American Horror Story: Project 2025
It's already in place. The only question is how far will we allow it to go.
God, it was a relief when Taraji P Henson called out Project 2025 and how dangerous it is on the BET awards. People finally started Googling it and taking it seriously, and I released a jagged, tearful exhale. I’m sure other surivors who’ve been sounding the warnings sighed too.
Almost immediately, Trump and his cohort began distancing themselves from it.
Even though over 80% of his administration was involved in organizing it—and the organizers required the ability to choose his administration to endorse him.
Even though he’s been photographed, recorded, applauded, and participated in events supporting Project 2025 and the organizing foundations: The Heritage Foundation, Liberty University, the IBLP, Focus on the Family, Moms of Liberty, and over a hundred more.
Even though it’s Trump’s Project 2025. Even though he’s their boy.
Even though his tweet said he had no idea what it was or who was beind it…but disagrees with it, used no caps, and used big words like “abysmal.” He wishes them luck.
God, I get sick of being gaslit and lied to.
The receipts on this one are easy. There’s a digital footprint of his invovlement all over the place, including in the 900 page document. But what’s frustrating is that even though more people are outraged about it, those people are not Trump voters changing their minds. And there’s a reason for that.
What gets lost in the outrage about Project 2025 is that many evangelical Republicans already live this way.
They’re not shocked.
They’re waiting.
Project 2025 was organized by The Heritage Foundation, James Dobson’s Family Policy Alliance, The Alliance Defending Freedom, and 110 other conservative Christian organizations.
You may know those names from Focus on the Family, Adventures in Odyssey, William J. Bennett (Book of Virtues,) Bill Gothard’s IBLP, Bob Jones, Liberty University, Michael Ferris and the HomeSchool Legal Defense Association, Moms for Liberty, Pat Robertson.
Mike Johnson, Amy Coney Barrett, Josh Hawley, Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence and William Barr are all associated with The Alliance Defending Freedom.
The Heritage Foundation has shaped foreign policy, our military, and war efforts since 1973. They believe in Dominion Theology, which teaches Christians are to take over the world. They’d need a military to do so, which means they need power.
These groups believe the Bible, not the constitution, is the cornerstone of public policy.
They especially cling to the Old Testament, so when it seems like their hard lines have nothing to do with Jesus, grace, and love, it’s because they don’t.
These hard lines predate Jesus.
Dominionists interpret the Bible through a patriarchal lens that ignores other viewpoints, voices, or possibilities.
They believe in dominance through population and through an authoritarian power structure that eliminates what they perceive to be obstacles to their agenda.
The groups who wrote Project 2025 chose Trump as their standard bearer to gain power, the same as they’ve done with Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes. They’re using him to gain control, but a requirement of their support is that they control the staffing of his administration.
Their goal is to consolidate executive power because an authoritarian power structure is in alignment with their Biblical worldview and the “Umbrella of Authority” taught in Christian Fundamentalism. A king or dictator matches their theology. They’re accustomed to a man in charge telling them what to do, and this feels safe to them. To them, democracy is a sinful mess, chaotic, involves sharing and change, and is inefficient for their high-control mindset.
A man in charge of everything for everyone gets more done and eliminates what they don’t want: expression, diversity, equality, or uncertainty. Restricting rights is how they do this, from their family, to their church, to their corporations, to their country.
Beleive Survivors
The rights they’d take from you are already forbidden and restricted in their congregations and homes. This means that evangelical voters have no qualms about voting to take from you what they do not have themselves. They’ve been priming you to accept their ways for years.
“People who aren’t from here” are set apart, imprisoned, rejected, or segregated into groups (see internment camps)
People of color do not lead, except for token representation, and when they do, they must toe the party line. They only get to have certain jobs (see the DEI and Dept of Labor)
Women serve. Women do not vote. (except when the popular count matters.)Women do not have careers or work outside the home. Women do not accuse men. Women do not say no.
Children do not go to integrated schools, if they go to school at all. (see charters, parental rights with homeschool, and the end of the Dept. of Ed)
School is where children learn to pray.
Preschool doesn’t exist. (see the end of Head Start and free lunches)
There is no birth control or healthcare for women, especially abortion or miscarriage care. Unlimited pregnancies contribute to white babies for dominance and brown babies for war.
Books, movies, and entertainment are banned except carefully controlled titles that support the agenda.
Dissent is forbidden.
Women are punished. (LITERALLY. I was spanked.)
Queer people don’t exist, let alone express. (see conversion therapy and the end of LGBTQ marriage)
Enemies are dominated and squashed, be that a political dissident, a mouthy woman, or a foreign adversary.
Poverty is for the bottom 98% of the pyramid.
Divorce isn’t allowed. (remember, women don’t accuse men)
The planet is for our consumption. The climate doesn’t matter.
Elections are risky. Best not to have them.
If we want to protect democracy from Christian Fundamentalism and an authoritarian theocracy, we have to unify, outnumber, and raise our voices.
We have to show up with landslide energy, while we can still vote the patriarchy away.
They’re counting on us believing Trump’s distancing himself from Project 2025.
They’re counting on us getting distracted by media headlines and his swap with Agenda 47, which is essentially the same thing with a different name and some dumbed-down vocabulary. It’s a lot like how the SBC started rebranding churches without the “Baptist” name after the abuse scandals and the SBC report.
They’re counting on us not understanding the danger, because to them, restricting our rights is a solution they’ve equated with their calling from God.
They don’t think life like this is so bad.
Do you?
