“I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.”
That’s what former President Donald Trump recently posted on social media, attempting (rather poorly) to distance himself from the now notorious set of recommendations for how “the next conservative president” can “deconstruct the administrative state.”
His claim of complete ignorance is dubious.
The plan was produced by the Heritage Foundation, a long-time prominent conservative think tank. Several former Trump Cabinet officials and advisors contributed to its development. Its website says that the “next conservative president will enter office on January 20, 2025,” an obvious reference to current general election favorite Trump.
Project 2025 might not be “the” plan for a second Trump term, but many of its ideas will find their way into his administration if he’s elected in November.
At the heart of Project 2025 are two seemingly contradictory beliefs. First, there’s the desire to shrink the size of the federal government through deregulation and the dissolution of much of the executive branch. Second, there’s the desire to impose its social ideology, religion and political aims using the power of the presidency and the federal government in general. They don’t actually want to weaken the government—they just want it to stop providing services and regulating the private sector.
They’ve conveniently laid out their social conservatism, small government libertarianism and christofascism in a neatly organized policy proposal, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.
Unfortunately, it’s over 900 pages long and can’t possibly be fully dissected in this op-ed. So, this columnist will focus on what should be one of the most relevant sections to students: the recommendations for the Department of Education.
But first, there’s something peculiar about the way the authors talk about their work.
They frame themselves as brave revolutionaries—patriotic everymen taking it upon themselves to fight a holy war against their evil oppressors for the sake of their sacred traditional lifestyle.
They want to “save the country from the grip of the radical Left” and frame the next GOP presidency as “the last opportunity to save [the] republic.” They claim to have a “mandate” from the public and refer to their target audience as “Mr. Smith, Mrs. Smith, and Ms. Smith.”
This framing is not a new strategy for the GOP, a party which has claimed to represent the “silent majority” since the days of Richard Nixon. The very name of the Heritage Foundation harkens back to an imagined past that Project 2025 seeks to resurrect.
And shaping the youth is an important step in their plan for the future.
The chapter on the Department of Education was written by Lindsey Burke, a Heritage Foundation “research” lead and proponent of school choice, among other right-wing education priorities.
She advocates for a very minimal federal role in education, including the complete elimination of the Department of Education. Instead, it would be a local issue. This would create a so-called “education freedom” that “exposes” schools to the whim of the free market and prioritizes students’ economic output over their intellectual development.
Simply put, Project 2025 would seek to begin the process of removing the federal government from having any substantial control over education. The Heritage Foundation does not believe in using the full power of the federal government to cultivate our nation’s youth.
Project 2025 sees poor test scores and decides that the solution is to gut funding, not increase it or target it more effectively.
It rejects student loan forgiveness and calls for ending several grant and loan programs.
The plan seeks to protect private institutions which push noxious ideas on gender, sexuality and other topics under the guise of “religious beliefs.” And public schools in red states could more easily teach distorted versions of history and unscientific perspectives on biology and climate change.
It calls for a federal “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” which is really just a set of protections for bigoted parents to control and invade the privacy of their children, potentially driving more queer youth with unsupportive parents to self-harm and suicide.
In recent online discourse, “Project 2025” has become a buzz word thrown around to describe anything to do with a new Trump administration and the GOP party platform. But it’s very real and incredibly repulsive. Students and every American should take it seriously.
Matthew Pellittieri is a 20-year-old history and political science junior from Ponchatoula.
