Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

I have not read all 877 pages of the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership 2025 The Conservative Promise,” or the “playbook” for the first 180 days of the ”next Republican administration” drafted by Russ Vought, a former Trump OMB official and member of the RNC’s platform committee, or Heritage CEO Kevin Roberts’ book outlining Project 2025 (“P/2025”) which has been removed from publication until after the election because there’s no need to rile up the base this close to the election.

P/2025 is a dystopian rejection of the language and spirit of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. When word began to circulate what it was really proposing, every cable show except FOX analyzed it. Following the revelation, Trump passionately claimed ignorance about it and the people involved. In truth, he knows all the participants, has employed half of them in the WH, extols the Heritage Foundation, and is very much aware of the contents of P/2025.

P/2025 is the blueprint for a “second American Revolution” (“bloodless” unless anyone resists), a plan to alter government function, process, and authority.

1. Plans for an autocratic system that will remove safeguards inherent in the Constitutional “balance of power” between branches of government and give the president sole executive authority (“Unitary Executive”). It dissipates democracy (recall Trump’s promise to Christians that 2024 was the last time they would have to vote, after he “fixes” the system).
This is a decades-long plan (at least since Reagan). To create numerous truly dependable authoritarians, with Jerry Falwell’s help, they devised a hybrid of the church militant of Far-Right Christianity and Republican politics. A form of conservatism imbued with divine authority. Bingo.

2. To reward that base, P/2025 proposes to legislatively infuse varying levels of White Nationalism with “Old Testament Christianity” (where Christ’s admonition of Love Over Law is ignored for that of a vindictive, jealous deity). Legislation will define family structure in “covenant marriage,” force progeny over women’s reproductive rights, cultural rules, and the religious biases of the government. “Freedom” will be available only within those government-imposed parameters.

P/2025 proposes, within the first 180 days, to restructure the power and function of government. To reinstate Trump’s executive order regarding Schedule “F” (Biden rescinded it) and dismiss current non-partisan federal employees and replace them with vetted Republican political appointees in “confidential, policy-determining, policymaking, or policy-advocating positions.” There will be no contradiction of the Chief Executive (what Trump so admired about the dictator Orban). Vetting and training have already occurred.

P/2025 proposes the abolishment of multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Transportation Security Administration, whose functions would be eliminated, subsumed by other agencies, or privatized.

“Privatization” has been an objective of Republican economics. One definition of “fascism” is “the corporatization of government.” History has shown that placing governmental functions in the hands of chosen private entrepreneurs gives them greater power, produces less transparency, but creates wealthy political donors. All responsible to only the “Unitary Executive,” the single ultimate authority. Exactly why we fought the American Revolution against King George and WWII against Hitler and the Emperor.

Kelly Scoles,
Fillmore, Ca.