Editor, Times-Union:
Since the 900-plus pages of Project 2025 were released to the public, Donald Trump, a contributor to its creation (check out his speech from April 2022) is now back-peddling, saying he knows nothing about the manifesto or its creators - in spite of the fact that at least 29 of its 37 authors are former members of his administration. Although stating, “I know nothing about Project 2025 ...,” he did say, “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Whatever they’re doing, I wish them well.” The leader of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, recently said in a TV interview, “The country is in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” (In other words, if everyone against it just bows down and conforms.)
Time magazine published an interview Trump gave in April of this year. Following are quoted passages from that published interview with Eric Cortellessa: “In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.”
A few specific results of the removal of those constraints would include “... a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans ... He would be willing to fire a U.S. attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding.”
Other mandates Trump has in mind, according to independent reporting include “Deploying the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit (especially to forcefully stop citizen protests of any kind); closing the White House pandemic-preparedness office; staffing his administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.”
In addition, the would-be autocratic leader promises to eliminate all Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) programs across the entire federal government, leading to dire consequences for qualified women, minorities and people with disabilities and adversely affecting agencies’ ability to form cohesive and productive workforces with populations being drawn from diverse backgrounds in terms of age, gender, race, cultural backgrounds, etc. He promises to fight unions and to restrict collective bargaining rights. His budget plans call for the elimination of funding for the arts and humanities, public TV and library funding, calling these wasteful and unnecessary.
Compare the Time interview, Project 2025 and the newly proposed Republican Party platform. Pretty much identical plans for the restructuring of America and the “Second Coming” of Trump.
Paula Brown
Warsaw