Why You Should Care About Project 2025
What Trump becoming President truly means…
by Arielle Gin ★ DECEMBER 17, 2024
Design: Lily Zuckerman
With Donald J. Trump’s re-election as the 47th President of the United States on November 5, it’s important to be aware of the dangers posed by Project 2025, a policy agenda that could fundamentally reshape the U.S. government and impact Americans’ rights.
Despite Trump’s repeated claims that he has no idea who is behind Project 2025, CNN found that at least 140 people in Trump’s last administration helped create the 900 page manifesto, with six of his former cabinet secretaries helping to write it. While Trump did not directly endorse Project 2025 in his campaign, over 240 people associated with his administration had a hand in creating the plan. Spearheaded by the conservative Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 poses a threat to democracy, presenting a detailed blueprint for the Trump administration to completely restructure the executive branch. Project 2025 outlines a proposal that seeks to decrease federal involvement in areas like education, immigration and climate regulations while pushing a conservative social agenda.
Restricting Abortion Access
Project 2025 will limit access to abortion care by revoking the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a safe and effective drug used in medical abortions. This would remove the drug from the market entirely, threatening the two-thirds of abortions done through medication. Project 2025 also aims to reinstate the Comstock Act, which will ban all abortion medications and equipment from being sent via the U.S. Postal Service. However, it doesn’t end here: the main goal of Project 2025 is to ban and criminalize abortion care across the U.S. On top of implementing a federal surveillance system for pregnant people, the initiative would implement “conscience laws,” which would allow providers to deny patients care based on personal beliefs. So if a doctor doesn’t believe in abortions, with this law, they would be allowed to prevent the patient from receiving abortion care.
Mass Deportations
Project 2025 seeks to carry out mass deportations by removing federal funding from immigration legal services, asylum protections and programs that support unaccompanied children. With almost 110,000 immigrants entering the U.S. every day, Project 2025 would fast-track deportation by allowing the federal government to deport people without a court hearing. Additionally, the document calls for the removal, arrest and detention of immigrants without a warrant. Reduced legal protections, almost non-existent federal funding and a gutted asylum system would destabilize the U.S. immigration system and restrict individuals' ability to legally defend themselves against deportation.
Threatening LGBTQ+ Rights
Project 2025 aims to eliminate protections for the LGBTQ+ community by ending funding for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs and replacing the Department of Health and Human Services with the “Department of Life.” Project 2025 also threatens gay marriage, as non-heterosexual marriage and family rights are considered to be in conflict with the project’s religious beliefs. On page 451 of the document, the initiative promotes that “families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society,” directly attacking LGBTQ+ marriages. And while the proposal does not directly state that it will ban same-sex marriages, it does indirectly call “for treating same sex marriages as second-class marriages” and states support for the “biblically based” definition of family. Project 2025 additionally attacks the trans community by cutting federal funding for gender-affirming care for both minors and adults. It also calls for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund research that explores the “negative effects” of gender-affirming care.
Gut the Public Education System
Project 2025 aims to dismantle the Department of Education, stripping the federal role in public education, pushing Americans toward a private, and expensive, education. Project 2025’s ban of Title I would eliminate the funding provided to high-poverty schools and students with disabilities, threaten the FAFSA and Pell Grant for college students, and remove the Head Start program which provides education to children up to age 5 from low income families as well as end universal free school meals. The initiative also promises to prioritize banning books that talk about LGBTQ+ topics and the Critical Race Theory, which would completely censor academic learning. With the plan cracking down on the Department of Education, over 180,000 teachers will lose their jobs, 2.8 million students will be affected, and 800,000 preschoolers, toddlers, and infants will lose early learning services.
Jeopardize Climate Change Efforts
Project 2025 has plans to completely undo current climate change efforts by starting with ending climate protection and gutting clean energy programs. The initiative highlights the Trump’s administration's plan to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change that requires participating countries to report on their carbon emissions and outline how they plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate impacts. Additionally, Project 2025 also plans to replace climate advisors with fossil fuel lobbyists, upholding Trump’s promise to expand oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. Without American efforts to fight climate change, international efforts to reduce carbon emissions and global warming will most likely fail.
Destabilize Criminal Justice Reform
Lastly, Project 2025 will completely alter the criminal justice reform system. It will take legal action against local prosecutors and encourage them to increase sentences, minimize sentencing reductions, and increase the use of the death penalty. Project 2025 will also politize the Department of Justice (DOG) by expanding the number of political appointees in every office of the DOJ, encouraging the department to follow a more conservative right-wing agenda.
Project 2025 is more than a policy proposal- it’s a detailed and far-reaching manifesto with the potential to drastically reshape the American government and society. Under a Trump administration, its implementation could lead to profound changes in areas such as reproductive rights, immigration, education, LGBTQ+ protections, climate policy, and criminal justice reform.
The impact of Project 2025 extends beyond partisan politics—it touches the core of what it means to live in a democracy. Whether you agree with its vision or oppose its initiatives, understanding its implications is critical as its policies have the power to affect the everyday lives of Americans.
Read the full Project 2025 plan here