By Carrie Baker for Ms. Magazine.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson reporting for the Ms. Magazine-Public News Service Collaboration

Wealthy right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation has published a detailed plan for the next Republican president to use the executive branch of the federal government to attack the rights of women, LGBTQ people and the BIPOC community, by eliminating the agencies and offices responsible for enforcing civil rights laws and placing trained right-wing ideologues in staff positions throughout the federal government. 

Called the 2025 Presidential Transition Project—or “Project 2025,” for short—the plan has “four pillars”:

1. an 887-page policy agenda,


2. a presidential personnel database of vetted conservatives,


3. a Presidential Administration Academy to train these people to achieve the Project 2025 policy agenda, and


4. a 180-day playbook, which is what they hope to achieve in the first 180 days if Trump takes office in January 2025.

To develop this plan, the Heritage Foundation organized a broad coalition of over 90 conservative organizations—a who’s-who of groups that have led attacks on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, gender studies, the Equal Rights Amendment and #MeToo initiatives.


The coalition includes Concerned Women for America, the Independent Women’s Forum, the Eagle Forum, the Susan B. Anthony Foundation, Moms for Liberty, AAPLOG (the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists), Students for Life of America, Alliance Defending Freedom, First Liberty and Turning Point USA.


The Heritage Foundation claimed over 400 “scholars and policy experts” participated in writing the policy agenda, titled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.”


Their main target: what they call “the totalitarian cult known today as ‘The Great Awokening.’”


Throughout “The Conservative Promise,” they rail against “woke progressivism,” “woke culture warriors,” “woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon,” “woke extremism,” “woke propaganda,” the “woke agenda,” “wokeism,” the “woke-dominated system of public schools and universities,” “woke revolutionaries,” the “radical, supposedly ‘woke’ faction,” the “woke policies in corporate America” and the “woke gender ideology.” They describe the Department of Education as a “convenient one-stop shop for the woke education cartel.” 


They have particular vitriol for colleges and universities, which they describe as an “establishment captured by woke ‘diversicrats’ and a de facto monopoly enforced by the federal accreditation cartel.”


The authors invoke their first Mandate for Leadership book series, written in 1979, which guided the Reagan presidency: “In 1979, the threats we faced were the Soviet Union, the socialism of 1970s liberals, and the predatory deviancy of cultural elites. Reagan defeated these beasts by ignoring their tentacles and striking instead at their hearts.”


Like their current leader, Donald Trump, they dehumanize Democrats by likening them to animals.


The plan has four goals:

1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.


2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.


3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.


4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”

The contradictions are glaring:


The authors of “The Conservative Promise” claim to support equality, while advocating for dismantling the government agencies that enforce laws ensuring equality, such as Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. 


They claim to support freedom and liberty, while advocating for a total ban on abortion, rolling back the rights of LGBTQ people and closing the border.


They claim to support free speech, while advocating for banning any mention of “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” from schools and other societal institutions. 


They claim to support the working class, while calling for tax cuts for the rich, elimination of labor protections and deregulation of big business and the oil industry.


Throughout “The Conservative Promise,” the authors condemn “ruling elites,” which they refer to as “Washington elites,” “establishment elites,” “Marxist elites,” “socialist elites,” “Hollywood elites,” “entrenched elites,” “globalist elites,” “pro-open border elites” and” cultural elites.”


They explain:


“Today, nearly every top-tier U.S. university president or Wall Street hedge fund manager has more in common with a socialist European head of state, than with the parents at a high school football game in Waco, Texas. Many elites’ entire identity, it seems, is wrapped up in their sense of superiority over those people. But under our Constitution, they are the mere equals of the workers who shower after work instead of before.” — p. 10
They assume the worst of intentions of people they brand elites, whom they charge with “making decisions for us” and working to “serve themselves first and everyone else a distant second.” They describe the “elites” as power-hungry socialists: “For socialists, who are almost always well-to-do, socialism is not a means of equalizing outcomes, but a means of accumulating power. They never get around to helping anyone else” (p. 15). 


