By Otis Grotewoh
July 22, 2024

The 2024 U.S. presidential elections are coming up, and many people are concerned about the far-right document known as “Project 2025.”  While it was barely mentioned at the recent Republican National Convention, it has not disappeared, and it still deserves analysis.

Progressive-minded individuals and activists worry about the implications the right-wing blueprint may have on the working class and oppressed people.  Written by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, in conjunction with some members of the previous Trump administration, Project 2025 is a 922-page manuscript of hard-right, anti-worker and pro-business policy proposals.

Critics of the document fear that if implemented, Project 2025 could help unleash a white-supremacist and Christian-nationalist theocracy. Many people also believe the tyrannical outline is more likely to be imposed if Donald Trump is re-elected as the 47th U.S. president.

Among some of their extreme pitches, the reactionary document reportedly plans to abolish government agencies such as the Department of Education and to remove environmental and workplace safety regulations. Additionally, the far-right program calls for an arbitrary termination and displacement of thousands of federal civil service workers, replacing them with reactionary “loyalists.”

Under attack: women’s and LGBTQIA2S+ rights

Project 2025 aims to completely privatize health care, which would be a direct assault on people who struggle with health-related problems — a large portion of the U.S. population. The document seeks to cut funding for Medicare and Medicaid as well as slash Social Security. It urges the government to explicitly reject abortion as health care, revoke approval of abortion pills and limit ability to obtain reproductive care, especially cutting off abortion access to low-income individuals unable to travel to obtain the procedure..

In addition to abolishing gender-affirming care, the architects of Project 2025 hope to remove legal protections prohibiting discrimination against people in the LGBTQIA2S+ community. The reactionary text further suggests the Department of Health and Human Services should “maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.”  It proposes eliminating a list of terms from all laws, including “sexual orientation,” “gender equality,” “abortion” and “reproductive rights.” (BBC, July 12)

Viciously anti-immigrant, anti-worker, anti-union

Stephen Miller, Trump’s former Senior Political Advisor who authored much of that administration’s racist immigration policy, contributed to some of the anti-migrant language in Project 2025. Its draft recommends the arrest, detention and deportation of undocumented families living in the U.S. It also encourages the president to withhold federal disaster relief funds granted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to states and local governments which do not agree with their anti-migrant laws or do not willingly turn undocumented workers over to the police.

Another concern progressive individuals have about Project 2025 is how it aims to essentially harm workers, destroy labor unions and make it merely impossible for employees to collectively organize. Project 2025 purportedly seeks to replace labor unions with “employee involvement organizations,” which would basically weaken workers’ rights and embolden hostile employers.

Proposals in the program are designed to gut the National Labor Relations Board’s authority and enforcement capacity. The NLRB is an independent agency that oversees union elections in the U.S. private sector, and the board issues decisions involving labor law violations. The Heritage Foundation’s proposed manuscript openly plans on firing the NLRB general counsel “on Day One,” and union leaders fear that could jeopardize the agency’s ability to protect workers in active organizing campaigns. (americanprogress.org, June 20)

Under Project 2025, unorganized workers would also be at risk of losing the few protections they currently have. The bigoted program calls for the elimination of all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and affirmative action, which would allow racist and sexist bosses to blatantly discriminate against employees.  The hateful authors of the document want employers to have the ability to fire workers without “just cause” and to deny due process or any type of employment protections.

Heritage Foundation created by Nixon cronies

The Heritage Foundation is a far-right advocacy group that helps develop political strategies and policies that serve the interests of the ruling class and finance capital. Founded as an anti-communist and anti-union think tank in 1973, the Heritage Foundation was created by three strong supporters of the corrupt Richard Nixon administration: Paul Weyrich, Joseph Coors and Edwin Feulner.

Only one of the Foundation’s founders is still alive, and that is Edwin Feulner, a retired Republican strategist. The late Joseph Coors was an heir of the Coors brewing corporation and a staunch contributor to the racist, antisemitic John Birch Society. The Coors company is historically anti-union, and that was one reason why Joseph Coors volunteered to help form the reactionary outfit.

