The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” officially titled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” poses significant threats to democracy and the American way of life. This comprehensive conservative agenda for the next administration risks undermining democratic institutions, eroding civil liberties, and increasing economic and social divisions, particularly affecting the working class.
A major proposal is replacing many nonpartisan career civil servants with political appointees, potentially up to 54,000 positions. This would undermine the expertise and stability of the civil service, affecting the quality and impartiality of government services.
The plan includes abolishing the Departments of Education, Homeland Security, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. This move indicates resistance to federal involvement in education and climate change, promotes state control over education, and potentially defunds programs benefiting low-income families, such as Head Start and free school meals. It also proposes rejecting transgender rights, eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, and criminally prosecuting entities with DEI initiatives, threatening civil rights advancements and fostering discrimination.
Project 2025’s agenda restricts abortion, defunds Planned Parenthood, and bans critical race theory in schools. It seeks to dismantle workers’ rights to organize through unions and proposes outlawing pornography, with severe penalties for educators or librarians accessing it. These measures represent significant intrusions into personal freedoms and labor rights.
In economic policy, Project 2025 advocates for a flat tax rate benefiting higher earners and corporations, increasing the tax burden on low-income taxpayers. It also recommends significant cuts to Medicaid and imposing work requirements for coverage, straining the safety net for working families. Its foreign policy stance includes withdrawing from international organizations like the WHO and various UN agencies, weakening global cooperation and the U.S.’s role in international affairs, impacting trade and economic stability.
The proposed rollback of policies addressing social inequities threatens to dismantle affirmative action, reduce social welfare programs, and limit healthcare access, exacerbating existing disparities. These actions deepen societal divisions, increase poverty, and diminish opportunities for marginalized communities, undermining equal opportunity and destabilizing the political environment.
Project 2025’s proposal to restructure the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI threatens the impartiality of the legal system. Allowing an administration to dismiss ongoing politically motivated investigations creates a dangerous precedent, undermining public trust in the rule of law. For working people, this means a justice system that may not protect their rights impartially, leaving them vulnerable to abuses of power.
Moreover, Project 2025’s promotion of economic nationalism and protectionist trade measures risks isolating the U.S. from the global economy. These policies lead to higher prices for consumers, reduced economic growth, strained international relations, harming global trade relations, and job losses in industries relying on international trade.
Project 2025 threatens the core principles of American democracy and harms the working class by politicizing justice, increasing surveillance, militarizing foreign policy, fostering social divisions, and promoting economic isolationism. Protecting democracy requires vigilance and a commitment to justice, equality, and freedom, ensuring the interests of working people are safeguarded.
Labor unions and working people must vigorously oppose Project 2025’s anti-labor agenda, which threatens to undermine worker rights, civil liberties, and social welfare programs. By dismantling unions, reducing worker protections, and promoting policies that favor the wealthy, this agenda jeopardizes the well-being of the working class. Unions and workers need to unite and push back against these harmful proposals to protect their rights, ensure fair labor practices, and uphold the values of justice, equality, and democracy that are fundamental to a thriving society.
Why Eye Write 