Edward Strickler Jr. reviews Project 2025 to see what another Trump administration offers rural Americans. The short answer: Nothing.
Project 2025 has been so much in the news lately that former President Donald Trump had to respond to the right-wing policy proposals, which the Heritage Foundation put together in hopes of implementation under another Trump presidency.
“I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump said. “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
In a familiar rhetorical pattern, Trump says two contradictory things at the same time: Parts of Project 2025 are “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal” and “anything they do I wish them luck.”
Well, there is a third contradictory thing: “I know nothing about it.”
But anyone reading through the nearly 1,000 pages of Project 2025 might easily be two-minded, or three-minded, about it. It is vast and dense.
Nevertheless, there is a predominant theme threaded throughout: Federal government must be downsized, decentralized, and disempowered as much as possible, as rapidly as possible, just as soon as conservatives gain control the federal government. And embedded within this theme is a prominent second thread: that the enemy – variously named “that institutionalized cadre of progressive political commissars,” “LGBT advocates,” “the pursuit of racial parity,” “racial and gender ideologies,” etc. — must be vanquished.
You may see different patterns, but this is what I discerned. Readers should look for themselves. Find the chapter(s) that matter to you. You may choose from sections titled “Taking the Reins of Government,” “The Common Defense,” “The General Welfare,” “The Economy,” and “Independent Regulatory Agencies,” with each major federal government agency discussed. I spent a couple days reading through the 1,000 pages to glean what is being proposed to support healthy rural populations and thriving rural communities. Not very much.
In fact, the entire subsection “Rural Health” (Chapter 14, Department of Health and Human Services, at p. 449) is shorter than the subsection on “Wild Horses and Burros” (Chapter 16, Department of the Interior, at p. 528). Empathy for the four-footed ungulates is conveyed by discussion of their “iconic presence” described as “not a new issue … not just a western issue- it is an American issue.” We two-footed humans rate similar patriotic rhetoric – “seeking space for one’s family and cultivating the land are valued goals that are deeply rooted in America’s fabric” – but the paltry few policy proposals – less than one page out of nearly 1,000 – are insulting.
For example, to increase the supply of health care providers by reducing regulatory burdens on “volunteers wishing to provide temporary, charitable services across state lines,” and to encourage “less expensive alternatives to hospitals and telehealth independent of expensive air ambulances,” Challenge me if I am wrong, but these proposals explicitly, in writing, advise that rural communities can, at best, expect “second class,” maybe just “third class,” treatment from Project 2025 Conservative elites. But at least Project 2025 doesn’t advise “humane disposal” for sick rural folks as it does for the horses and burros.
Open the link to learn more about the GOP’s indifference to rural voters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
For a vision of the future that is a lot more like 1824 than 2024 vote for DJT and the GOP. Instead of a complex healthcare system that addresses current health problems through science, rural Americans can bring their own leeches and ask their neighbors to help them apply them. If that doesn’t work, there is always blood letting to eliminate unwanted toxins. Rural Americans already struggle to get health services under our current system of for profit healthcare which has resulted in the closure of many rural hospitals and health centers. Project 2025’s regressive view of healthcare is out of touch with the needs of isolated communities.
By the way I recently watched The Royal Flying Doctor Service on PBS. It is about a medical services in rural Australia. In remote areas where there is a health emergency, doctors and nurses are flown in to treat and/or airlift emergency patients to a major hospital for care. I have no idea if a similar program would work in this country, but it is far better than ignoring the problem. However, it does require the intervention of the government which the GOP scapegoats at every opportunity. It is certainly far better than the “I don’t care, and we have no plan” sentiment of Project 2025.
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xoxoxoxox
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And a fourth contradictory thing: “as soon as conservatives gain control of the federal government…”Painting the paymaster donors as “conservatives” that have yet to control the government, confuses rule by money as a one party event.
And a fifth contradictory thing: Placing faith in the statements of the puppets floating on top of the political theater, that is staged for the die-hard believers in “Governed by our consent”, confuses fables for reality.
