Source: Editorial Board
It’s a 900-page document, with a long list of plans that would fundamentally alter our government and way of life. It was meticulously planned for and organized by over 100 conservative organizations, with contributions from dozens of former Trump administration officials.
It’s Project 2025, and it is the far-right’s plan to create an authoritarian government that rolls back decades of social progress while making the wealthy and big corporations richer than ever before.
Sound far-fetched? Think again. Here in North Carolina, Republicans have already started to implement parts of the agenda, including an abortion ban, the rollback of LGBTQ protections, the undermining of public schools, new voter suppression laws, and more.
Project 2025 is the blueprint for a second Trump administration. It includes plans to abolish the Department of Education and eliminate the Head Start program. It would allow employers to stop paying hourly workers overtime and deny workers access to birth control. It would remove health care protections for people with pre-existing conditions, cut Social Security benefits, and increase prescription drug prices.
In the wake of the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene, it’s particularly offensive that Project 2025 calls for breaking up and downsizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which houses the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. It also calls to slash the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s budget and would put more of the financial burden of disaster recovery on state and local governments.
In short, Project 2025 would be devastating for North Carolinians, with its vision of an America where women don’t have control over their bodies, our public schools have been defunded, and programs that many Americans rely on, like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, have been slashed.
We must do everything we can to ensure Project 2025 never gets implemented. That includes voting for Kamala Harris to be our next president. Kamala Harris believes all Americans deserve basic freedoms and the opportunity to thrive. She will work to protect our reproductive rights, defend our democracy, keep us safe from gun violence, lower costs, and grow our economy.
Some might argue that third-party candidates Cornel West or Jill Stein are also viable options for those opposed to Project 2025. But in reality, both these candidates are being propped up by Republicans intent on electing Trump and implementing Project 2025. Rather than disavow this help, both West and Stein have embraced it. Stein has hired Trump-affiliated lawyers to help her with ballot access, including one who was involved in a lawsuit trying to overturn the 2020 election results. West has accepted thousands of dollars from a Republican megadonor and has relied on Republican operatives to get him on the ballot, including here in North Carolina. Forget that these candidates have no viable path to the presidency, even if they did – who do you think they would answer to?
This fall, vote to protect our state and our country’s future. Vote for the candidate who will best reject the authoritarian dystopia pushed by Project 2025. Vote for Kamala Harris.
