By Clay N. Middleton
EDITORIAL
During the campaign, then former President Donald Trump asserted that he had no knowledge of Project 2025, the document aimed at significantly changing the direction and structure of the U.S. federal government. That claim was no more truthful than the existence of Santa Claus.
Project 2025, also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, is a political initiative led by The Heritage Foundation. This conservative think tank spent $ 22 million conducting research, developing recommendations, providing programming and training, soliciting resumes, conducting interviews, and organizing to hit the ground running on day one of a conservative administration. Their focus, discipline, determination, and money are paying off.
Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is one of the key authors of Project 2025. He wrote the section on presidential powers centered on freezing federal spending and applying strict fiscal discipline throughout the federal government. Now, he runs the office that supervises the operations of all federal agencies, considers their budget request, and prepares a budget for the President to submit to Congress. OMB is the heartbeat of the federal government. Project 2025 and the leadership of Director Vought will cause a cardiac arrest.
We are here not due to a messaging problem, lack of organization, or the wrong candidate being at the top of the Democratic ticket. There were
issues, and things that should have been done were not. I witnessed this up close and personal. Nevertheless, a segment of the American people decided to stay home. They consciously chose to ignore everything that was said about the effects of Project 2025 for nearly a year. They believed that another term for Trump, along with his interests and those of his billionaire friends, was preferable.
How is eliminating Head Start and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, privatizing student loans and VA medical care, abolishing the U.S. Economic Development Administration, ending climate change funding, cutting the IRS and Veterans Affairs employees, and threatening to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education preferable for you, your family, and community?
The verdict is still out on whether there is a constitutional crisis. However, when President Trump stated, “he who saves his country does not violate any law,” and when the United States Supreme Court declared that a President is immune from prosecution while exercising the core powers of the presidency, such a crisis may be imminent.
Either way, Project 2025 is fully underway. This is reflected in President Trump’s executive orders, the legislation Republicans are introducing and voting on in Congress, the individuals he is appointing throughout the federal government, and those being confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
All is not lost. In our form of government, every registered voter has the same power as the wealthiest individuals. Those who now see and feel the impact of elections can do a few things: register to vote, cast their vote, and encourage family and friends to do the same. Be active in government by showing up to a school board, city, or council council meeting. Ask your state and federal elected officials what they are doing for you; challenge them on the reality of their
vote, the talking points they recite, and the work they do for you, not themselves and their friends.
Every infrastructure project, road and transportation improvement, access to capital for small business owners, broadband connectivity, affordable housing initiative, food and health safety measures, rural programs, and many other everyday goods and services that improve our lives are at risk.
Project 2025 represents an ideological agenda driven by money, power, and taking our country backward. It has nothing to do with identifying waste, fraud, or abuse. If that were the case, Elon Musk would be the biggest culprit, as he is taking from us to maintain his status as the wealthiest person in the world.
While Project 2025 may currently be underway, I still have faith and hope in the inherent goodness of most people. With the same focus, discipline, determination, and resources that fueled its creation, we can ensure the effects of Project 2025 are short-lived. We just have to show up and vote!
Clay Middleton is a native of Charleston, SC.
“I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.”
— Muhammad Ali