The irony is that the Heritage Foundation and many of the organizations in their coalition are led and funded by billionaire capitalists, most of whom don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes or be limited by labor laws or environmental regulations designed to protect the public from economic abuse, pollution and climate change. The conservatives criticizing the elites are themselves elites.


They argue that “the Left” opposes equality and liberty established in the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution: “It’s this radical equality—liberty for all—not just of rights but of authority—that the rich and powerful have hated about democracy in America since 1776. They resent Americans’ audacity in insisting that we don’t need them to tell us how to live. It’s this inalienable right of self-direction—of each person’s opportunity to direct himself or herself, and his or her community, to the good—that the ruling class disdains” (p. 14).


Yet this “inalienable right to self-direction” does not appear to extend to pregnant women or LGBTQ people. 


They even invoke women’s rights to call for the destruction of women’s rights: “Left to our own devices the American people rejected European monarchy and colonialism just as we rejected slavery, second-class citizenship for women,mercantilism, socialism, Wilsonian globalism, Fascism, Communism, and (today) wokeism” (p. 14).


Yet banning abortion makes women second-class citizens.


They charge the left with trying to control other people’s lives, while they themselves are the ones who propose and champion state-level and federal bans on abortion and gender-affirming care: “The Left does not believe that all men are created equal—they think they are special. They certainly don’t think all people have an unalienable right to pursue the good life. They think only they themselves have such a right along with a moral responsibility to make decisions for everyone else. They don’t think any citizen, state, business, church, or charity should be allowed any freedom until they first bend the knee” (p. 16).


Yet they want to use the force of law to impose their religious beliefs on others by determining intimate bodily decisions for pregnant women and LGBTQ people. Lawmakers that identify with the political left supports laws to empower individuals to make their own decisions about their bodies and lives, whereas the political right is passing laws limiting people’s ability to make these choices.


They explain what they believe freedom means in the Constitution: “An individual must be free to live as his Creator ordained—to flourish. Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought. This pursuit of the good life is found primarily in family—marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like” (p. 14). Thanksgiving dinners? What we ought? His Creator?


On immigration reform, they say, “The only direct impact of open borders on pro-open borders elites is that the constant flow of illegal immigration suppresses the wages of their housekeepers, landscapers, and busboys” (p. 11).


On “billionaire climate activists,” they say their concern for the environment “is not a political cause, but a pseudo-religion meant to baptize liberals’ ruthless pursuit of absolute power in the holy water of environmental virtue” (p. 11).


Climate-changing oil and gas is not the problem; it’s the solution, they say: “America’s vast reserves of oil and natural gas are not an environmental problem; they are the lifeblood of economic growth” (p. 13).


They condemn socialism and push free market capitalism, private property and deregulation in the name of liberty:


“In socialist nation after socialist nation, the only way the government could keep its disgruntled people in line was to surveil and terrorize them. By contrast, in countries with a high degree of economic freedom, elites are not in charge because everyone is in charge. People work, build, invest, save, and create according to their own interests and in service to the common good of their fellow citizens.” — p. 15


In reality, free market policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations have generated tremendous wealth inequality and environmental pollution that targets the most vulnerable communities.


Despite a longstanding American tradition that career employees of the federal government are not political appointees, “The Conservative Promise” calls for removing any federal government employee who disagrees with their beliefs and replacing them with conservative ideologues. They boast about “how to fire supposedly ‘un-fireable’ federal bureaucrats; how to shutter wasteful and corrupt bureaus and offices; how to muzzle woke propaganda at every level of Government” (p. 9).


They promise the total destruction of the federal government: “The solution to all of the above problems is not to tinker with this or that government program, to replace this or that bureaucrat. These are problems not of technocratic efficiency but of national sovereignty and constitutional governance. We solve them not by trimming and reshaping the leaves but by ripping out the trees—root and branch” (p. 12).


Some of the specific action items include:


Department of Education:

• Eliminate the Department of Education, which enforces civil rights law, including Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education;


• Revert to the Trump administration’s Title IX sexual harassment and assault standards, which placed burdensome restrictions on the ability of survivors to report assault and obtain justice;


• Reverse the Biden administration’s definition of sex under Title IX to include sexual orientation and gender identity, and redefine sex to mean biological sex assigned at birth


• Increase public funding of religious education through expansion of “school choice” policies and give federal funds to states as block grants with no strings attached.

Department of Health and Human Services:


On abortion—

• Under threat of funding loss, require “liberal states” to report to the CDC, “accurate and reliable statistical data about abortion, abortion survivors, and abortion-related maternal deaths”;


• Require treatment of “fetuses born alive” after abortion;


• Withdraw Medicaid funds for states that require abortion insurance or that discriminate in violation of the Weldon Amendment, which declares that no HHS funding may go to a state or local government that discriminates against pro-life health entities or insurers;


• Audit states for Hyde amendment compliance;


• Require the CDC to track “abortion across vari­ous demographic indicators to assess whether certain populations are targeted by abortion providers” (based on false allegations of eugenic motivations);


• Reverse Biden administration support for travel to get abortion health care;


• Prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds and allow states to defund Planned Parenthood in their state Medicaid plans;


• Reverse FDA approval of mifepristone or at least go back to the pre-2016 limitation and prohibit the mailing of abortion pills;


• Prohibit stem cell research and stop “the development and testing of the COVID-19 vaccines with aborted fetal cell lines”;


• Affirm “rights of conscience” to deny medical care;


• Declare that abortion and euthanasia are not health care;


• Reverse Biden interpretation of The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) that requires treatment of women miscarrying.

On gender-affirming care—

• Block gender-affirming health care


• End Centers for Disease Controls’s collection of data on gender identity;


• Block National Institute of Health research on gender identity and transgender health care and instead fund studies into the “short-term and long-term negative effects of cross-sex interventions”;


• Reverse Biden administration’s redefinition of “sex” to include gender identity, sexual orientation and pregnancy status.

Other—

• Add work requirements to receive Medicaid;


• Condemn single-motherhood and same-sex marriage;


• “HHS should prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.”

Administration for Children and Families:

• Use TANF (welfare) money to promote “Marriage, healthy family formation, and delaying sex to prevent pregnancy”;


• Child support in the United States should strengthen marriage as the norm, restore broken homes, and encourage unmarried couples to commit to marriage.

Led and funded by multi-billionaires, such as oil moguls Charles and David Koch, conservatives have fought for years to cut taxes, deregulate business, ban abortion, eliminate civil rights protections as well as public health and environmental regulations, privatize government institutions such as public schools and prisons and eliminate welfare programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food assistance.


In 2017, Donald Trump enacted many of these policies, which were later reversed by the Biden administration.


With careful planning, conservatives today are working to make their policy priorities permanent, no matter what happens in future elections. 




Carrie Baker wrote this article for Ms. Magazine.


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In the midst of political tensions surrounding Israel's handling of the conflict with Hamas, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., has voiced her support for colleagues facing backlash for their stance.

The "Protect the Squad" campaign is hoping to raise $100 million in an effort to stand up to rival race runners supported and funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

Tlaib emphasized the need for American citizens to stand up and advocate for peaceful solutions amid escalating violence. Tlaib's statements come as part of a broader discussion about the influence of organizations such as AIPAC on progressive lawmakers critical of Israel's policies.

"Please join me in supporting my colleagues that are standing up," Tlaib urged. "They're getting attacked right now, calls into their offices. They need to hear from the American people who know this is the answer to try to get a peace-loving solution to the violence."

AIPAC and other GOP megadonors plan to spend $100 million on campaigns targeting established progressive leaders such as Bush, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. The "Squad" is rallying to counter by raising funds by April 30, strategically timed for primary races against their AIPAC-backed opponents. The committee was filed with the Federal Election Commission Thursday.

All five Squad Democrats have condemned Hamas' Oct. 7 attack. However, their criticism of U.S. military aid to Israel and of America's unwavering support of Israel's fight in Gaza are seen as inflammatory by Israel's supporters. Bush emphasized the need for equality in humanitarian values.

