Project 2025 and Civil Liberties

At the core of Trump’s Project 2025 is an attempt to suppress civil liberties by imposing a right-wing sense of morality, history, and gender on all of us, despite the fact that the first amendment enshrines in our Constitution freedom of speech and of the press. Their goal is to “to unite the conservative movement and the American people against elite rule and woke culture warriors” (p. 16). In other words, they want the government to sanction speech that conservatives don’t like.

The authors of Project 2025 label speech they don’t agree with “woke ideology,” and then say that all Americans should be opposed to these ideas. They propose a general assault on education and media (including traditional media, public media, and social media), with the goal of increasing the prominence of conservative (I would say, ultra-MAGA) voices, suppressing opposition, and increasing the imperial power of the presidency.

• Education. One of the largest complaints of the Trump-oriented Republican party is Critical Race Theory. This theory—which before Trump’s minions latched onto it, was only discussed in law schools and graduate schools—posits that the very nature of our laws enshrines racism. Critical Race Theory can be argued, but instead of providing a reasoned argument against this legal theory, Republicans in the age of Trump have described any discussion of the history of racism, slavery, and genocide within our schools as “Critical Race Theory,” and un-American. On gender, there is a conspiracy theory that many Republicans subscribe to that says that allowing adolescents and adults to affirm who they are, in terms of gender, which they call “gender ideology” is sexualizing children and misogynistic. Project 2025 seeks to enshrine these ideas in US law and policy.

When Project 2025 calls for “Safeguarding civil rights,” they say this “should be based on a proper [that is, a right-wing] understanding of those laws, rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory” (p. 322). Of course, there is no concerted agenda to do what the authors of Project 2025 are opposing. Instead, what’s happening here is that Project 2025 is trying to enforce right-wing thinking on race and gender in our schools from elementary through graduate school. (For more about this, see our article “Project 2025 and Education.”)

• Media. Roxana Muenster (see sources) points out that Trump has called the press “the enemy of the people.” Project 2025 advocates muzzling traditional media in several ways. For example, they propose muzzling the White House press corps. They write: “Especially for conservatives, this means navigating the mainstream media to ensure that the President’s agenda is conveyed effectively and accurately.” They continue: “The new Administration should examine the nature of the relationship between itself and the White House Correspondents Association and consider whether an alternative coordinating body might be more suitable” (p. 31). We should note that the White House Correspondents Association is an independent group, which has existed for 110 years, and provides credentials for journalists from mainstream and alternative media. The goal is to block journalistic scrutiny and only allow the American public sanitized right-wing press coverage of the White House. As Roxana Muenster writes:

A “reexamination” of the relationship with the Correspondents’ Association—an organization that comprises journalists from a variety of outlets including Fox News, the New York Times, and the BBC—as suggested by “Mandate for Leadership” could encourage an administration to grant access only to journalists who are favorable to its agenda, not those who will question or push back.

On public broadcasting, we can see that Project 2025 also advocates a silencing and chilling of the press. They propose ending funding for public broadcasting, which the CPB notes is $525 million in fiscal year 2024. Roxana Meunster points out that “This amounts to roughly $1.60 per U.S. citizen—a small price to pay for a commitment to an informed public at a time when, on average, the U.S. loses 2.5 newsrooms per week.” But worse, Project 2025 proposes stripping public broadcasting of their “noncommercial education” status (p. 247–248), meaning they would have to use higher-frequency radio bands (limiting their reach), and pay licensing fees that non-commercial enterprises are not likely to be able to afford. It’s a naked attempt to silence outlets that don’t follow the MAGA talking points on race, climate change, the economy, immigration, and civil liberties.

Whether we talk about education—where they would use the manufactured crises of critical race theory and “gender ideology”—or the press—where they would deny access to the White House or de-fund and de-legitimize public media—the goal of the authors of Project 2025 is to limit free speech and promote the MAGA agenda.

You can help us stop this. Have a plan! Vote Blue up and down the ballot to maintain freedom of thought and expression.