Project 2025

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Opinion piece in The Guardian.

Quote:

Here is what will happen on day one of Trump’s presidency, according to Project 2025
Daniel Martinez HoSang

As Trump utters the last phrase of the oath of office – ‘so help me God’ – the first phase of what Project 2025’s authors call ‘the playbook’ begins

It’s a cold day in Washington DC in late January 2025. Though Donald Trump has lost the popular vote for a third consecutive election, his narrow capture of the electoral college has delivered the presidency.

During the campaign, Trump offered some symbolic gestures to distance himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led policy blueprint for the next Republican administration, matched with a database of conservative personnel to execute those plans. “Personnel is politics,” they explain.

But with Republicans now holding bare majorities in both chambers of Congress, the gloves come off. As Trump utters the last phrase of the oath of office – “so help me God” – the first phase of what Project 2025’s authors call “the playbook” begins.

First come the firings. Thousands of federal, non-partisan civil servants –environmental and food safety regulators; authorities in disaster relief coordination; attorneys overseeing anti-discrimination policies in housing, education and employment; medical and scientific researchers – receive immediate layoff notices. Many will not be replaced, as entire federal programs and agencies are shuttered. The new personnel that do arrive come from conservative thinktanks, or are rightwing activists who applied through the Project 2025 application database. Political cronyism is now the official hiring policy of the US federal government.

Next come the roundups. As drafted by the Maga nativist-in-chief Stephen Miller, a broad range of law enforcement, from the national guard to state and local police are deputized for a new deportation army. Sweeps of neighborhoods and businesses take aim at blue states and cities, but general terror is their intended goal. Detention centers are established on military bases and federal facilities with quick access to airfields to execute mass removals. Nearly a million lawfully present immigrants are stripped of their legal protections, subjecting them to immediate deportation. An end to Daca and a return of the Muslim ban follow.

In the following months other parts of the agenda unfold. Cuts in corporate taxes so generous they would make the robber barons blush. An end to federal funding for public television and radio that forces many local stations to shutter. The termination of Head Start programs leaves hundreds of thousands of parents and guardians without preschool or childcare. The elimination of the Department of Education and programs like Title I halt funding and many protections for students with disabilities, English learners and students from low-income households.

Pornography is criminalized. Ditto for abortion rights, emergency contraception and many reproductive health programs. Adiós also to most public sector unions, labor organizing rights and anti-poverty programs.

It can be difficult at times to distinguish the hyperbole of Trump and the Maga movement from actual governing plans. “Build the wall” was always more of a campaign performance and fundraising stunt then a policy blueprint. But after attending several rightwing conferences and rallies for research in the last year, I have little reason to doubt their intentions this time around.

I’ve heard Miller at CPAC describe the deportation plans in chilling detail. I heard speaker after speaker at a Turning Point USA conference promise violence and retribution against political opponents, the dismantling of nearly all public goods, and plans to bring a shrill Christian nationalism to the center of governance and civic life. I’ve listened to unapologetic defenses of eugenics and scientific racism on rightwing media channels with millions of followers.

And perhaps most frighteningly, I’ve observed growing numbers of young people, people of color and others outside of the traditional conservative base join the Maga faithful and embrace the cynicism and demonization that is the heartbeat of the contemporary right.

Conservatives often celebrate the unity of their governing philosophy, rooted in small government, entrepreneurship, faith and family. But there is nothing coherent or rational about these policies. Plunder is the prevailing principle.

And these ideas are not limited to the Heritage Foundation or Trump alone. They have been embraced across a network of rightwing formations, some with agendas even more extreme than Project 2025.

Nor can this agenda be described as populist. Polls show large majorities of the US public deeply opposed to the Project 2025 agenda. Corporate giveaways, drastic cuts to public services and legalized discrimination against queer people won’t alleviate any of the very real crises faced by masses of people in the US and around the world.

In the face of this threatened calamity, what can be done? To be sure, the material consequences of this agenda must be exposed. Maga supporters often suggest Trump should be taken “seriously but not literally”. Project 2025’s 920-page policy document is not political theater, and its threat to the everyday lives of hundreds of millions of people must be laid out in stark terms. These fissures must be exposed.

At the same time, we must not succumb to a fatalism. Rightwing tacticians like Christopher Rufo have explained that they publicize their strategies to intentionally demoralize their opposition. If we only warn against the threat of fascism, we risk leaving people even more fearful and isolated, cynical towards the prospect of any collective change or resistance.

And if the only alternative offered is a call to defend a decaying liberalism, one that is itself saturated in violence, precarity and premature death, the reactionary threat will surely quicken.

