to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable” and “to suppress or delete as objectionable.” Empowering the government to erase groups of Americans or their beliefs is a worrisome sign.
Nazi Germany used censorship with propaganda to narrow what Germans could hear, see, and read. (Banning books was one of their strategies!) They desired to erode people’s rights in small steps. Before the Nazis rounded up Jews and others they deemed undesirable, they spread lies about them in different ways and labeled them non-citizens. Project 2025 one step towards a more oppressive society.
Other Elements of The Project 2025 Mandate
The Heritage Foundation has also been busy in other ways.
A List of “Loyal” People to Staff the Next Conservative Administration
In the last Trump administration, staff who did not fully buy into the president’s authoritarian tendencies thwarted some of his plans. The effort to block the counting of electoral votes on January 6, 2021, was one such plan. If Trump is reelected, he will be surrounded with “yes-men” and “yes-women” who will do whatever he wants. The Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups have been busy creating a large database of people who are ready to go if there is another Trump administration. Loyal candidates attend the Presidential Administration Academy to be ready on day one.
The 180-Day Playbook
To rescue conservatives quickly from the supposed ills imposed on them by the current liberal administration, the Heritage Foundation has made a plan for the first half-year of a Trump administration.
The fourth pillar of Project 2025 is our 180-day Transition Playbook and includes a comprehensive, concrete transition plan for each federal agency. Only through the implementation of specific action plans at each agency will the next conservative presidential Administration be successful.
Note that the Heritage Foundation believes that more than half of their recommendations to the first Trump administration were followed within the first year.
The Heritage Foundation is a Serious Threat to Democracy
Because former-vice president Mike Pence would not defy the constitution and its citizen’s choice of president on January 6, 2021, there was a peaceful transition of power to the Biden administration. J.D. Vance, the current vice-presidential candidate, has said that he would not respect the Constitution if put in a similar position. This article focused on only one paragraph out of the Heritage Foundation’s 922-page policy plan. Read the plan yourself for more information. Who knows what else the next Republican administration would erase.
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