Dear John,
Project 2025 embodies an agenda led by the Heritage Foundation to revise, reorganize and eliminate vast portions of the statutes, rules and norms that were built over decades, and that have guided our democracy and preserved our freedoms during Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Embodied in a 900-page document entitled “Mandate for Leadership – The Conservative Promise,” and developed in collaboration with more than 100 other organizations, Project 2025 would dramatically change both.
It is important to stress that recent changes in the Project’s leadership alter neither the document’s text nor the “Mandate for Leadership” that lies behind it. The president of the Heritage Foundation has made clear that the policy work has been completed as scheduled and their efforts to build a personnel apparatus to carry out this work at all levels of government continues.
All of us, and lawyers in particular, have a role to play in discussing with others the nature of the proposed changes and how they endanger our freedom. To facilitate those discussions, Lawyers Defending American Democracy is publishing a series of “Talking Points” that highlight changes Project 2025 is intent on making and their potential effect.
Each Talking Point will quote directly from a section of the document and explain its impact on our democracy, our freedom, and the rule of law. Please share this information widely with your friends, family, and colleagues in the upcoming months.
Foreward (Page 13)
“When the Founders spoke of ‘pursuit of Happiness,’ what they meant might be understood today as in essence ‘pursuit of Blessedness.’ That is, an individual must be free to live as his Creator ordained – to flourish. Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought. This pursuit of the good life is found primarily in family – marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like.”
Why it Matters: Talking Points
Here, in the Foreword to Project 2025, the authors lay bare what they mean by freedom. Not the freedom of each person to choose how they wish to live, but the requirement that each person obey the duties imposed by the authors’ particular view of Christianity. Not the freedom of each person to pursue their own view of happiness, but the requirement that they pursue “Blessedness.” Not the freedom to find fulfillment where they wish, but the requirement that they do so within the confines of marriage and children.
Our democracy and our freedom depend on respect for individual autonomy. While Project 2025 repeatedly uses the words “democracy” and “freedom,” its program envisions exactly the opposite: a country in which all people must live according to one conception of the good life, namely a life of Christian blessedness. This violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom and its requirement that church and state be separate. Most fundamentally, it represents neither democracy nor freedom, but an anti-democratic state controlling the lives of its citizens.
Visit our website for more on our Project 2025 Talking Points Series.
Thank you for your dedication to maintaining our democracy. Please support our efforts by donating to LDAD and by sharing this email with your networks. As always, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] if you may be interested in volunteering or if you wish to share your ideas.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy
