Project 2025 Is Alive and Well (in spite of what you might have heard) (REVISED)

As most of you already know, an examination of Project 2025, developed under the leadership of The Heritage Foundation [See my post Who/What Is The Heritage Foundation?] reveals a chilling scenario. In their own words: “This book is the product of more than 400 scholars and policy experts from across the conservative movement and around the country….This is an agenda prepared by and for conservatives who will be ready on Day One of the next Administration to save our country.” Even a superficial reading of the plan indicates their concept of “saving the country” involves destroying the Constitution, dismantling our democratic foundation, and, most clearly, turning this country into a Christian Nationalist autocracy. In this case, the MAGAs have taken over what we used to know as the Republican party, aka the GOP (Grand Old Party), which it is no longer.

What is ironic is that the neoconservative movement headed up by The Heritage Foundation currently have as their figurative head, one of the most irreligious public figures today. Why? Because he’s charismatic, easily manipulated because of his extreme narcissism and lack of meaningful intelligence or understanding of others, and has to have the sense he’s a winner and in control, neither of which is true. Constantly repeated lies are his coat of armor. Project 2025 helps to enforce that armor while pursuing their own goals. Make no mistake, Trump may be a figurehead, but he is perfectly willing to support Project 2025 because, at least for now, he is the figurehead.

Two points about Project 2025: First, and most important from a strategic perspective, is that due to public backlash, Project 2025 has gone partially underground, but is still hard at work. Their current focus is based on Pillar II and III of their published mission. This is that focus in their words.

Pillar II is a personnel database that allows candidates to build their own professional profiles and our coalition members to review and voice their recommendations. These recommendations will then be collated and shared with the President-elect’s team, greatly streamlining the appointment process.

 Pillar III is the Presidential Administration Academy, an online educational system taught by experts from our coalition. For the newcomer, this will explain how the government functions and how to function in government. For the experienced, we will host in-person seminars with advanced training and set the bar for what is expected of senior leadership.

Second, is there continued emphasis on disregarding separation of church and state and a specific emphasis on government funding of Christian schools, taking money designated for public schools. The founding fathers and many Presidents could not have been clearer that this country must have separation of church and state. As the times have changed since the Constitution was written, this has become even more obvious as our diversity widens, as civic education is falling by the wayside in place of STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), which remains critically important, but so are civics and history, perhaps more so today than ever before. Here are a few Presidential quotes on the issue. Notice how many also state no public funds for religious schools and no prayers in school.

President James Madison: “[I]t may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov’t from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.” (Letter to Rev. Adams, ca. 1832.)

President Andrew Jackson (explaining why he declined to call for official days of prayer and fasting): “I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.” (Letter to the Synod of the Reformed Church of North America, June 12, 1832)

President John Tyler: “The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent — that of total separation of Church and State.” (Letter ca. 1843.)

President James K. Polk: “Thank God, under our Constitution there was no connection between Church and State.” (Diary entry, Oct. 14, 1846)

President Millard Fillmore: “I am tolerant of all creeds. Yet if any sect suffered itself to be used for political objects I would meet it by political opposition. In my view church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact. Religion and politics should not be mingled.” (Address during 1856 presidential election)

President Ulysses S. Grant: “Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that neither the state nor nation shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.” (Speech to veterans of the Army of Tennessee, Sept. 30, 1875.)

President Rutherford B. Hayes: “We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion suffer by all such interference.” (Statement 1875 when Governor of Ohio.)

President James Garfield: “The divorce between Church and State ought to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no Church property anywhere, in any state or in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization (school), to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community.” (Letter accepting presidential nomination, July 12, 1880)

President Theodore Roosevelt: “I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be nonsectarian and no public moneys appropriated for sectarian schools.” (Speech, Oct. 12, 1915)

President Jimmy Carter: “I believe in the separation of church and state and would not use my authority to violate this principle in any way.”
(Letter to Jack V. Harwell, August 11, 1977)

President Ronald Reagan: “Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.” (Speech to Temple Hillel and Community Leaders in Valley Stream, N.Y., October 26, 1984)

This Is NOT a Church

It’s difficult to find both truth and facts on their website today, but some information remains. If you haven’t read the original, it’s difficult to judge the real from the masquerade.

https://www.project2025.org/