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The conservative strategy document for a second Trump administration, Project 2025, was launched by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, who attacked powerful people who “serve themselves first and everyone else a distant second.”
Two “COVID-19 shutdown politicians” in California were spotted out and about — at a hair salon and a fancy restaurant — while urging their constituents to remain home. He also brought up the topic of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who is ably ruling over an impoverished nation, as well as “billionaire climate activists” who fly on private jets while criticizing carbon-emitting cars.
Roberts used the conservative right’s plan for the White House to implicate California and its leaders—Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Gavin Newsom—in the notion that the nation is being destroyed by irresponsible coastal elites.
This idea, which is quite common in American politics, is present in all parts of the wacky, 900+ page manifesto that conservative intellectuals and Trump supporters put out last year, called Project 2025.
Last week, party officials adopted Trump’s 16-page Republican Party platform, which subtly evokes the idea and criticizes American politicians who “insulated themselves from criticism and the consequences of their own bad actions” while average Americans suffered. The platform is much shorter and more concise than the previous one.
No one from the Heritage Foundation, including Roberts, could be reached for comment. A representative from the Heritage Foundation said that Project 2025 is an initiative of over a hundred conservative groups and “does not speak for any candidate or campaign.”
Political analysts say that conservatives’ critique of “woke” liberal ideas—many of which gained support in California—has become more effective this election cycle due to the receptivity of Trump’s base to conservative virtue signaling on topics like climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, abortion, and guns.
According to the experts, this tactic will gain traction in the event that a California politician, like Newsom or former senator Kamala Harris, succeeds Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for president.
“This is a vital angle to be hitting,” remarked UCLA constitutional law professor Jon Michaels, who is writing a book about right-wing authoritarianism. “California becomes a convenient foil, and the excesses of California are what Republicans can run against.”
Problems involved
For a long time, conservatives have painted California—sometimes accurately, other times not—as a failing state that is buckling under the strain of crime, homelessness, and excessive regulation. The 2024 race has only served to heighten these attacks.
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According to Bruce Cain, a political science professor at Stanford University, “instances of California really going in a different direction from what the Republican Party wants is all over the [Project 2025] report — everything from diversity, equity and inclusion to connections to China, high tech [companies] to homelessness.” The goal is to show a state that is in disarray, a “undemocratic, patronizing state controlled by the high-tech elites completely out of touch with where the rest of America is.”
A second Trump administration, according to Project 2025 and the Republican platform, would see federal bureaucrats using executive branch powers to roll back several California policies, such as those that protect the environment, unionized workers, transgender youth, abortion rights, and undocumented immigrants.
The GOP platform, which Trump helped write, is occasionally too rhetorical but, in contrast to the leaders in California, it lays out a fairly clear structure for Trump’s administration.
“California becomes a convenient foil, and the excesses of California are what Republicans can run against.”
Professor of constitutional law at UCLA Jon Michaels
Some large California cities, including Los Angeles, have chosen not to enforce immigration laws using their police forces or other municipal employees. Such jurisdictions will be “cut federal funding” according to Trump’s plan.
As a result of authorities’ concerns about the effects on the environment and public health, California is currently restricting oil drilling within the state. This platform is a rallying cry for the country to “DRILL, BABY, DRILL.”
The state legislature in California, which is controlled by Democrats, recently approved a rule prohibiting school staff from disclosing information about students who identify as transgender to their parents unless the students themselves consent to the disclosure. Additionally, the state mandates LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum in schools. Within their platform, Republicans declare their support for “parental rights” and pledge to “defund schools that engage in inappropriate political indoctrination of our children” or promote “radical gender ideology.”
Even more strident in its criticism of California policy is the Project 2025 initiative.
In his foreword to Project 2025, Roberts devotes much space to discussing American liberty. However, he does it through the lens of Christian nationalism. According to Roberts, the Constitution grants every American the freedom to “live as his Creator ordained” — to “do not what we want, but what we ought.”
If Trump is elected, the plan states, he will “make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors” and begin by removing any mention of “reproductive health,” “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” abortion, or queer identities from federal laws and regulations.
Accusing liberal states like California of being “sanctuaries for abortion tourism,” the plan urges the Trump administration to “push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America,” collaborate with lawmakers to pass anti-abortion legislation, and require states to report federally on abortion data, including patients’ whereabouts and the “reason” for having the procedure.
Opponents argue that this would give conservative states the power to track down and penalize women who travel to more liberal states like California for abortions, since they are already banned in those jurisdictions.
Although it may disappoint some conservatives, the Republican platform does not advocate for a nationwide ban on abortion. However, it does support state laws that limit the practice and states that Republicans “proudly stand for families and Life.”
Project 2025, which supports California’s aim of transitioning solely to zero-emissions automobiles by 2035, argues that the federal government should revoke a waiver that permits the state to establish its own clean air regulations for fuel economy. Both programs condemn the nation’s transition to electric vehicles.
Upcoming conflict
Trump has now tried to separate himself from Project 2025, despite the fact that it is largely written by notable advisers and former appointees of his.
Trump admitted in a July 5 online post that he was “nothing about it,” although he did note that “some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” However, he still wished the plan’s proponents “luck.”
I don’t think I’m in Mississippi or Alabama. A strong state with many resources and an iron will is facing you.
To the Republican National Committee, Trump’s team directed inquiries concerning Project 2025, the GOP platform, and its connection to issues pertaining to California.
The party platform “contains commonsense policies like cutting taxes, securing the border, ending absurd [electric vehicle] mandates, securing our elections, defending our constitutional rights, and keeping men out of women’s sports,” according to Anna Kelly, a committee spokesperson. The last point seems to be a reference to transgender women.
“If reporters find those principles contradictory to values pushed by California leaders,” she said, “maybe it’s time for Democrats to evaluate how their state is run.”
Biden and other Democrats have consistently linked Trump to Project 2025, arguing that his denials of involvement are baseless considering the number of individuals in his inner circle who are spearheading it. During a campaign rally in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Harris criticized Project 2025, pointing out that it proposes a number of harmful policies, including a ban on abortion across the country, changes to Social Security, and the elimination of the United States Department of Education.
“If implemented, this plan would be the latest attack in Donald Trump’s full-on assault on reproductive freedom,” she pointed out.
If Biden is succeeded by Harris or Newsom, two prominent candidates amidst widespread skepticism about Biden’s youthfulness and capacity to unseat Trump, conservatives will likely take delight in mocking California and its progressive agenda, according to experts.
Half of all Americans think California is losing ground, according to a recent poll by the Times; among Republicans, 48% think the state is “not really American.”
According to experts, California would likely take the lead in the liberal opposition to Trump’s program in the event of his victory, similar to what happened during his first term. They stated that even with California’s economic problems and a conservative Supreme Court, such endeavors will face significant obstacles.
“California will fight back, and it has the means to fight back,” according to Cain. I don’t think I’m in Mississippi or Alabama. A strong state with many resources and an iron will is facing you.
The Los Angeles Times was the initial publication of this piece.