It’s become a familiar sight on the road in Honolulu: the car that sports a red poster across its rear windshield with these words “TRUMP 2024: BECAUSE F—- YOU.” The vulgarity makes one recoil but let’s treat it as a public service: An ugly reminder that voter inattention can result in the further corrosion of our politics and the triumph of Project 2025. That manifesto, led by the Heritage Foundation, describes the far right’s fevered dream of destroying the checks and balances that were put in place to protect this democracy almost 250 years ago.
Project 2025 envisions an authoritarian regime with power consolidated in the hands of a twice-impeached, 34-times convicted felon with a history of sexual abuse and business fraud for which he is being made to pay. Many of his “best people” are in jail. Others may soon join them. The only protection against this anti-American vision is voter awareness of the degree to which the so-called checks and balances have failed us — and the worse fate that awaits us if we are complacent. Voters can use their power at the ballot box to expel such ugliness.
Few will bother to read the 900-page document that is Project 2025. Thankfully there is help from places such as the nonpartisan Center for American Progress (www.americanprogress.org/series/project-2025-exposing-the-far-right-assault-on-america).
There is also John Oliver, who on his show “Last Week Tonight” actually made Project 2025 terrifyingly accessible through the lens of his comic genius.
Every voter should be terrified by the prospect of a vision that would welcome Jan. 6 “warriors” seeking jobs in a federal adminis- tration. We should be terrified by the prospect of such an administration bereft of respect for the institutions that kept American democracy humming for more than 200 years. We should be terrified of the promise to disband the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration because, says Project 2025, it’s “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” Every woman should ask what creating a “pro-life” task force would mean to her ability to make decisions about her reproductive healthcare.
Already the testimony of Dallas native Lauren Miller has shown that the so-called “exceptions” to the Texas abortion ban is a complete fiction. “The exceptions were there to be a lie that could be repeated often enough to be believable by virtue of repetition … so that they could then get people to vote against their best interests and for their own dehumanization,” she said. Instead of getting the 15-minute procedure she needed at a clinic three miles from her home in Dallas, she had to flee secretly to Colorado to abort one non-viable fetus to save her own life and the life of one of the twins she was carrying. In addition to the extreme stress and the delay in getting urgently needed treatment, it cost her several thousand dollars.
Project 2025 also promises to defund the Department of Justice; dismantle the FBI; and eliminate the departments of Education and Commerce. Equally alarming is the plan to create a new class of civil servants under the designation Schedule F. About 50,000 civil servants would magically become political appointees, subject to being fired, and replaced by MAGA loyalists.
Meanwhile, not a whisper of disagreement from national or Hawaii Republicans with the once Grand Old Party’s choice of a convicted felon for the White House.
We are not helpless. We can exercise the power of our vote. And tell at least one person every day to do the same.
Dawn Morais Webster works with nonprofits on social, economic and environmental justice issues; John. F. Webster, a retired corporate executive, was the founding director of the Hogan Entrepreneurial Program at Chaminade University.
