This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Like so many of us, you've probably been sweltering these last weeks in record-breaking temperatures across the (increasingly dis-)United States that were anything but typical of the world we once knew. In fact, June was the 13th month in a row to break global heat records. In that context, consider it striking that the basic program for a future Trumpian presidency, Project 2025, was put together mainly by a set of former Trumpian officials at the "notorious rightwing climate-denying think tank" the Heritage Foundation (which, by early 2017, was already calling on then-President Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate accords). Today, TomDispatch regulars Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes focus on Project 2025 in grimly striking ways, and let me just add to their bleak report that Project 2025 and a future Trumpian presidency are also guaranteed to make you oh-so-much hotter.
Climate change? Never heard of it. The recent convention that nominated Donald Trump and J.D. Vance didn't even mention it, except for the references of J. D. Vance and others to "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's Green New Scam" and, as you may remember, The Donald has sworn from "day one" to "drill, baby, drill" for ever more fossil fuels. As Lisa Friedman of the New York Times reported recently, Project 2025 calls for, among other disastrous things, "erasing any mention of climate change across the government" and "the elimination of offices at the Department of Energy dedicated to developing wind, solar, and other renewable energy."
Meanwhile, don't forget that last month The Donald met with top oil executives at Mar-a-Lago and, while urging them to give him a billion dollars for his presidential campaign, the former president (who once called climate change a "hoax") swore, according to the Washington Post, to reverse Biden administration climate policies and essentially do anything he could to, yes, let them "drill, drill, drill." In other words, in a future Trump administration, whatever else he does (and Theoharis and Barnes lay out those plans in Project 2025 in grim detail), consider one thing guaranteed, he's going to make you and the rest of the world sweat! Tom
Project 2025
A New Pax Romana
By Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes
Roman poet Juvenal coined the phrase "bread and circuses" nearly 2,000 years ago for the extravagant entertainment the Roman Empire used to distract attention from imperial policies that caused widespread discontent. Imagine the lavish banquets, gladiatorial bouts, use and abuse of young men and women for the pleasure of the rich, and so much more that characterized the later years of that empire. And none of it seems that far off from the situation we, in these increasingly dis-United States, find ourselves in today.
Although the Roman Empire described itself as being in favor of life and peace, the various Caesars and their enablers regularly dealt death and destruction in their wake. They spread the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace), including a taxation system that left the poor in debt servitude, a military that caused terror and violence across the then-known world, and a ruling authority that pitted whole communities against each other, while legislating who could associate with whom (passing marriage laws, for instance, that banned gay, inter-racial, or even cross-class marriages). The emperor in power in Jesus's time, Caesar Augustus, was known for ushering in a Golden Age of Moral Values that went hand in hand with that Pax Romana, and it meant war and death, especially for the poor.
Fast forward millennia and that world bears a strange resemblance to the media distractions, violence, and regressive policies that MAGA and other extremists are pushing forward in our times. Whether it's Donald Trump's assertion that "I alone can fix your problems"; Supreme Court and state legislative attacks on reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, and trans youth in the name of family values; cuts to welfare, healthcare, worker's rights and other life-sustaining programs to protect corporate interests; the militarizing of endless communities by allowing guns (especially AR-15 rifles) to proliferate, while offering only thoughts and prayers to the victims of violence, the MAGA movement is promoting culture wars and extremist policies under the banner of Christian nationalism. In doing so, its leaders are perfecting a disdain for the excluded, exploited, and rejected that hurts the poor first and worst, but impacts all of society.
And now, after decades of neoliberal plunder and the coronation of an avowed Christian nationalist -- Speaker of the House Mike Johnson -- to the third most powerful position in the government, the Christian Right and its wealthy patrons have their eyes set on an even more ambitious power-grab: Project 2025. Articulated through the Heritage Foundation's 2025 Presidential Transition Project, it's a sprawling plan to maximize presidential power with hundreds of newly trained and deployed political operatives during Donald Trump's next presidency. It was seen in full display recently at the Republican National Convention and made all the more likely by the recent assassination attempt against him with (yes!) an AR-15! The nearly 900-page document outlines a plan to ramp up U.S. military might, slash social welfare programs, and prioritize "traditional marriage." A reflection of the Republican Party today, including several Christian nationalist organizations and billionaire funders listed among its 100 institutional sponsors, Project 2025 is a roadmap for what could be thought of as a new Pax Romana.
The Formal Project 2025 Takeover
As Project 2025's official website explains (and doesn't this sound like it could come directly from the mouth of vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance?): "It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration." Although its authors unabashedly deploy the language of conservative populism -- decrying wokeness and "cultural Marxists" -- the plan is chiefly concerned with how to put ever greater control of both people and resources in the hands of a small minority of mostly white, mostly male, wealthy Christians.
The wholesale capture of the state is the ultimate goal of its Christian nationalist architects. Project 2025 simply clarifies just how they plan to implement their drive for power. Each of its sections -- from "taking the reins of government" by centralizing executive authority in the office of the President to securing "the common defense" by expanding every branch of the military -- is worth reviewing.
The longest section focuses on "general welfare" and it should be no surprise that the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development are subject to significant cutbacks, including:
- Imposing yet stricter eligibility standards, work requirements, and asset tests to constrain access to Medicaid, even though more than 23 million Americans have been unenrolled from that program since 2023;
- Revisiting how the "Thrifty Food Plan" is formulated to minimize food-stamp allocations, while imposing onerous work requirements on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), even though most of its recipients work and/or are in households with children, elderly people, or people with disabilities;
- Ending universal free school meals by removing the "community eligibility provision," which allows school districts with high poverty rates to provide free breakfast and lunch programs to all children in need;
- Eliminating Head Start, which has served 39 million children and families since 1965 and currently serves more than 800,000 poor families with young children, while shuttering the Department of Education;
- Ending "Housing First" programs and prohibiting non-citizens, including mixed-status families, from living in low-income public housing; and
- Imposing a "life agenda" and a "family agenda" that will restrict access to abortion and reproductive rights, and otherwise curtail LGBTQ+ rights.
Such proposals would undoubtedly be deeply unpopular. In fact, as people learn more about Project 2025, opposition is growing, even across party lines. Most Americans want a government that would provide for the down-and-out, who are a growing segment of the population and the electorate, as well as one that supports abortion rights, voting rights, and the freedom of expression. At least 40% of us -- 135-140 million people -- are either poor or one emergency away from economic ruin, including 80 million eligible voters. Project 2025's social welfare cuts would, in fact, push significant numbers of people across the poverty line into financial ruin.
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