Last November I wrote a brief article about Project 2025. The next few articles will be diving into the frightening and chilling plans the Heritage Foundation has put together to overthrow our democracy and do away with our separation of church and state, replacing it with a theocracy. Sounds crazy, I know. That something like this could happen here, in America! But, here we are . . .
Project 2025 is a plan that’s been decades in the making. It is a thirty chapter, 900 page manifesto, filled with a blueprint for their plans to restructure the federal government. According to their Policy Agenda – “Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.” Each chapter is written by a different author, some of whom had ties to the Trump administration. All are religiously conservative.
But before we check some of these chapters out, let’s explore who supports and is behind the Heritage Foundation.
The president is Kevin D. Roberts, a former president of Wyoming Catholic College from 2013-16. From there he took a position as executive vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. In October, 2021, he became president of the Heritage Foundation and two years later became president of Heritage Action, the lobbying group of The Heritage Foundation. In his introduction to Project 2025, Roberts writes of the groups intent in “deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), gender, gender equality, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights . . . out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation and piece of legislation that exists.” Translation: LGBTQ and females, we are comin’ for you!
Leonard Leo, a staunch Catholic, an attorney and a leader in the conservative group The Federalist Society, where he has been actively involved for over 25 years. He helped Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. In addition, he supported the nominations of Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts. Working closely with (then) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2016, Pres. Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, was successfully blocked. The Judicial Crisis Network, Leonard Leo’s nonprofit, spent over $7 million blocking the confirmation. This guy has access to vast amounts of money and has shown he is not afraid to tap into it for his vision of an American “utopia.”
For many years, billionaire Charles Koch, (and his brother before his death in 2019) quietly organized wealthy, like-minded conservatives. Using hundreds of millions of their own money, they successfully created a complex web of academic programs, foundations, “grassroots” movements and think tanks all designed to destroy and reshape the public’s opinion about minimizing the federal government.
Project 2025 has also been on the receiving end of Koch’s and Leo’s largess, through donations to the Project’s advisory board. Who’s on this advisory board you ask? Mostly Christian Nationalist groups:
Alliance Defending Freedom
American Center for Law and Justice
America First Legal Foundation (founded by Stephen Miller, he of the Trump implemented “caging immigrant kids” idea)
Concerned Women for America
Family Research Council
First Liberty Institute
Hillsdale College and Liberty University
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America
Next time, a few examples of what this Project 2025 means for America should our democracy fall in November.