Image: Donald Trump addresses the Republican National Convention, Milwaukee, 18 July 2024.
Donald Trump and J.D. Vance generate notoriety and jocularity in the media with their statements, but their views and Project 2025 show strong connections. A Trump-Vance administration would likely enthusiastically embrace the Project 2025 agenda. No surer path exists for the fracturing of American society.
Trump has disowned Project 2025 saying, “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal”. Less emphatically, J.D. Vance has said it contains both “good ideas” and some things he “disagreed with.”
However, Trump also recently said, “Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.” Perhaps he meant that he’ll have done away with democracy by then, but more likely he means the Republic will have been Christianised. The involvement of former Trump staffers in Project 2025, as well as other links, have been well documented.
Vance has described a new book by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, the architect of Project 2025, as ‘”a bold new vision for the future of conservatism in America.” His association with Project 2025 figures is also well documented. Vance’s odd comments that “When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power”, and “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children”, are not inconsistent with the Mandate’s religious ideology.
A theocracy in the United States is a difficult idea to digest. Yet the indications are in plain sight. The forward to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy document, Mandate for Leadership, maintains:
When the Founders spoke of “pursuit of Happiness,” what they meant might be understood today as in essence “pursuit of Blessedness.” That is, an individual must be free to live as his Creator ordained – to flourish. Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought.
Consider the import of “not what we want, but what we ought”. Who decides the ‘ought’? The Mandate is heavily influenced by the ideology of Christian nationalism.
The 900 odd pages of the Mandate present a series of policy prescriptions common to many conservatives. However, less scrutinised have been the theocratic elements of the Mandate and the unmistakable resonances Trump’s and Vance’s views have with them.
The Mandate promotes as an exclusive priority policies “that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families” and “those encouraging marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families”. Part of the reason for prioritising nuclear families is the conviction that “So many of the problems government programs are designed to solve – but can’t – are ultimately problems created by the crisis of marriage and the family”. A notion that comes from a religiously-inspired, romantic notion of the ideal faith-based family.
One of the four pillars on which the Mandate is built is “Restore the family as the centrepiece of American life and protect our children”. But beneath this are restrictive religiously-influenced ideas about “encouraging marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families” over other life options.
A Mandate criticism of current government policies is that, “Marriage, healthy family formation, and delaying sex to prevent pregnancy are virtually ignored in terms of priorities, yet these goals can reverse the cycle of poverty in meaningful ways”. Certain program grants should be available “to faith-based recipients who affirm that marriage is between not just any two adults, but one man and one unrelated woman”. It is clear the ‘oughts’ include keeping reproduction within a traditional nuclear family.
Going further, the Mandate asserts “Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society” and “Working fathers are essential to the well-being and development of their children”. Here is the full rationalisation of Vance’s weird views of childless people.
The Mandate reveals a devotion to the idealised family of working male as head of the household with nurturing wife at home rearing children. The centrality of the male in the family is blatant. The Mandate talks of the “the hole in a child’s soul cut out by the absence of a father”. It asserts that “Fatherlessness is one of the principal sources of American poverty, crime, mental illness, teen suicide, substance abuse, rejection of the church, and high school dropouts”.
It is not about gender equality in the workplace or equal opportunity for women. In the world of the Mandate, “Working fathers are essential to the well-being and development of their children”. Government should “prioritise married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.
Other overt religious aspects include the proposition that “From the moment of conception, every human being possesses inherent dignity and worth”. To this end, all Health and Human Services need to be based in “a deep respect for innocent human life from day one until natural death: abortion and euthanasia are not health care”. Further religiously-based ‘oughts’.
In the foreword Roberts writes, “Religious devotion and spirituality are the greatest sources of happiness around the world”. The text itself argues, “The next conservative Administration must champion the core American value of religious freedom, which correlates significantly with poverty reduction, economic growth, and peace”. Other rights and claims on the government are mostly dismissed.
The Mandate insists that the next conservative President must:
delete the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, … out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.
And unwind policies and procedures that are “used to advance radical gender, racial, and equity initiatives under the banner of science”.
Dystopian is far too limp a term to describe the theocratic future Trump and Vance portend. A frightening, cruel and hierarchical world. It seems inconceivable that massive disruption, revolt, and violence wouldn’t accompany a genuine attempt to restructure American society along Project 2025 priorities.
Copyright Mike Scrafton. This article may be reproduced under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence for non-commercial purposes, and providing that work is not altered, only redistributed, and the original author is credited. Please see the Cross-post and re-use policy for more information.
Also published in John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations.