One of the more infuriating and frightening aspects of Project 2025 is the audacity of its designers to openly promote the subversion of the U.S. government and Constitution, said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
In response, AU has launched a website, educational campaign and online guide to inform Americans about the right-wing Christian blueprint and to equip them to speak and act against it.
“I’m angry because this is a recipe for disaster for America,” Laser said. “We’re already on the brink of our democracy receding, and this would topple us. It would turn our democracy into a theocracy, which threatens the lives and equality of so many of us.”
Rachel Laser
Project 2025 is a 900-page plan coordinated by the ultra-right Heritage Foundation to replace the federal government with an authoritarian religious state beginning with the hoped-for election of Donald Trump to the presidency this year.
And no one is even trying to deny it, Laser said. “It’s terrifying because it not only lays out the strategy to eradicate our democracy and turn it into a theocracy, but it’s brazenly bragging about it.”
The campaign AU launched July 10 includes putting a human face on the consequences many Americans would face if Project 2025 were realized. Beginning with billboard ads in Milwaukee this month and in Chicago in August, the ads will present the plight of a Jewish couple denied adoption rights by a government-funded evangelical adoption agency.
“Project 2025 includes Christian nationalist goals of diverting public funds to private religious schools, rolling back the rights of LGBTQ people, banning the most accessible form of abortion and limiting reproductive health care, erecting roadblocks to racial justice, and redefining religious freedom as a license to discriminate,” AU said in launching the effort.
The accompanying website describes the dangers in wider religious terms: “Project 2025 is a plan for restructuring the federal government so that Christian nationalists can make everyone follow their narrow religious beliefs. Right in the introduction to Project 2025 it calls for ‘deleting LGBTQ equality, reproductive freedom, and diversity, equity and inclusion from ‘every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.’”
The far-right also wants to ban or limit abortion and reproductive health care, restrict opportunities for racial justice, use tax revenues to finance religious schools and transform religious freedom into a method of discrimination, AU charges.
AU also warns against underestimating the power Christian nationalist groups have accumulated through behind-the-scenes lobbying.
“This shadow network handpicks Supreme Court justices, engineers cases for those justices to decide, and crafts alternative facts or ‘deceitful narratives’ for the media and justices to use when discussing these legal controversies,” the site says. “They stalk statehouses and other halls of power to advance policies and legislation that will impose their beliefs on everyone else. Their goal is an officially Christian nation, and nothing is safe, including our democracy.”
AU developed its three-step toolkit to help Americans share information about Project 2025 in their circles of influence, Laser said. “People feel overwhelmed in the face of the Christian nationalist attack on our country. We have heard from our members they lack the vocabulary to fight back and describe what the problem is.”
“Successfully warning even one or two people about the threat can make a difference and start a domino effect to raise awareness.”
The first step asks users to identity who is persuadable in their audiences and whether it is best to use calls, chat, text or face-to-face communication to spread the message: “Far too many people (76%) know little or nothing about Project 2025. Polling shows that the more people learn about Project 2025, the more they oppose it. Successfully warning even one or two people about the threat can make a difference and start a domino effect to raise awareness.”
Step two emphasizes the need to “elevate the threat” by zeroing in on the project’s targeting of reproductive, religious, racial and LGBTQ freedoms: “Behind the scenes, we know that the architects of Project 2025 and their supporters are advocating for even harsher policies than what they’ve made public.”
The third step suggests drilling into any of those threatened freedoms that most directly affect a given individual or group. Suggested language: “Project 2025 is coming for you, your family, your friends, your neighbors. Talk about the Project 2025 attacks that will most resonate with your audience. Tell a story about how people you love will be impacted if Project 2025 became reality. Of the options below, what do they care about most?”
Those uncomfortable with broaching the topic with others are encouraged to share a three-minute video about a couple’s experience being denied an adoption on religious grounds.
“Our campaign is breaking down into plain English what the problem is and providing that to people so they can help defend the democracy they love by putting a human face on the issue,” Laser said. “And let’s be clear, this (Project 2025) is a deliberate attempt to overwhelm us and disguise how horrible it would be for our country.”
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