The Heritage Foundation

I know, I know, again?! Yes. In my last post, I gave a breakdown of Project 2025. This week, I want to provide yet even more background to the project, who wrote it, how it is indeed connected to Trump despite many arguments to the contrary, and how the impact will hurt all of us - especially those of us in the arts. There is so much to cover about this issue, really it can’t all be touched on in just two posts, but I’m going to try to wrap it up in this one. Here’s one last little push in favor of voting in this election. I promise this is the last one… for now. I just can’t stress enough how important it is to participate. I promise that if you sit this one out, you’ll come to regret it.

The first thing to better understand is the organization that dreamed up Project 2025: The Heritage Foundation

About Heritage

​The Heritage Foundation is a non-profit and self-described “think tank” which works to:

Initially not overtly sinister, just a bit odd in word choice. However, If you’ve taken a gander at the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, you know exactly what these policies actually mean for people on the ground. If you want a breakdown on Project 2025, you can find the one I did here. 

This organization has been behind much of the backward sliding we’ve been seeing in American politics as of late, most notably in regards to their influence over major political figures. They receive major funding from billionaires and then advocate on their behalf to ensure that they can retain as much of their wealth as possible. If you look through the policies listed on their website and in Project 2025, you’ll realize that this is exactly the main motivation of their work. They proclaim loudly about their love and championing of freedom, but ultimately they are talking about the freedom to oppress and exploit.
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Another proud bullet point on their list of accomplishments is, “recommending candidates for vacant seats that ultimately shaped the future of the Supreme Court that delivered the landmark decision overturning Roe v. Wade.” (heritage.org) Yeah. That was on them.

Image source: heritageaction.com

Their website even offers a score card feature which breaks down how aligned different politicians are with the Heritage Foundation agenda. They even offer blueprints and tools for people to get in touch with their representatives and push for these deeply damaging policies. It’s the kind of thing that I wish was more accessible to progressives! We need to be organized like this! This is terrifyingly efficient.

Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation, signs off on the website’s about page by stating, “the stakes are high, and the battle lines are drawn. But neither are daunting—or unfamiliar. For they are the same today as they were at Bunker Hill and Gettysburg, at the Bulge and at Brandenburg Gate, at Independence Hall and on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. History is once again calling America—the last, best hope of Earth—to defy the privileged and powerful and defend our Revolution, our Constitution, and our Heritage. Join us in this second American Revolution, and once again, together, we will win.” (heritage.org) ​Whether you were aware or not, the Heritage Foundation has been at war with you and your interests for quite some time now.

​This is a wonderful video that goes over even more shocking information about this organization. You can watch it through the link above.
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Connection to Donald Trump

Trump has stated repeatedly that he has nothing to do with the project, however his actions during his presidency, and the people that he lifted into positions of power contradict this claim. “At least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in Project 2025, a CNN review found, including more than half of the people listed as authors, editors and contributors to ‘Mandate for Leadership,’ the project’s extensive manifesto for overhauling the executive branch.” (cnn.com)

Don’t believe me or CNN? Then believe The Heritage Foundation. In listing off their “most notable achievements” they brag about “The Trump administration’s embrace of 64% of Heritage policy prescriptions through its annual budget, regulatory guidance, or other actions.” (heritage.org) 64% of policies that would ruin the U.S. economy, devastate children’s education, and deny medical care to a vast majority of the American population. Yikes.

Still no? How about Trump himself? At a 2022 dinner organized by The Heritage Foundation, the former president stated, “Heritage does such an incredible job.” He continued, “this is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.” (nbcnews.com) Yeah, it totally sounds like he knows nothing about them, right?

​If Trump wins, Project 2025 is “exactly what [his] movement will do.”

The Impact

As discussed in the previous blog, just the impact of these policies on education alone would be devastating. Public schools are already underfunded. For people looking for an impact on the arts specifically, a policy to further strip that money away to give to charter schools would increasingly reduce accessibility to the arts, especially for marginalized communities. The fact that not every school has a music program is already a travesty and a failure of our society, to push further in that direction is unacceptable. 

However, as I stated in the previous post, this threat goes beyond the arts. People will die if Project 2025 is implemented, and that is not an exaggeration. We can not allow it to become the policy blueprint for our country.
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What can we do?

Image source: vote.org

The most sure-fire way to prevent this plan from being carried out, is to prevent the election of Donald Trump. Vote on November 5th. If you can’t bring yourself to vote for any of the presented options, I understand, but I urge you to at least not vote for the man that could make this nightmare into a reality. Vote locally, get folks into positions of power who can help to (worst case) combat the installation of this plan even if you won’t vote for the leading presidential ticket as well. I fully sympathize with not wanting to continue playing into the short-comings and inefficacy of the current system. However, if Trump wins, we may lose our chance to turn things around. Project 2025 is designed specifically to deny us that opportunity. As much as it seems impossible, things can still get worse, much worse.

The fact that Trump and his party are likely going to try and prove the illegitimacy of the outcome should he lose, is even more cause to cast your vote. The greater the margin of defeat for Trump, the more difficult it will be for him to obscure the outcome and fudge numbers. The popular vote actually matters for once in this election, we need to make it count.

A majority of state deadlines to register have passed, but not all of them. You can see all deadlines for every state here. If you have any questions about getting registered, or how the voting process works, I have covered it in a previous blog that I’ll link here. That’s all for now. I’ll see you all on the other side of November 5th. Until then, thank you for reading, and happy jamming/voting!