What Is Project 2025?

Even for those who do their best to avoid political news, American elections tend to gather monumental global attention. As a Canadian, I watch from the sidelines, sitting on the edge of my seat, wishing I could make a difference. As a Canadian, I'm told by many that it doesn't affect me, that only Americans need worry about the outcomes of their elections. That's simply not true. As America's closest neighbour and biggest economic ally, actions taken by the American government are likely to indirectly affect Canadians as well.

During the 2024 presidential campaigns, one central Republican talking point has been Project 2025 , a Conservative political initiative published in 2023. The handbook, written by a multitude of former Trump-administration officials, aims to promote Christian-based conservative policies within the federal government of the United States. Although the project has been publicly opposed by Donald Trump, its ideas overlap with both his 2024 campaign plans and the themes laid out in his political manifesto. This makes it quite easy to dismiss his claims of "knowing nothing about it".

With a budget of twenty two million dollars, the document states its four main policies before beginning its ludicrous nine hundred page ramble. The four policies it lists are:

• restoring the family as the centrepiece of society,

• dismantling the administrative state,

• defending the nation's borders,

• securing individual rights to live freely.

As you can imagine, such a project would be dangerous not only to marginalized groups, but also to the Conservatives the plan claims to focus on. In short, Project 2025 is a nine hundred page document explaining why only cisgender, heterosexual, Christian white men deserve human rights. And I read it in its entirety, so that you didn't have to.

Main Points

01. The "Fatherless" Crisis

In its first promise, Project 2025 outlines the importance of restoring the traditional American family. It does this by linking crime, poverty, and atheism to fatherlessness, claiming pornography exposure makes children trans, emphasizing the heroism and the right of women to have children. It also claims, falsely, that gender ideology is a poison to children and must be banned from schools. Of course, these talking points come from the same people who believe that they have never used a pronoun in their lives.

02. Communism is genocide

Project 2025 believes that the biggest threat to American safety is Communist China. There seems to be some mass Conservative fear that 1.) the military strength of the United States will be overpowered by that of China, and 2.) communist nations will use violence and force to cross the barriers of America and cause massive casualties to American citizens. It states that in order to ensure the strength and safety of its citizens, the United States must improve and expand its arsenal of nuclear weapons, and cease all imports and exports to and from China.

03. Humans are illegal

I stand by the fact that nobody is illegal on stolen land - but of course, what's a white Conservative without their racism? Project 2025 consistently refers to American refuge seekers and immigrants as illegal aliens: a phrase that boils my blood each time I hear it. It discusses the need for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, the increase of bond costs for those in immigration detention centres, and the merging of immigration offices to reduce costs. It also outlines that undocumented immigrants will be banned from accessing subsidized housing and receiving government grants for things like schooling and daycare costs, and that the children of undocumented immigrants will not be given automatic American citizenship.

04. Anti-Choice

Anti-abortionists like to refer to themselves as pro-life, despite a firm lack of support to the lives of vulnerable people. Unsurprisingly, Project 2025 outlines a staunch opposition to abortion under any circumstance, promises to ban abortion drugs, and insists that it is the role of women and of American citizens to create families: that family is the central piece in society. The dystopian handbook says it will stop providing funding to Planned Parenthood on claims of the organization's fraud and sales of the organs of aborted fetuses. It also proposes banning all methods of contraception. The document also states that American funding to the World Health Organization will be cut drastically due to individual freedoms, and that the obligation to receive vaccinations violates these freedoms.

05. The "Myth" of Climate Change

According to the handbook, decreasing the production of fossil fuels directly leads to food insecurity and political violence. It suggests that instead of confronting climate change, the American government should end the war on fossil fuels, withdraw all climate change policies from its foreign aid programs, and shut down all programs designed to help combat the climate crisis.

06. Trans people are the enemy

During his campaign, Trump and his campaign team spent upwards of thirty million dollars on transphobic advertising and media. When it comes to LGBTQ+ issues and identity, the strategy of conservative politicians is to spread fear through misinformation, leading to an extraordinary increase in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and misconceptions. In a section titled "Refocusing Gender Equality", Project 2025 states that gender policies and practice erase the concept of womanhood and femininity. It goes on to say that abortions are performed under a guise of reproductive rights - because the duty of a woman is to have babies, don't you know. In addition, Project 2025 proposes an end to all gender-affirming care, a type of care they believe only ever affects trans people.

07. Religious freedom is paramount...

...but only if your religion is Christianity.

08. Queer "indoctrination"

An irony about conservatives is that they hold an unwavering belief that LGBTQ+ people are indoctrinating children - and they do so with no sense of self-awareness, while insisting that Christianity is the only truth. In a section titled "General Welfare", the conservative handbook states with all certainty that children in classrooms are indoctrinated into believing harmful ideologies such as the idea that they can choose their own sex, and the idea that society is systemically racist (spoiler: it is). In the eyes of conservatives, acknowledging the racism that built America is discriminating against those who are made out to be the oppressors. This section also claims American citizens are being forced by left-leaning politicians to exchange regular cars for self-driving robots.

09. Kids don't deserve free lunch

Under current law, a free school lunch will be provided to every student in a school or district if forty percent of students or more are eligible based on their family income. Project 2025 states that school lunch programs were created to benefit children in poverty, and that it is improper to provide food to those whose families are above the poverty line. It uses the words "entitlement program" when explaining why certain students should be excluded from school lunch programs. "Middle and upper class students," it states, "are not entitled to these meals."

10. Queer youth don't exist

I've mentioned already the conservative approach to gender identity in schools - that is: it should be forbidden altogether. Further into the handbook, the project dives deeper into its transphobic rhetoric: speaking about the need to remove non binary as a gender option, and doubling down on its opinion that gender equals sex, and that sex is binary. It goes on to say that youth should be forbidden from social transitions without explicit parental knowledge and consent, because this may result in youth seeking out irreversible medical interventions. Furthermore, Project 2025 further demonizes transgender people by claiming they are appropriating femininity or masculinity, therefore threatening the civil liberties of real men or women and engaging in sexual misconduct.

11. "Abortion and euthanasia are not health care."

When I was a teenager, my very Catholic grandmother had a bumper sticker that read "Life is sacred from conception to natural death." Since then, I've seen this statement time and time again in conservative politics. Page 450 of the handbook outlines a promise to "protect life, protect conscience rights, and uphold body integrity rooted in biological realities, not ideologies". The section goes on to say, falsely, that followers of left-wing politics threaten the fundamental liberties of Americans by basing a person's value off of their race or sex - an action that Conservatives themselves have done all through the writing of this handbook. This page also outlines the importance of banning euthanasia: labelling it as a betrayal of human dignity and a corruption of the medical system.

12. LGBTQ+ people don't deserve rights

Christian conservatives, unsurprisingly, believe that the only valid relationships are those of married, cisgender men and women. They seem to live perpetually in the 1970's, and repeatedly prove this through the legislation they pass. A short section within the handbook states that a normal, healthy family is made up of a married mother and father with their children. This section once again addresses the "fatherless crisis" of America, and says that all children have a right to be raised by the "biological mother and father who conceive them".

12. Abstinence-Based Sexual Education

All right-wing politicians believe that refusing to teach adolescence about sexual health and education will somehow lead to a decrease in teen pregnancies.

13. Discrimination is bad (unless we are doing it).

Under the Biden administration, people could not be legally be discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity or sexuality. Project 2025 states multiple times that under a Trump administration, it will be perfectly legal (and even encouraged) for employers to terminate and/or discriminate against employees based solely on their gender or sexuality identity. It states that critical race theory will be prohibited in schools due to its "false" teachings that people believe in superiority based on race.

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In simpler terms, the "conservative" Americans allied with Donald Trump and his campaign are not truly conservative. Upon reading the key points within this document, it becomes glaringly evident that these Republican policies are not about the people at all. They are about control - and I suppose it's easier to fear-monger than it is to educate.

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Support and Crisis Hot Lines

LGBT National Hotline: 888-843-4564

LGBT National Youth Hotline: 800-246-7743

LGBT National Senior Hotline: 888-234-7243

(https://lgbthotline.org/)

Trans Lifeline: USA (877) 565-8860

Trans Lifeline: Canada (877) 330-6366

The Trevor Project: (866) 488-7386

(https://www.thetrevorproject.org/)

Further Reading

2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

https://huffman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressional-leaders-form-task-force-to-counter-project-2025-and-defend-democracy

https://democracyforward.org/the-peoples-guide-to-project-2025/

https://www.stopthecoup2025.org/

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/fact-sheets-the-harmful-effects-of-project-2025-by-state/

https://action.aclu.org/petition/stop-project-2025-tyranny

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do

https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/sep/30/donald-trumps-2024-campaign-promises-heres-his-vis/

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-goes-all-in-on-anti-trans?r=1edyjz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true