And a sixth contradictory thing: “Find the chapter(s) that matter to you.” Finding the word groups that matter to you, doesn’t make you matter, or your word groups matter, to the selected . Know- that still isn’t know- how. Well said still isn’t as good as well done.
And a seventh contradictory thing: A review of P2025 reveals the future. Review the (fill-in) again, to see what doesn’t change a selected master into a public servant..
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From 1865 to 1933 we had what historically would be described as a weak federal system. This was sustained through a court system that radically supported the wealthy, an ineffective executive branch, and a country segregated by race and class. The result was an economic depression (not merely recessions) roughly every decade, an epidemic of alcoholism, more than 4500 lynchings, the mythic Lost Cause, and a workforce that included children working 12 hours a day. The progressive movement at the turn of the twentieth century offered a glimmer that the country was turning the corner, but it was soon overcome by the corporate culture of the Republican Party that eventually led to the worst economic depression in our history. This, in a nutshell, is what the Heritage Foundation wants: A country serving corporate interests with a smattering of Christian Nationalism that has no resemblance to the scripture they falsely proclaim. The 900 page document now understood as Project 2025 threatens to do just that. Because it is so immense as such tomes go, it causes many of us to yawn and turn away. If Trump wins many of the recommendations brought by these calamitous narcissists will be initiated, but perhaps the most terrifying aspect of this possibility is the horrific infighting that will ensue among those within the radical MAGA sphere. There is a reason why all of these radical libertarians and dominionists have so many organizations following the orange mane. At their core they cannot stand one another. The civil unrest we fear between the so called left and right will be nothing compared to the violent purging that will occur within the Republican Party. As the Peter Theils and Elon Musks of the world pursue a polity that allows them to do whatever they want a controlling dominionists theocracy seeks an exclusive monoculture in the mold of the mythological Book of Revelations. Like all of Christianity, or for that matter religious history, this radical front is headed for a schism of biblical proportions, pun intended. If the majority continues to ignore the urgency, we will all be caught up in what could be a circular conflagration. I highly recommend Rachel Maddow’s two seasons of Ultra. We have been here before and the antagonists we see today have learned from the mistakes of their predecessors. The part made obvious by this indecision within the Democratic Party shows us that those we would consider reasonable ignore this history.
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Well said. I am also concerned about the potential for civil unrest with such an unrealistic plan for the future.
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Organizational awareness seems to be a significant roadblock for Democrats. The fact that are mostly a coalition of a variety of interests people seem hesitant to reach for the whole. Polls show we desperately want to make progress and get past the vitriol. Our media exaggerates the popularity of MAGA which tends to make the general public cower. This encourages further hubris from the violent.
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Whatever happens to rural America if Project 2025 replaces the US Constitution, as planned by The Christian Nationalist Cult, anything the fascist loving rural MAGA cult members complain about will be blamed on immigrants and/or liberals. And MAGA will swallow the lies as they always have, even if the entire government is controlled by a dictator who is a Chistian nationalist Cult member like Vance.
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What’s ironic is that most of rural America has been run by Republicans for well over a decade now. IT’s not that that constituency has bought the rubbish, but that most of them simply no longer vote.
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Lloyd: The worst thing about that 2025 document, and many other small-country adaptors of the U.S. Constitution, is its meandering into detailism.
Somehow, the founders knew (e.g., Jefferson) that it would be the generality of the U.S. Constitution that would forge its greatness across generations.
The assumption behind the generality is that the details of application of general laws are (hopefully) left to reasonable people to work out in the endless sets of circumstances that history and life are all about . . . a central tenet of working democracies.
The successful shift of power away from kings and fascists to “the people” is forever dependent on that political operating “space” between the general rules of law (from above) and citizens’ individual development and whatever one’s interior doctrines are about (from below).
In a court of law, the judge follows the generality of the already written law, the lawyers mediate the details of each person’s situation, and the jury mediates both into a final application and judgment about this particular person and situation.
Trying to control the details in a written document is a fool’s errand like no other. 2025: Never have so many words said so little of importance or so much about the writers’ dazzling ignorance. CBK
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