Sometimes things are so scary you have to make fun of them to make a serious point.
That’s what Baptist News Global hopes to do with our downloadable set of Project 2025 Bingo cards. There are three cards, one each on the general themes of education; families; and religion/censorship/propaganda.
Mark Wingfield
Mara Bim
Some will say we’re making light of one of the most serious threats to democracy in our lifetimes. And yes, that’s the point. We’ve tried reporting on the sobering facts of Project 2025 and we have not gotten through. It’s too complicated, too unbelievable, too distant, too serious.
And yet the threat of this monster plan from the Heritage Foundation ought to strike fear in the heart of every democracy-loving American. There wasn’t enough fear to keep Americans from electing as president the one man who is most likely to implement huge chunks of Project 2025.
So if we couldn’t get through to you with the cold hard facts, we’re going to try to impress upon you the seriousness of this threat with a dash of humor. Just like The Producers makes a serious point about Nazis through a comedy musical.
Our other goal is to help you keep score as the Trump administration and Congress take action after action that fulfill the goals of Project 2025. It’s a 900-page document, after all. Its implementation is likely to be a drip, drip, drip. But with these cards, you can see the cumulative devastating effects of this theocratic agenda.
“Our hope is that no one gets a Bingo on their card. But our fear is that some of these cards will result in a blackout.”
Our hope is that no one gets a Bingo on their card. But our fear is that some of these cards will result in a blackout.
There’s a popular saying we sometimes use to describe when something surprising happens: “That wasn’t on my Bingo card.”
With our downloadable set, you won’t be able to say of Project 2025, “That wasn’t on my Bingo card.” And because of that, you’ll be better informed and more prepared to join the resistance.
Our commitment at BNG is to keep you informed every day about these issues of faith and culture and democracy and religious liberty that matter to us all. We hope you’ll keep score at home and not be lulled into complacency.
Download all three cards here:
If you want to know more of what to look for in playing along at home, keep reading.
Project 2025 Bingo: Education
Project 2025 has a lot to say about education, schools and parents’ rights — more than could fit on one Bingo card. Here are just some of the outcomes the American public can expect to come from the implementation of Project 2025:
Starting with the youngest children, the mandate calls for the elimination of the Head Start program. It also calls for reallocating government funds from preschools to fund home-based child care “either to offset the cost of staying home with a child or to pay for familial, in-home child care.” This tracks with the authors’ belief that the ideal family is one in which the marriage is between a heterosexual couple, the husband works outside the home and the wife stays home to care for the children.
The mandate calls for moving all oversight to the individual states, for state governments to fund religious schools and for the elimination of the Summer Food Service Program which ensures that students who qualify for free and reduced-priced lunch during the school year go hungry when school is out of session.
The mandate calls for a federal Parents’ Bill of Rights, the elimination of sex education programs and the prohibition against teaching about race or race relations.
In Higher Education, Project 2025 calls for elimination of the Public Service Student Loan Forgiveness Program — which was passed through bipartisan legislation in 2007. Additionally, the mandate plans for an end to all federal student loan programs (instead, outsourcing that to private banks). The mandate plans for an end to all “Area Studies” programs under Title VI of the Higher Education Act (these include programs like “Asian Studies” and “Middle East Studies”). The dystopian manifesto also prohibits medical schools that receive federal funding from teaching abortion procedures.
Project 2025 Bingo: Families
Project 2025 claims “families” are the centerpiece of its work, which is ironic given that the mandate is full of policy recommendations that cause tremendous harm to children and families.
Project 2025 calls for renaming of the Department of Health and Human Services to the “Department of Life.” Much of the focus of this department is government interventions in reproductive health, marriage and family-formation. The mandate advocates for an end to all legal abortion. It also repeatedly lifts up heterosexual marriages and denigrates same-sex marriages. Similarly, the mandate repeatedly lays out a vision for heterosexual marriages in which the husband works outside the home and the wife stays home to care for children and proposes policies that mold society into this vision.
Elsewhere, the mandate calls for repealing the Flores Settlement Agreement and portions of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to more easily accommodate the separation of families seeking asylum at the border, to provide zero restrictions on the detention of children and to ensure an easier legal path to repatriate unaccompanied children to their country of origin wherever that might be even if such repatriation would be unsafe for the children.
The manifesto calls for the elimination of child-labor laws that prohibit employers from putting children and teens in dangerous working conditions. DOL should amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work in regulated jobs with proper training and parental consent.
Another target of Project 2025 is the various programs that ensure the poor don’t starve. The mandate calls for massive reforms to each of the programs: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Food Program, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP); the School Breakfast Program (SBP); the Child and Adult Care Food Program; the Nutrition Program for the Elderly; Nutrition Service Incentives; the Summer Food Service Program; the Commodity Supplemental Food Program; the Temporary Emergency Food Program; the Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program; and the Special Milk Program.
Additionally, the mandate seeks to weaken regulations on the food all Americans eat.
Project 2025 focuses on poor, single mothers and limiting the safety nets that support them. It calls for shuffling money from child welfare funding to be reallocated to education programs “used for marriage and relationship education.” There is an emphasis on using taxpayer money to incentivize poor, single moms to marry. And, once married, there are policy proposals to use taxpayer money to incentivize married women to stay home with children rather than work outside the home.
Project 2025 includes recommendations for tax reforms including moving to a two-tier tax system of 15% and 30%. Given the current tax structure includes multiple tiers ranging from 10% to 37%, low and middle-income Americans will see their taxes increase while those Americans earning the highest wages (more than $647,851 for filers who are married filing jointly) will receive a tax cut. Additionally, the mandate recommends cutting corporate taxes.
The mandate lays out policies to roll back climate initiatives and weaken existing measures that protect American communities from toxic chemicals. It says that the Environmental Protection Agency should be required to make all scientific studies and analysis open for public comment rather than relying on scientists to make policy decisions.
Project 2025 calls for outsourcing health care for veterans to private providers.
The mandate says the president should work with Congress to pass legislation to legalize discrimination against same-sex couples wishing to adopt.
By now it’s no surprise that Project 2025 includes many policy suggestions related to censorship, propaganda and the elevation of a particular expression of Christianity (Christian Nationalism) in the public square. On this latter point, issues of bodily autonomy, marriage and creation-care have religious implications — just as our many Jewish friends who hold sacred a woman’s bodily autonomy and the practice of repairing the world (tikkun olam).
Project 2025 Bingo: Censorship, propaganda and religious discrimination
In Project 2025, there’s the threat of banning the use of certain words by federal agencies. There’s renaming of the Department of Health and Human Services to the “Department of Life.”
There’s threat of retaliation against former defense directors who speak out against the administration. There’s a recommendation to defund public radio (NPR) and public television (PBS) as well as their licensing agreements.
Project 2025 calls for purging and dismantling the U.S. Global Change Research Program and its related climate change research programs. These programs are filled with scientists who produce the Congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment to guide policy decisions.
This goes hand-in-hand with plans to dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which houses six offices including the National Weather Service, and plans to eliminate all Department of Energy efforts and investments in developing renewable resources.
The mandate also calls for Congress to enact legislation related to religious life including declaring Sundays to be official days of “Sabbath rest” and amending Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to allow employers with “sincerely held religious beliefs” to discriminate against employees and customers at-will regardless of nondiscrimination laws.
The mandate calls for the FBI to cease monitoring disinformation and misinformation within the United States. At the same time, the mandate calls for the United States Agency for Global Media, which broadcasts around the world via programs like the Voice of America, to be purged and reworked to deliver consistently “pro-America” messages rather than news by journalists.