"You must allow yourself to be consistent in your love and your respect for humanity," Bush emphasized. "You must not let yourself turn a blind eye to the mass murder of Palestinians, even as we strongly condemn Hamas for its appalling attack against Israelis."

Bush faces a tough primary against Wesley Bell in Missouri's 1st District of St. Louis County, trailing by 22 points in a February poll by Remington Research Group. Bell is supported by The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC and narrowly leads in fundraising by more than $5,000.

Meanwhile, Tlaib and Omar are financially thriving. Tlaib, who is the sole Palestinian American in Congress, raised $3.7 million in last year's fourth quarter, according to FEC filings, a sum comparable to Senate candidates.


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Census data indicate among voting-age Americans, nearly 25 million Black and brown eligible voters are missing from commonly used registration databases.

A recent study by McKinney Grey Analytics showed people of color are being systematically sidelined by "seemingly inclusive, data-driven digital systems" of voter engagement. Analysts believe it could eliminate thousands of key voters in states such as Ohio.

Prentiss Haney, senior adviser for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, said it often means many eligible voters must re-register or be disenfranchised.

"Over time, they actually fall off the list, and they're not even in the conversation," Haney pointed out. "And what we see in America is that those voters tend to be Black voters, brown voters and people of color. And it's not because those voters are disengaged. It's that they're cynical about the system."

The Ohio Secretary of State eliminated more than 26,000 names from the state's voting list in 2023 for lack of voting activity for the previous four years. Haney noted many of the people on the list have moved and did not receive a notice. The state has a website where voters can check their status and re-register if they have been purged.

The study found given how close recent elections have been, finding and engaging millions of missing Black and Latino voters will "almost certainly determine" the outcome of elections in the future.

Haney added many of the omitted voters are lost in the system.

"When we say a voter is missing, we mean that in the ways that traditional campaigns do outreach, these voters are not on those lists, they are not being targeted," Haney explained. "They are missing from engagement and the outreach that they should get as someone engaging in our democracy."

Deidra Reese, voter engagement director for the group, said it is important for people purged from the rolls to understand their vote counts.

"It certainly can be challenging because there are people who feel like it doesn't matter," Reese acknowledged. "But we try to help them understand why it does matter when they are engaged, and that when they disengage, it can matter more because a smaller number of people are driving the process."


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Undisclosed funding, or "dark money," is pumping into the 2024 election cycle.

Political spending by donors who stay hidden is reaching record highs, according to a report by OpenSecrets.

Author Anna Massoglia - the editorial and investigations manager at Open Secrets - said dark money might be coming from shadowy shell companies or non-profits, and often funds misleading attack ads against candidates from either party.

"When you have dark-money groups fueling this spending," said Massoglia, "the voter may not know what interest the secret donors behind that have in getting a specific candidate elected, a ballot measure passed or any other policy issue."

In 2022, OpenSecrets found that the Conservative Americans PAC spent more than $2.4 million in GOP primary races for U.S. House seats in Missouri, Tennessee and Arizona.

They discovered the super PAC was bankrolled by undisclosed American Economic Freedom Alliance and American Prosperity Alliance support prior to the votes.

Supporters of dark money donations argue they are a form of free speech, and in fact courts have often found that political donations are protected by the First Amendment.

Campaign watchdogs argue in return that even if donations are a form of protected speech, nothing stops the government from requiring full disclosure of who the donations are coming from - and without that, campaign advertising becomes inherently deceptive.

Massoglia says it really varies from one state to the next, in terms of which party and which side of the aisle is benefiting more. And, the patchwork of limits and disclosure rules vary greatly across the states.

"In some states, you can actually have 501(c)(4) dark-money groups or shell companies contribute directly to candidates' campaigns," said Massoglia, "which is something that's not allowed at the federal level. They're only allowed to spend in support of the candidate."

Massoglia emphasized that while dark money can come from various sources, it often comes from one type.

She said 501(c)(4) nonprofits are supposed to exist for social welfare purposes, but due to few restrictions on their spending they are able to spend practically unlimited sums on elections without ever disclosing their donors.




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