Imagine 2025 Where Democracy is Absent

By Shelley Frost, As published in The Union

If you have not yet heard about Project 2025, count your lucky stars that its nightmare scenario has not yet descended upon America. It is not too late to learn about and imagine how America could look should their ideas become reality. By that I mean, the catastrophic vision of Project 2025, with your help, can still be stopped in its tracks.

Project 2025 is a 900-page manifesto and roadmap that radical conservatives have devised to dismantle progressive policies along with key parts of the US government. Published by The Heritage Foundation – an activist conservative think tank – Project 2025 is intended for the next Republican president, Donald Trump, as a workbook in the many ways the federal government can destroy American lives.

Under the anti-democratic decrees listed on the Project 2025 website, each one of us will be at risk. Two central tenets that cling to every policy listed on its pages, are hatred of “the other” and Christian nationalism. The project has assembled over 80 far-right groups whose missions include terminating rights for immigrants, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, women, climate activists, and ending the progress made in election protections and medical advancements.

In the following paragraphs this new reality and its outcomes are imagined.

Overseeing the implementation of Project 2025 and the destruction of American democracy and society will be an authoritarian president – Donald Trump. As a fascist leader, he will abolish civil liberties, free elections, and the independence of justice departments. Project 2025 specifically calls on the president to institute the Insurrection Act of 1807 to launch the US military as domestic law enforcement.

Imagine you or people you know being detained by police without being charged with a crime; having your homes searched without a warrant; being racially profiled; enduring police brutality without recourse. Imagine armed soldiers swarming your city streets.

The president will spread disinformation and ensure that criticism and dissent are punished. As the US Constitution and Bill of Rights become obsolete, freedoms of speech, assembly, the press, and religion are wiped out.

Imagine Guantanamo-type prison camps sprouting up across the country where fellow Americans are held for speaking against this new government; where journalists and religious leaders are imprisoned without cause.

Christian Nationalism is a central component of Project 2025. The separation of church and state will be obliterated, and the Christian religion and its priorities will be instituted in all aspects of American life. Blessed are those who discriminate against and suppress women, LGBTQ+ people, minorities and those who practice other religions.

Imagine a day at your local hospital where a child is denied a life-saving appendectomy because the surgeon on duty disavows the child’s Jewish faith. Or a dying woman whose pregnancy has gone awry, is left to suffer outside a hospital (oh wait, that’s currently happening in Republican-led states where they have passed laws preventing doctors from assisting such patients). Imagine LGBTQ+ people being falsely accused and jailed for “crimes” of pedophilia and pornography.

In a spectacular display of partisanship and the denial of common sense, Project 2025 plans to demolish the ranks of civil service – government employees who run the agencies we rely on for environmental protection; equality in the workplace; regulation of energy; consumer protections; transportation safety. Many of these employees are experts in their fields – scientists, lawyers, regulators, and public health experts.

Imagine decades of knowledge and experience being wiped out and replaced with loyalists and sycophants who do the bidding of the authoritarian president. Say good-bye to safety in the skies; clean air and water; fairness and justice in the workplace; safe foods and pharmaceuticals.

To learn more about Project 2025 and how their proposals and worldview will transform the United States of America into a country we no longer recognize, visit their website at www.project2025.org.

Now imagine a country where our children can grow up to live the American dream where everyone can enjoy equal opportunities to achieve success, prosperity, and happiness through working hard to the best of our abilities. This November, vote for America, and against Project 2025.