Project 2025: Some (Christian) People Are More Equal Than Others

Health and Human Services / Housing and Urban Development

Central to the contemporary right wing agenda is the Great Replacement Theory, the fear that “others” are going to outnumber “normies.” This is the basis for advocating for the nuclear family as the only institution favored (and eventually allowed) by the government.

A family with a defined order of (male) authority is the essential building block for all the varieties of totalitarian government, from monarchy (a land-based hierarchy blessed by a religious figurehead), to Nazism (the state is the source of all power), to theocratic rule (religious doctrine rules).

A concise description of how this belief is the glue that binds Project 2025 I’ve seen comes from Nina Burleigh in an essay entitled Taylor Swift Doesn’t Need Your Help.(bolding mine)

• In his opening to the notorious document, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, a flinty-eyed Catholic extremist, states that marriage, and the intact nuclear family (with dad at the head of the table) are the centerpiece of true American society. “Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought,” he writes in the foreword. “This pursuit of the good life is found primarily in family—marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like.” 

• The theme is repeated throughout the 900 pages, but especially in sections on education and health and human services. One of the proposals would give deadbeat dads, rather than single moms, child care assistance money, to try to force the couple back together. It would deprive 48 million American women of access to free contraceptive care under Obamacare. The Project’s contributors plan to demolish all access to basic reproductive health care for women and girls, and to attack the breakdown of the gender binary that along with female autonomy so threatens toxic male supremacy in the private and public realm. No-fault divorce would even be on the legal chopping block.

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Department of Health and Human Services by Roger Severino* Among the author’s suggestions is that the agency should be renamed ‘The Department of Life.’ After reading all 52’ pages of this chapter, I would add ‘As We See Fit’ to the proposed title.

Lest you think that the racial component isn’t obvious, this section’s introduction includes the ‘shocking’ statement:  “...white populations alone losing 7 percent of their expected life span in just one year…” during the pandemic. 

Well, duh, I wonder if that out of context claim had anything to do with the ‘pandemic’ in progress or the reality of COVID denialism being a primarily white phenomena. I wonder why they didn’t mention that Asian and Hispanic humans have a longer life expectancy than whites?

Anyhow, this section’s first foray into HHS is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calling it “the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government.” Conservatives are still insinuating that CDC ordered churches and other institutions closed, when in fact it was local and state governments that issued those orders.

(Some of CDC’s prescriptions and predictions were wrong, but were based on a reasonable interpretation of the science available at that time. Furthermore, it’s logical to suspect that the government’s response would have been better if the White House pandemic task force and plan of action hadn’t been discarded by the….Trump administration.)

You’ll be thrilled to hear that “never again should CDC officials be allowed to say in their official capacity that school children “should be” masked or vaccinated (through a schedule or otherwise) or prohibited from learning in a school building. Such decisions should be left to parents and medical providers.”

Yay! For polio, say the iron lung manufacturers. 

Planned Parenthood would be defunded. Period. 

And the other big thing for CDC would be federal record keeping on the number of abortions. Under a P2025 based regime, “abortion tourism” states would be penalized by withholding Medicare payments.

Next up in the handbook is the Food and Drug Administration. Generic drugs should be allowed on the market using a grading scale, meaning that the Brand X pain reliever could be D-Rated versus the Name Brand medicine would always be rated ‘A’. Guess which one your health insurance will approve?

Christian moral values (of the correct flavor) would apply to vaccine development, meaning stem cell usage would be restricted. It claims the chickenpox, Hepatitis, and MMR vaccines in the U.S. are all linked to abortion.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would need to get its various components out of using aborted baby parts, along with “human animal chimera” experiments, and “gain-of-function viral research that may have been responsible for COVID-19.”

Decisions on funding for research programs would be politicized via appointees and block grants should be available to state research programs. I’m sure Mississippi could come up with something involving Black prisoners….

Under the guise of consumer choice,* Medicare protections currently in place would be weakened and lifetime caps would be instituted. For Medicaid, work requirements and eligibility would be reviewed.

(*Choice is a weasel word these days in right wing circles, meant to enable the weakening or defunding of institutions. “Common sense” is another example of linguistic malpractice.)

A standard of traditional marriage and two sexes only would get applied to every part of HHS programs and services. And abortion, which would trample upon the rights of certain religious groups, needs to be excised throughout.

Among P2025’s other recommendations is elimination of the Head Start program because it doesn’t work. (Except that it does) And if it’s not possible to end Head Start for political reasons, then the “mask mandate” needs to be eliminated. 

*Roger Severino was the Trump administration’s director of the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to that, he was CEO and counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm taking on cases related to freedom of religion. Currently Severino is a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Department of Housing and Urban Development by Ben Carson*

The quality of government we should expect under the guise of P2025 is reflected in the choice of the worst HUD administrator ever to write this section.

The section begins with a redefinition of the department’s mission away from recognition of housing as a human need and into a center for self reliance, anchored in the tradition of monogamous marriage between a man and a woman and single family dwellings.