The Foundation creator who was most influential among right-wing causes is Paul Weyrich, an ardent Christian nationalist and white supremacist. He was also a co-founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a union-busting lobbyist group. Weyrich was also a co-creator of the bigoted “Moral Majority” of the 1980s and the Christian Coalition of the 1990s. He died in 2008, but his hate-fueled legacy lives on within far-right and pro-corporate circles.

‘Textbook war’ backed by Klan

The Heritage Foundation’s first national action was supporting violent, anti-textbook protesters during the infamous “textbook war” in Charleston, West Virginia in 1974. At that time, backward community members protested the introduction of progressive textbooks into school curriculums.

With assistance from reactionary groups like the terrorist Ku Klux Klan, these anti-textbook zealots set off dynamite at school buildings and shot at school buses.  The bigots targeted the Black community and the teachers’ union in their vehement attacks. The Heritage Foundation happily marched alongside the Klan and helped provide legal assistance to those arrested for participating in the violent actions.

Author Carol Mason’s book, entitled “Reading Appalachia from Left to Right: Conservatives and the 1974 Kanawha County Textbook Controversy,” connected the Heritage Foundation to the Klan terror during the “textbook war” of 1974.  In describing the historical significance of this conflict, she argues that it “was pivotal in shaping a variety of discourses, tactics and alliances that brought right-wing politics into the mainstream after the 1960s.” (medium.com., Jan. 24, 2017)   Mason’s book exposes the Foundation’s brutally racist history.

The Heritage Foundation helped write politically backward policies for the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s and the George W. Bush administration from 2001-2009, to a lesser extent. The Foundation was enthusiastic about the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016 and angered about his defeat in 2020. In some ways, Project 2025 is a retaliatory response to Trump’s last election loss.

Stirring up conspiracy theories

On July 11, the Heritage Foundation released a statement accusing the Biden administration of planning election fraud, without providing any substantial evidence to back their claim. The report reads: “The lawlessness of the Biden Administration … makes clear that the current president and his administration not only possesses the means, but perhaps also the intent, to circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president.”  (ABC News, July 11)

Weeks before releasing conspiracy theories regarding the upcoming election, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts made a chilling threat when he spoke on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast known as the “War Room.” He said, “We are in the process of the second ‘American revolution,’ which will remain bloodless if the ‘Left’ allows it to be.” (BBC, July 12)

The Heritage Foundation and their Project 2025 guidebook epitomize the Bulgarian Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov’s 1935 definition of “fascism.” He described it as “the open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” (Dimitrov, 7th Plenum of Communist International, August 1935)

Far-right agenda not new

The concerns progressive people have about Project 2025 are legitimate and understandable. At the same time, the Heritage Foundation and their far-right agenda is nothing new, and it is not unique to a second, possible Trump presidency.  In fact, some of the project’s content is similar to the policies promoted by the Reagan and both Bush administrations, as well as the Clinton administration.

Project 2025 was established in April 2022, but it has only been a topic of conversation in recent months. Part of the reason for that is because the Democratic Party is in disarray, and the Heritage Foundation’s new handbook may give the Democrats some leverage in the upcoming election. Much of the corporate media has openly expressed concerns over the document and has exposed some of its most controversial proposals.

Due to its lack of popularity among voters, Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 on Truth Social. He wrote on July 11: “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying, and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” Despite his attempt to separate himself from the despotic program, Trump’s new running mate J.D. Vance has a close relationship with the Heritage Foundation and Kevin Roberts.

Revolutionary response to Project 2025: Organize!

The political crisis is deepening and the far right has become more encouraged by Trump’s third presidential campaign, especially following the assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania. The pro-MAGA majority U.S. Supreme Court has recently delivered decisions that fulfill much of the Heritage Foundation’s hateful agenda, including the recent opinion granting Trump immunity for his crimes.

The Trump campaign is rumored to have their own policy package known as Agenda 47; it is speculated that it features some of the same reactionary content as Project 2025.

Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, the working class and oppressed peoples will still have to fight the far right. At this moment, it is crucial that Marxist-Leninists and other left, anti-capitalist forces unite and collectively organize with workers and oppressed people to combat all pro-capitalist and fascistic, right-wing agendas!