Democrats launch effort to counter conservatives’ sweeping ‘Project 2025’

House Democrats this week are launching a concerted campaign to push back against Project 2025, a broad conservative effort to promote right-wing policies and expand the powers of the presidency in the event voters return Donald Trump to the White House for a second term.

Democrats are alarmed by the scope of Project 2025which encompasses virtually every facet of American life, and the policy changes it proposes, including the elimination of certain federal agencies, the overhaul of others, and the staffing of all departments with supporters of conservative causes.

Critics say the conservative playbook, originating from the Heritage Foundation, poses a threat to the very functioning of the government and democracy that has presided over Washington since the country’s founding, requiring an orchestrated counter-strategy to ensure it never gets off the ground. They are creating a new task force with this goal in mind.

“Americans don’t understand how far we are now on the road to a right-wing, dystopian theocracy,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who is leading the effort. “And that, at least for me, is the priority: making sure people know this and that we are ready to address it.”

The idea was conceived, Huffman said, after members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) were briefed by several liberal advocacy groups on the specifics of Project 2025. These groups, including Accountable US, the Center for American Progress, and the Brennan Center for Justice, will coordinate with the Democratic task force to get its message across ahead of the November elections.

“It just occurred to me that this issue is so significant and urgent that we really need to do more to highlight it, certainly to the American people in the coming months, but also to Congress,” Huffman said. “Because in the unthinkable event of Trump winning the presidency, this will all happen very quickly. And if we are reacting to that, we are losing.”

Launched two years ago by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 aims to dismantle the federal government and replace it with a smaller, more agile version — stocked with right-wing officials at all levels who would work to advance the next conservative president’s agenda. whether it’s Trump or someone else. The project emerged as part of the conservative outcry that “deep state” bureaucrats in federal agencies had acted to thwart Trump’s political agenda in his first term, including his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The project seeks to eradicate the so-called administrative state and fill the recently empty spaces with loyal conservatives. It presents four “pillars”, which establish a right-wing political roadmap to be followed by the next conservative president; provide a political strategy for adopting this agenda within 180 days; recruit an “army” of conservatives who will work in this administration; and offering a training component to ensure political appointees are “ready from day one”.

The group says it is not promoting any candidate and is not advising Trump — the Republicans’ presumptive 2024 nominee — on any specific policies.

“Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign, and it is ultimately up to the president to decide what policies to implement,” a Project 2025 spokesperson said in an email Monday.

However, the coalition includes more than 100 conservative groups outside of Heritage, some of which are led by former Trump administration officials. That list includes the Center for America’s Renewal, led by Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget and is now mentioned as a potential second-term chief of staff; America First Legal, headed by Stephen Miller, a former Trump speechwriter and senior advisor; and the Conservative Partnership Institute, where Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, serves as a senior partner.

“A president today assumes office to encounter an expanding federal bureaucracy that often carries out its own political plans and preferences – or, worse yet, the political plans and preferences of a radical, supposedly ‘woke’ faction of the country,” Vought wroteas part of the comprehensive manual that presents the vision of Project 2025.

The cast of figures behind the campaign has not been forgotten by Democrats, who see the venture as a roadmap for Trump to dismantle the pieces of government that resist anything he might attempt in a second term.

“This is not something that is fringe or not right in the fold of Trump and his team,” Huffman said. “They are like that; they are telling us what they are going to do.”

The Democrats’ exact strategy for reacting to Project 2025 remains up in the air. Huffman said it will likely consist of a series of public forums, in coordination with outside liberal groups, designed to educate the public “about the different elements of Project 2025 that are the most concerning.” That, in his opinion, is a long list.

“In terms of prioritization, this is a difficult thing to do. Every one of those things is like an absolute priority,” Huffman said.

Project 2025’s spokesman rejected criticism from Democrats that the document expands executive powers in a way that would allow a future president to abuse them.

“This is simply a projection,” the spokesperson said. “President Joe Biden is the one abusing executive power and we currently live under his dictatorship.”

Huffman, who is unique on Capitol Hill for questioning the existenceof an omnipotent god, suggested he will focus on elements of Project 2025 that aim to promote religious principles as political guides – “which is really just this Christian nationalist agenda,” he said.

He will be joined on the task force by several other prominent Democrats who bring their own policy focuses, including Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colorado), head of the House Pro-Choice Committee; Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), chairman of the Congressional Equality Caucus; Ted Lieu (Calif.), vice chair of the Democratic Caucus, Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), head of the Progressive Caucus; Nanette Barragán (California), chair of the Hispanic Caucus; and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law professor who led Trump’s second impeachment following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

“This is not a leadership task force, but they know that,” Huffman said. “And we will certainly convey our recommendations and concerns to them.”

Democrats have a difficult road ahead as they seek to counter the message coming from Trump and the conservative groups that support him, which include fundraising giants. But Huffman said he is confident his party’s message will win out in the end.

“They are preparing to move forward with plans that are deeply unpopular with the majority of the American people,” he said. “We just need to make sure this is known and understood.”

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story