Instead, warnings about the authoritarian menace of Project 2025 and its ilk must be wedded to clear ambitions to rebuild our emaciated public institutions, to protect people from the predations of a rigged economy. The fascist threat collapses when ordinary people have meaningful opportunities for social connection and purpose, the groundwork of human dignity.

Daniel Martinez HoSang is an associate professor of ethnicity, race and migration at Yale University. He is author of Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California and co-author of Producers, Parasites, Parasites: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/09/trump-presidency-day-one-project-2024

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The vision described here reminds me of rule in England during the Interregnum when the Puritans took over and banned pretty much everything.

That's one of the reasons Britain still has a monarchy and escaped the revolutions that swept across Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

We've had puritanical rule, and we never want it again.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

The idea that Trump remains popular with close to half of the electorate is especially chilling. And many of his most ardent supporters belong to demographic groups who would suffer the most from his policies.

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How Project 2025 Would Change the Country

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@hightor,

The predictions/threats of a civil war would be far more likely in that event.

We didn't put up with puritanical rule forever. The Interregnum lasted eleven years and unlike the wars preceding it ended with a peaceful transition of power.

The American people won't put up with this forever either. The natural law abiding nature of the Democrats will keep everything calm for the first four years at least, but if there isn't an election by then things will start to kick off.

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Republicans for decades ALWAYS CLAIMED TO BE THE PARTY BEST SUPPORTING FARMERS.
They obviously have been lying for decades. Now their actions should speak louder than words. Farmers and rural America need to stop worshipping the party that actively and openly hates them.

Life on the farm is hella difficult. Republicans want to make it even more treacherous and difficult to thrive working on the farm.

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From Wiki, a long view.

Quote:

After the Parliamentarian victory in the English Civil War, the Puritan views of the majority of Parliament and its supporters began to be imposed on the rest of the country. The Puritans advocated an austere lifestyle and restricted what they saw as the excesses of the previous regime. Most prominently, holidays such as Christmas and Easter were suppressed.[6] Pastimes such as the theatre and gambling were also banned. However, some forms of art that were thought to be "virtuous", such as opera, were encouraged. These changes are often credited to Cromwell, though they were introduced by the Commonwealth Parliament

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interregnum_(England)

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@hightor,

I wonder how many truly will vote for him. I sense there's been a shift among his previous voters, don't you?

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@Mame,

I'm not sure of that, Mame. The connection he has with the MAGA masses isn't a rational one. There's something else going on.

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Quote:

I read the full 900-page Project 2025 manifesto – here’s why it matters
Heritage Foundation blueprint describes an America poisoned by ‘wokeness’ and overtaken by lawlessness that only conservatives can save

I printed out all 900-plus pages of Project 2025 in February on my home printer, stacking the unwieldy chapters on my desk. Bit by bit, each evening, I read my way through the plans that seek to dramatically alter each federal agency.

Most Americans who know about Project 2025 consume it in bite-size pieces, like Instagram infographics, or see the name on billboards. They hear politicians, like Vice-President Kamala Harris, mention it on stage – or former president Donald Trump disavow it in TV interviews. These attempt to neatly distill all the ways the document could upend the US government. For Democrats, Project 2025 has become a buzzword for the 2024 election, a shorthand way to warn voters what could be ahead if Trump wins again in November.

My own consumption of the project was not as piecemeal – I read the full conservative manifesto by the Heritage Foundation and its many rightwing allies. Here’s what I learned from the document and all the controversy surrounding it.

Project 2025’s policy guidebook, Mandate for Leadership, describes an America poisoned by “wokeness” and overtaken by lawlessness and chaos, where conservatives need to seize power immediately – and for as long as possible – to right a sinking ship.

The guide is just one part of the broader plan Project 2025 and Heritage had in mind to dismantle the government, recruit thousands of politically aligned people to staff an incoming Trump administration, and quickly guide the next president into the steps needed to accomplish their preferred policy changes.

Trump has claimed he does not know what it is or who is involved, though he does indeed know many of the people involved. Perhaps more importantly, his policy plans often align with what’s in the project.

By seeking to influence Trump, the project – which counts more than 100 conservative groups as supporters and contributors – probably poisoned Heritage and its allies’ chances of forming part of Trump’s inner circle and potential next administration by claiming it could influence a man who hates to see himself as influenced by others. Other thinktanks that kept their hands clean of the power struggle could instead become more influential, though it would be difficult, or impossible, to staff thousands of political jobs with people who have no ties to Heritage or Project 2025.

In an ironic turn, given the toxicity of the project to voters, it could cost Trump the election in November.

Could it actually happen?
Outside groups always hope to influence presidents. Heritage has put together and released a version of the Mandate for Leadership every four years since Ronald Reagan’s first term. Why did this one catch such fire? For one, they wrote it all down and released it publicly, with a splashy online presence and media appearances. They also recruited tons of other conservative groups to sign on as allies. They publicly called it a plan for “institutionalizing Trumpism”.

Democrats seized on it, seeking to tie Trump directly to the plan by plastering the project on billboards and mentioning it in speeches as much as possible. They have been successful – though the plan was released in 2023, the public’s knowledge of it has increased dramatically in the last two months because of this negative attention.

Could the ideas in Project 2025 actually happen? Not all of them, and not overnight. But a movement amasses power that then can lead to massive social change piece by piece. Some of the plans, like dismantling the Department of Education, have been on conservative wishlists since the department began. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t happen – it just means there is an eventual tipping point where they could. Take the fall of Roe, for instance.

One way the plan seeks to create more tipping points is by adding in more political appointees, a change Trump has tried in the past in what’s known as Schedule F. It would classify thousands more positions in the federal government as political instead of neutral career civil servants. And the recent US supreme court ruling that made accountability difficult if a president’s official acts break the law certainly helps with amassing power in the executive branch, too.

Dismantling government and elevating religion
As I have watched and covered the project and the backlash to it from Democrats and Trump’s circle, it has become clear that few have read the document itself. It is at times less aggressive than its detractors would have you believe and at others far more wide-reaching and consequential than a simplistic infographic.

It doesn’t say to defund social security, for instance, despite what some TikToks claim. But it does say a whole lot else that would affect the daily lives of people in the US and beyond.

Across multiple agencies, it would make access to abortion infinitely more difficult. It would change the name of the federal health and human services department to the “Department of Life”. It would criminalize pornography. There would be mass deportations and curtailments of legal immigration programs, including Daca. It would dismantle the Department of Education.

Throughout the manifesto, authors also recommend ways to increase funding for religious organizations by giving them more access to government programs – largely through increased use of school vouchers that could go to religious schools or by modifying programs like Small Business Administration loans to make religious groups eligible for funding.

In some parts, the project takes a more explicit Christian worldview. In the chapter about the Department of Labor, the manifesto suggests a communal day of rest for society because “God ordained the Sabbath as a day of rest”. One way to enforce this idea would be for Congress to require paid time-and-a-half for anyone who works on Sundays, which the project calls the default day of Sabbath “except for employers with a sincere religious observance of a Sabbath at a different time”.

In nearly all chapters, there is a mention of driving out any forces that seek to increase diversity in the federal government. And whenever LGBTQ+ rights are mentioned, it is to say there should be fewer of them.

Project 2025 is also steeped in the culture wars: the document characterizes so many elements of governance as woke – the woke treasury department, woke weather reports – that the term is rendered meaningless. It also describes the country as run by “elites” – though not, apparently, the elites that run heavyweight Washington thinktanks.

Trump’s policy positions are typically much less detailed than what’s in Project 2025. We have at times referred to Project 2025 as the meat on the bones of a Trump presidency. To figure out where Trump and the project’s policy goals align, I also looked up what Trump has said – or not said – on the issues the project covers.

How to remake a government
Schedule F, the wonkily named plan to create a government more beholden to its executive, is perhaps the biggest change that the project seeks, and it’s one Trump is aligned on.

In each agency chapter, there are suggestions for how more non-partisan, civic employees in the federal government could be turned into political appointees who would be beholden to the Trump agenda and less likely to push back on policy changes.

In that sense, we shouldn’t think of Project 2025 as solely aimed at Trump: it is instead a vision for conservatives for Trump and far beyond, a rightwing wishlist aimed at generational change in how the government operates and the chief executive’s role within it.

I will use what the project suggests for the US census – the huge count that the government carries out every 10 years – as an example.

The census helps decide how federal resources should be allocated to communities, but, for our purposes here, it’s most relevant that census data is used to decide how to divvy up seats in the US House and make electoral maps during decennial redistricting done by states. The census can alter the balance of power in statehouses and in Congress.

Given its influence, the project suggests an incoming conservative president needs to install more political appointees to the census bureau and ensure ideologically aligned career employees are “immediately put in place to execute a conservative agenda”. The next census isn’t until 2030, but plans for it are already under way.

That conservative agenda includes adding a citizenship question, something Trump tried to do for the 2020 census but was blocked by the US supreme court. The project says “any successful conservative Administration must include a citizenship question in the census”.

The project also suggests reviewing and possibly curtailing plans to broaden the race and ethnicity categories because “there are concerns among conservatives that the data under Biden Administration proposals could be skewed to bolster progressive political agendas”. And a program that uses partnerships with trusted community groups to increase responsiveness to the census should make sure to “actively engage with conservative groups and voices to promote response to the decennial census.

“In 2020, lack of conservative participation was one factor in an undercount in some areas of the country, affecting representation of certain states,” the project claims, echoing a sentiment Heritage has elevated before.

Why it matters
Many of the project’s ideas are more or less conservative consensus – they align with what Trump has said and done in the past on the topic and they represent what could happen if he wins again.

But some parts of it go beyond Trump’s stated plans, like broader restrictions on abortion access, or they are more blunt about exactly what could happen if a conservative wins.

And many other parts still are not issues Trump has weighed in on, where he may default to what the conservative movement wants. Some of its ideas are pie-in-the-sky: we are probably not making a return to the gold standard, at least not anytime soon.

For liberals, Project 2025 has become a boogeyman. For conservatives, it’s a weight around them as they seek electoral wins – and a sign that liberals will do whatever they can to malign Trump for his associations.

Though Trump would love few things more than never hearing the term “Project 2025” again, there’s a case to be made for paying close attention to what Heritage and the project do this election and beyond. If you’re liberal, you should work to understand what the other side is doing. If you’re conservative, you should know what’s being said in your name.

The final chapter of the manifesto makes clear the groups involved view their goals as an ongoing existential battle for America.

“In Washington, there are no permanent victories,” wrote Edwin J Feulner, a Heritage co-founder. “But neither are there permanent defeats. Rather, there are permanent battles throughout the policy arena. The other side is never standing still.

“While we may achieve tremendous successes under conservative leaders, the Left is always working to chip away at them, which is why we must constantly be prepared for the next fight.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/14/project-2025-election

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

My brother works as a project manager for a company that provides data (and interprets it, I believe) for the Navy. And while he's not a civil servant, I suspect he would lose his job under Project 2025. Not because the company he works for is so all-fired woke (or even that he is, for that matter). It's because I suspect a political appointee would undoubtedly object to the way that data is gathered and reported, and the company could lose its contract.

It's not even necessarily that they would claim anything was wrong. They would, I feel, take exception to presentation and claim some form of bias. Redoing that kind of work takes months and a lot of $, and it furthers the gridlock in American politics. This removes people's faith in federal politics even more, and assures that fewer people vote, feeling that it doesn't matter.

And, it forces local governments to pick up the slack if they can afford to do so. And the states which are less likely to have the financial resources to fill in the gaps are mainly red states.

As a result, P2025 proponents will undoubtedly claim that if they hadn't had to clean all that awful wokeness out of the federal government and its civilian partners, that stuff like Medicare and clean water would be affordable.

In short, look what they made us do.

This creating of a situation and then blaming others for its consequences is also very much out of the Nazi playbook. E. g. The Nazis force Jews to live in cramped ghettos where there are no social services such as street cleaning. Then the Nazis complain that the ghettos are overcrowded (because you're trying to stuff thousands of people into spaces only meant to hold a few hundred) and dirty (no street cleaning, remember?). So hey, we'll do you all a favor and clear the Jews out. Then everything will be wonderful again (yeah, right).

In this case, it's blaming the left and current and past Democratic administrations for things like studies showing that businesses which live their DEI values tend to be more successful. Or stats showing that the birthplace of gay marriage (Massachusetts) has one of the lowest divorce rates in the country. Or data showing fewer people in poverty and better overall health in blue states versus red ones.

And if they just scrub that stuff out and sweep it under the rug, their pals in the red states will get validation that their beliefs that white cis men are the greatest and the only ones who can get things done and get us to a great place, that those beliefs are A-1 correct. Suspending a few rights? A small price to pay. A few dead kids when gun rights are at stake? It's a cost of doing business. Get over it. A lapse into pollution, poor business performance, and increasingly substandard healthcare? Ignore it because look how awesome everything is, now that it's no longer woke.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

The idea that Trump remains popular with close to half of the electorate is especially chilling. And many of his most ardent supporters belong to demographic groups who would suffer the most from his policies.

Amen.

It is unfathomable that nearly half of the voting population thinks it would be a good idea to return Trump to the presidency.

How did we ever get ourselves into this condition?

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Simple answers, blame game and a news media than does not have to worry about facts thanks to Reagan era legislation.

The narrative seems to be that America has lost its way, become immoral, and way too liberal, like the Weimar Republic.

The solution is to pause democracy, and put a strong 'moral' leader in charge to put America back on the right track for however long it takes before it can be restored safely.

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@izzythepush,

I appreciate that this Discussion thread is about “Project 2025”, but I would just like to comment on the alleged-connection of “Project 2025” to Donald Trump:
It seems there is no such connection,
yet all the other posts here seem to assume it is connected to him.
(As someone neither committed to “right” nor “Left” politics, my concern is merely as to factual information.)

The Guardian article copied by contributor “izzythepush” includes the following:

Quote:

‘[...] During the campaign, Trump offered some symbolic gestures to distance himself from Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led policy [...]’

Source:
[Heading:] “Here is what will happen on day one of Trump’s presidency, according to Project 2025”,
Mon 9 Sep 2024 10.00 BST:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/09/trump-presidency-day-one-project-2024

What has Donald Trump said?:

Quote:

July 5, 2024:
truthsocial.com,
Donald J Trump:

I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.

Source:
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112734594514167050

What is the source of "Project 2025"?:

Quote:

'Project 2025 (also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project[3]) is a political initiative published by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation in 2022. The project aims to promote conservative and right-wing policies to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power, under the premise that Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. [...]

The project's controversial proposals led Trump and his campaign to distance themselves from the project in 2024, saying he knew "nothing about it" and that "some of the things [Project 2025 says] are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal" '

Citations:
Please see webpage for citations.

Source:
"Project 2025":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

2 Replies

@Robert111333,

Robert111333 wrote:

I appreciate that this Discussion thread is about “Project 2025”, but I would just like to comment on the alleged-connection of “Project 2025” to Donald Trump:
It seems there is no such connection,
yet all the other posts here seem to assume it is connected to him.
(As someone neither committed to “right” nor “Left” politics, my concern is merely as to factual information.)

That is like saying there is no connection between Hitler and the extermination of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and handicapped individuals.

YOU may not see the connection, but anyone looking objectively at the people most responsible for its content...and their association with Trump can easily come up with a reasonable inference that he is connected to it in meaningful ways.

The fact that Trump says he knows nothing about the project, but "disagrees" with many of the things in it...should cause some questions for anyone as supposedly objective as you.

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@Frank Apisa,

I don't think there's much point in debating with this individual.

They are little more than a right wing propaganda machine.

It is a tactic of propagandists to claim they're a disinterested party only interested in facts.

All of their posts are extremely right wing, from denial of global warming, denial of the Palestinian's right to exist, rabid support for Israel and now echoing Trump's pathetic attempts to distance himself from Project 2025.

When one approaches debate in such a dishonest and deceptive manner, reasonable discussion is futile.

For all of dear old OmSigDavid's faults he was honest about who he was and where he was coming from.

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@Frank Apisa,

Contributor "Frank Apisa" wrote:

Quote:

'YOU may not see the connection, but anyone looking objectively at the people most responsible for its content...and their association with Trump can easily come up with a reasonable inference that he is connected to it in meaningful ways.'

I see; so now its alleged: "guilt by association"!

1 Reply

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@izzythepush,

Contributor "izzythepush" wrote (which refers to my first post on this thread):

Quote:

'It is a tactic of propagandists to claim they're a disinterested party only interested in facts.'

The general reader can easily examine my posts to make up their own mind.

He also wrote:

Quote:

'All of their posts are extremely right wing [...]'

I leave it to the reader to form their own view on my posts.

He wrote:

Quote:

'[...] from denial of global warming [..]'

If they said that about me, then they are wrong; see:
"Net Zero" and Action on the Human Greenhouse Gas Emissions:
https://able2know.org/topic/587810-1<br />

He also wrote:

Quote:

'denial of the Palestinian's right to exist'

I have posted no such thing.

He wrote:

Quote:

'rabid support for Israel'

Why do pro-Palestinian Arab supporters become emotional and resort to rudeness? It is likely due to the contributor's frustration in having emotionally-invested too heavily in Palestinian Arab propaganda falsehoods, which by their very nature cannot be verified.

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Some people can't tell when they've been sussed out.

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@Robert111333,

Robert111333 wrote:

I see; so now its alleged: "guilt by association"!

https://www.heritage.org/impact/trump-administration-embraces-heritage-foundation-policy-recommendations

One year after taking office, President Donald Trump and his administration have embraced nearly two-thirds of the policy recommendations from The Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership.”

https://www.project2025.org/about/about-project-2025/

"The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is being organized by The Heritage Foundation and builds off Heritage’s longstanding “Mandate for Leadership,” which has been highly influential for presidential administrations since the Reagan era. Most recently, the Trump administration relied heavily on Heritage’s “Mandate” for policy guidance, embracing nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office."

1 Reply

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