There has been a lot of speculation as to what would happen if (G*d forbid) Donald Trump is elected president in 2024. A natural-born authoritarian, Trump might seek to govern in the image of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, Hungary’s Viktor Orban and other dictators. Trump himself denied the charge somewhat, saying that he would only be a dictator on “Day One. We’re closing the border, and we’re [oil] drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.” In other forums, Trump also promised to use the powers of the presidency to evade justice and punish his enemies.
Though it is not clear as to what a second Trump administration would look like, a good place to start is in the pages of Project 2025 (www.Project2025.org), a plan developed by the Heritage Foundation along with other groups with close ties to the former president. It seeks to replace federal civil service workers with reliably conservative recruits. This would give Trump absolute power over the executive branch, which he did not have during his first administration. “It is not enough for conservatives to win elections,” the Project reads. “If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration.” Once they achieve power, the authors of Project 2025 plan to deal with “four broad fronts that will decide America’s future:
1. Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
2. Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
3. Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
4. Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely – what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”
“What makes these four pieces of the conservative promise too valuable to the next President is that they cut through superficial distractions and focus on the moral and foundational challenges America faces in this moment of history.”
There is a lot to digest here, but some of it affects us directly. It seeks to delete “sexual orientation and gender identity, gender equality, gender equity … and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.” “Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children … should be outlawed … Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.” “Allowing parents or physicians to ‘reassign’ the sex of a minor is child abuse and must end.” The folks behind Project 2025 also “celebrate” the overturn of Roe v. Wade and advise their president to “work with Congress to enact the most robust protections ... while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent life.”
In short, if Trump is elected president with Project 2025 as his blueprint, we might as well kiss our democracy good-bye, not to mention many programs and ideas that we now take for granted. This is why we must do all that we can to make sure that this nightmare does not come true. Fascism, which is now making a comeback around the world, may become a reality in this land of the free and home of the brave.
