Didn’t candidate Donald Trump say during last year’s presidential debate that he knew nothing about Project 2025?
Didn’t he claim that Vice President Kamala Harris was wrong in saying he “intends on implementing (it) if he were elected again?”
Didn’t his campaign charge Democrats with trying to scare voters by pointing to the extreme actions plotted in Project 2025?
Well, it sure looks like the first weeks of Trump’s second term come directly from Project 2025’s playbook.
Trump’s words at the debate were, “I have nothing to do with Project 2025.” Imagine Trump’s surprise at seeing Project 2025 come to life the moment he took office.
Project 2025 called for halting federal funds for education and social welfare programs, including limiting eligibility for Medicaid. Well, guess what happened the minute Trump took office? That very plan was put into action. It was not explained which programs should be cut by people in a rush to bring Project 2025 to life.
A federal judge quickly intervened to stop this funding freeze, and then Trump backed off an extreme plan that threatened a lot of working-class Trump voters who rely on that social safety net.
The Trump administration also launched an attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that also looked like it came out of the Project 2025 playbook.
Project 2025 called for an end to DEI programs. “This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (‘SOGI’), diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) … and any other (similar) terms… out of every federal rule,” it stated.
In fairness, Project 2025 did not call for the Air Force to stop celebrating the trailblazing Black men who fought America’s enemies during World War II — the Tuskegee Airmen. It did not insist on removing any reference to the white women pilots who got in the cockpit of test planes during World War II so that American men could go to the front lines.
The Air Force explained its omission of the historic contributions by Black men and white women as consistent with “executive orders issued by the president.” And that directive sure sounded like Project 2025.
Trump has made DEI into a catchphrase for all the fears among his white male base that they experience more racism than Blacks, Latinos, Asians and women.
In my new book, “New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement,” I point out that a 2021 poll showed two-thirds of Republicans equate attention to racism with putting “America in danger of losing its culture and identity.”
The poll found that more than 75 percent of whites who feel that being white is a disadvantage also agree with Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
This view is also close to white supremacists’ claim that immigrants are being brought in by Democrats and political leftists to replace white American voters. Recall how, during Trump’s first term, the white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
The Project 2025 playbook does have its limits. There was no call to pardon the January 6 rioters, one of whom carried a confederate flag through the U.S. Capitol. It did not call for withdrawing Secret Service protection from Iranian targets such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Advisor John Bolton. It did not explicitly call for firing Inspectors General throughout the government — people who might raise concerns about Trump’s power grabs beyond the scope of executive authority in the U.S. Constitution.
That was more out of the Trump playbook, in which he promised to be a dictator — but only on Day One.
But Project 2025 does push for halting foreign aid and for massive immigration raids. The bottom line for Project 2025 is to essentially vest him with imperial authority beyond Congress, beyond inspectors general and oversight by the courts.
Even if it’s not written in Project 2025, it’s hard to miss how Trump’s view of unlimited power is having a bad effect on American race relations.
Only willful blindness can overlook the fear blossoming among women and minorities as a result of Trump’s actions.
Well, we can say that by acting on Project 2025’s blueprint and his naked authoritarian ambitions, Trump is deepening racial and social divisions in America.
Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book “New Prize for these Eyes: the Rise of America’s Second Civil Rights Movement.”
