Madsplaining: Platforms and Project 2025
Lessen the evil
Earlier last week, there was a lot of reporting on the dangers supposedly posed by Project 2025. Project 2025 is a long document outlining policy recommendations for the next Republican president. It was drawn up by the Heritage Foundation a couple of years ago largely to present a roadmap on ways to avoid some of the pitfalls of the Trump administration such as staff turnover and legislative stalemate. Think tanks like to pitch wish lists, such as Agenda 21 or Project for a New American Century, for ideologically-aligned politicians to take up when they come to power. Far from presenting new and radical ideas, Project 2025 outlines standard conservative goals, some more achievable than others. Corporate media and progressive writers were keen to paint the document as sinister and a sure way to end America. One blogger wrote that “Project 2025 is conservatives’ vision for an American society that’s a result of gutting all the gains made by the civil rights, abortion rights, LGBTIA+ rights, voting rights and environmental rights movements in order to establish an authoritarian government run by loyalists committed to serving a white, Christian nationalist agenda.” Donald Trump has distanced himself from the Project’s goals, while also saying he doesn’t know that much about it. (Project 2025 via X, Handbasket)
Both Democrats and Republicans have published their platforms – an outline of aims and promises, usually crafted by members of the party. Notably, Donald Trump looms large over both. The Republican platform “reads a lot like something Trump would write, with portions of it written in all caps, and references made to wokeness” while the Democrat’s vision mentions the former President 150 times. Both parties want to reduce the cost of living and support families, but neither look like they are willing to do so with careful fiscal policies, but rather promising to throw lots of cash around. That might be where the similarities between the platforms end. Pro-life groups were disappointed at the absence of the party’s traditionally robust commitment to defending life. Donald Trump has said he won’t push the issue any further, leaving states to rule on abortion as they see fit. While it would be nice to have a party which takes a clear and unequivocal stand on life, you can’t solve spiritual problems politically, as they say. As John Stonestreet said on World Radio, when it comes to elections and Christians find themselves between a rock and a hard place so far as which candidate to back, think not of voting for the lesser of two evils but rather, using your vote to lessen evil. (US News, Politico, Democrats.org, Just the News, WNG)