New Jersey Democrat Lisa McCormick is raising alarms over the recently published Project 2025 by the Heritage Foundation, asserting that the Republican Party initiative reveals many of the worst intentions of GOP Christian nationalists who would like to turn America into a theocracy.
“The United States of America would be unrecognizable if Project 2025 is put into effect,” said McCormick, who argues that the proposed policies would have far-reaching and detrimental effects on families, communities, and fundamental rights across the state and the country. “The candidates and campaigners might try to distance themselves from the unpopular extremist ideas but this is the un-American, anti-freedom agenda they want to pursue.”
The Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project is a well-funded (eight-figure) effort of the Heritage Foundation and more than 100 organizations to enable a future anti-democratic presidential administration to take swift, far-right action that would cut wages for working people, dismantle social safety net programs, reverse decades of progress for civil rights, redefine the way our society operates, and undermine our economy.
A central pillar of Project 2025 is the “Mandate for Leadership,” a 900+ page policy playbook authored by former Trump administration officials and other extremists that provides a radical vision for our nation and a roadmap to implement it.
One of the most concerning aspects of Project 2025 for New Jersey residents is the potential dismantling of public education, according to McCormick, who received more votes in the 2018 US Senate primary election than all but six statewide Democratic candidates over the past 30 years.
“Under Project 2025, the Department of Education would be abolished, leading to a significant reduction in the quality of education and equal access,” McCormick said. “Public schools, traditionally safe havens for children to learn and grow, would suffer from a lack of resources as private school vouchers redirect funds to religious schools. These institutions, free to discriminate and indoctrinate, would leave vulnerable students, including those who are LGBTQ+, Black, Brown, or disabled, without the protections they currently have.”
McCormick said Project 2025’s stance on reproductive rights poses another major threat.
“The initiative proposes that federal policy will be based on the belief that life begins at conception, effectively ending medication abortions and access to emergency abortion care,” McCormick said. “Such policies will lead to increased government surveillance and intimidation of pregnant individuals seeking abortion care. The rollback of these rights, which have been safely exercised for over two decades, would disproportionately affect women and families, limiting their medical options and autonomy.”
The proposed future under Project 2025 would see the federal government stop enforcing laws that protect LGBT people from discrimination.
“The initiative’s aim to outlaw what it terms ‘transgender ideology’ would prevent non-conforming people from living as they want and it would take away freedom from people who do not fit into the narrow puritanical perspectives of these fanatical cult members,” McCormick said. “Additionally, the government would channel taxpayer funds to organizations promoting a narrow, religiously-based societal structure, excluding LGBT couples from being recognized as legitimate family units.”
“In my view, one of the most insidious aspects of Project 2025 is its plan to turn anti-discrimination laws against those fighting systemic racism and advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion,” McCormick said. “By denying the historical and ongoing presence of racism in America, the initiative echoes past justifications of inequality and threatens to undo decades of progress in civil rights.”
Finally, Project 2025’s immigration policies would lead to the incarceration of thousands of immigrants and restrict their ability to work and contribute to the economy.
“Families fleeing persecution would find it nearly impossible to seek refuge in the United States, and immigration policies would be tailored to exclude individuals based on discriminatory preferences,” McCormick said. “These policies would transform the U.S. into a nation closed off and unwelcoming to diversity.”
McCormick’s critique of Project 2025 underscores the broad and deeply personal impacts these policies could have on New Jersey families and communities.
The Christo-fascist wishlist includes, among many, many, many things, rolling back environmental protection rules [PDF], eliminating energy efficacy standards and programs, and ending the US government’s “focus on climate change and green subsidies” [PDF]. It also includes eliminating [PDF] the US Department of Education.
Healthcare funding [PDF] takes a big hit under Project 2025, too. It calls for privatizing many public healthcare services and reducing the scope of programs including Medicare and Medicaid. The plan would also reverse the approval of morning-after pills, and cut federal funding to abortion providers and those providing gender-affirming care [PDF].
And ultimately, it seeks to expand the executive branch’s power, ensure that federal agencies and their leaders and rank-and-file fall heavily in line with the president’s agenda and “push back against woke policies in corporate America” [PDF].
She calls on citizens to recognize the potential dangers of these proposals and to advocate for a future that upholds the values of equality, inclusion, and justice for all.
“From attacking overtime pay, student loans, and reproductive rights, to allowing more discrimination, pollution, and price gouging, those behind Project 2025 are preparing to go to incredible lengths to create a country only for some, not for all of us,” said Skye Perryman, CEO of Democracy Forward, who called the scheme “a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism over people.”
The Heritage Foundation and the 100+ organizations that make up the Project 2025 Advisory Board have mapped out exactly how they will achieve their extreme ends,” said Perryman. “They aim to try and carry out many of the most troubling proposals through an anti-democratic president and political loyalists installed in the executive branch, without waiting for congressional action. And, while many of these plans are unlawful, winning in court is not guaranteed given that the same far-right movement that is behind Project 2025 has shaped our current court system.”