There is the usual call for agency responsibilities and policies to be handled by political appointees, and with eliminating anything having to do with race or gender. It need not be said that abortion or any mention thereof is forbidden.

Other conservative ambitions for HUD include;

• Banning non-citizens from government owned housing or assistance program

• Installing Work requirements (defined as upward mobility)

• Insisting that mental health and substance abuse programs are necessary for solving the “homeless problem”

• Giving priority to married couples

• Privatizing wherever possible

• Transferring federal obligations to the states, while reducing federal government oversight and obligations

• Limiting eligibility for benefits and the time they can be used 

• Promulgating religious beliefs and inserting them into government policies wherever possible

*Ben Carson was a neurosurgeon who migrated to conservative politics, and failed at running for President.  He was Secretary of HUD during the Trump administration. Most top positions remained unfilled during his tenure, and there was a mass migration of employees quitting or retiring. His notable decisions mainly centered on reversing anything tainted as associated with the Obama administration. The department’s acquisition of a $31,000 dining room table set and nepostic decision making were scandals.

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Next Up: Drill, Baby, Drill, for Fun and Profit with Project 2025
(Department of Interior)

Previously:

(Intro) Digging Deep into Project 2025 - (a multi-part Series)
Going Deep into Project 2025 - Partisan Priorities for Civil Servants
Project 2025: Christian Soldiers Marching Off to Land Wars
Homeland Security’s Authoritarian Role in Project 2025
What Can You Do For Trump Today? Project 2025’s Diplomats, Spies and Spokespersons
No Soup For You: Project 2025’s Foreign Aid Program
Project 2025’s National Nightmare for “The General Welfare”
Project 2025: Junk Food and Parents Rights
Make America Dirty Again: Project 2025 on Energy and the Environment

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Thursday’s Noteworthy News Links

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When Pundits Play Both Sides: A Tale of Two Kamala Harris Columns by Parker Molloy at The Present Age

• The cynicism on display here is breathtaking. Riley's initial column calling for Harris to replace Biden could be read as an attempt to sow discord within the Democratic Party. Now that this hypothetical scenario has played out, he's pivoted to undermining Harris's candidacy. It's a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose approach to commentary that does little to inform the public and much to muddy the waters of political discourse.

• This kind of flip-flopping isn't just disingenuous; it's harmful to our political process. It contributes to a media environment where consistency and thoughtful analysis take a backseat to provocation and partisan gamesmanship. Readers deserve better than this intellectual sleight of hand.

• As we navigate the complexities of the upcoming election, we must remain vigilant against such cynical maneuvers. Opinion columnists like Riley have a platform and a responsibility. When they abuse that platform to play both sides of an issue, they do a disservice to their readers and to the broader political conversation.

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The plastic industry’s $30 million lie by Arielle Samuelson at HEATED

• In fact, fossil fuels are an inseparable part of the most common forms of chemical recycling. At least 90 percent of one of plastic’s essential ingredients, naphtha, is made from crude oil.

• That may explain why the fossil fuel and chemical industries are backing advanced recycling. Reuters found that the majority of the 30 plants they investigated were the result of agreements between small recycling firms and big consumer brands, chemical companies, or fossil fuel corporations, including Exxon and Shell. Both companies are members of America’s Plastic Makers, along with Chevron Phillips Chemical, Dow, and Eastman Chemical.

• “These technologies do not recycle or remake plastic in any meaningful way,” said Kevin Budris, the deputy director of environmental nonprofit Just Zero, who described advanced recycling as a “toxic, climate-damaging and ineffective” process. “Instead, they generate large amounts of toxic chemicals, and they are typically pushed into Black and Brown communities and low-income communities without giving those communities any opportunity to push back.”

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Netanyahu told Congress he's protecting 'every American city.' He's only protecting himself by Johnathan Katz at The Racket

• If Netanyahu had a bottom-line message for Congress — and he didn’t get to it until close to the end of his speech — it was give us more bombs, faster. Or, as Netanyahu put it: "Fast-tracking U.S. military aid can dramatically expedite an end to the war in Gaza, and help prevent a broader war in the Middle East.”

• He made his case in the way he has always made it since 9/11: that Israel is the front line between the United States and what he believes is our true enemy — the Muslim world in general, and Iran in particular. “For Iran, he said, Israel is first, America is next.” As he put it — and, again, got a huge swell of applause from the legislators in attendence — “we also keep American boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East.”

• If this was ever true, Israel’s actions in the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, have broken that arrangement. Netanyahu’s belligerence and obstinance, and his refusal to stop the killing in Gaza, have forced the U.S. to engage in its largest ongoing naval battle since World War II, committing 7,000 sailors to fight the Houthis in the Red Sea. It cost the lives of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan, and drove the U.S. closer than it has ever been to a direct confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is deeply ironic, as the continuance of the war — a war that can only continue with U.S. support — may be the only thing keeping Netanyahu out of prison in Israel, if not the Hague.