Looking forward two ways

The vibe, as they say, has shifted. In a matter of hours this past Sunday, the political calculus in both parties didn't just undergo a change—it was hollowed out, thrown onto a trash heap, and set on fire. Trump went from main stage hero with an Elvis sign behind him, raised fist of a bloodied warrior imprinted on t-shirts, to wandering around confused with a maxi-pad on his ear. Biden morphed from a doddering dementia patient to a storied statesman putting country before self in a remarkable show of his political savvy and sway. And Kamala. Well. That's probably the most stunning of all. No longer the mute bystander blending into the wallpaper, she's now the hipster with memes trailing her like confetti. She forms coherent sentences (most of the time). She's not the bad cop anymore but the Prosecutor vs The Felon. Her presence has taken a presidential race that had many of us weeping in dark rooms and turned it into an actual race. Who's going to win this damn thing? No one knows right now, but what is assured is that if we manage to avoid putting Hitler 2 in office for life, we will have a Black Female leader of the free world. And that makes me shiver with antici-pation.¹

Lest we get too carried away with positivity, don't forget Project 2025. Tired of hearing about it? Too bad! Because it's bad! Real real bad! The project's policy manifesto, crafted by The Heritage Foundation - to which JD Vance is closely tied - runs over 900 pages. Which is part of the point. They don't want to make it easy for your everyday American to understand how vastly and permanently they aim to change the US government and, subsequently, the way we live our daily lives. So here is a very abbreviated summary, taken from this wonderful website and abridged even further.

Project 2025 has 4 main pieces:

• Playbooks on how to gut major government agencies, including the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, the EPA, and Department of Justice.
• A private database of far-right loyalists who want to work for Trump, the goal being to have at least 20,000 of them ready to fill federal appointments one day one.
• A “Presidential Administration Academy” to train future appointees.
• An incredibly detailed agenda which those appointees and Trump’s cabinet will begin working to implement on day one.

This agenda is where the real fun begins. Here are the changes they intend to make in 5 key areas. I initially bolded the text of the most egregious actions, but had to stop when I realize I was bolding all of it.

• Reproductive rights
  • Institute a national abortion ban.
  • Reverse FDA approval of abortion pills. 
  • Demand data from states that currently allow abortion (wonder what they'll do with that?).
  • Use religious justification to demonize recreational sex and contraception, including restricting access to STD testing, birth control, and IVF.
• LGBTQ+ rights
  • Potentially criminalize transgender people and prevent them from serving in the military. 
  • Remove federal protections for all LGBTQ+ people, allowing them to be fired for their sexual or gender identity. 
  • Suggests “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ people. 
  • Recommends the U.S. government maintain a “biblically based” definition of marriage and family—heterosexual, two-parent families only.
• Civil rights
  • Fire government workers who have participated in DEI training. 
  • End diversity, equity, and inclusion offices in the military. 
  • Stop federal agencies from collecting data that could be used to address racial inequality. 
  • End the Fair Housing Act, which would allow housing discrimination against non-white Americans.
• Immigration
  • Calls for mass deportation of immigrants. (Note that this was the first platform plank approved by the party at last week's Republican convention.)
  • Suspend applications for legal immigration and reduce visas for the agricultural, construction, and hospitality sectors. 
  • Reduce protections for immigrants seeking asylum. 
  • Rescind protections for Dreamers — immigrants who came to America as children and grew up here. 
  • Dismantle the Department of Homeland Security. (The verb is important here. DHS would not be eliminated entirely but several of its key departments would be cut, including weapons training for federal officers.)
• Presidential power
  • Remove Congress’s ability to review U.S. foreign arms sales. 
  • Limit the power of Congressional oversight committees, shifting it to the Executive branch. 
  • End current policies that keep the Department of Justice and the FBI independent from the White House, allowing the President to interfere with how both agencies operate.

And I didn’t even get to public education or climate change. Project 2025’s overall intent is to imbue Christian Nationalism into every aspect of American life and neutralize the ability for any other branch or agency to challenge actions of the President. The structure they've set in place here would make it near impossible to get Trump (or anyone, really) out of office when their term is up.

Beyond putting all your energies and available funds behind the Democratic ticket this fall, it's important to spread details about Project 2025 far and wide. Trump and his cronies missed their first opportunity to reshape the country as they see fit. They won't make that mistake again.

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