Of course Trump lied about Project 2025. Now he's enacting it.
A year ago, as delegates to the Republican National Convention gathered in Milwaukee to nominate Donald Trump for president, I sent an urgent warning to voters about an innocent enough sounding proposal – "Project 2025" –punctuated by this admission: "Honestly, it scares me."
The 922-page report from a conservative think tank outlined the first 180 days of a second Trump presidency. At the time, then GOP-nominee Trump claimed to know nothing about it, despite his name being mentioned 312 times in the document.
While Trump tried to distance himself from its politically unpopular ideas, I recognized that if he won, Trump would support many of its radical plans that could disrupt nearly every aspect of our lives, including healthcare, education, taxes and civil rights.
The question looms: Was I right?
I was right, and it's so much worse than I thought
The short answer is yes, and in ways even more frightening than I first feared, but you don't need to take my word for it. Just ask Maurice Cunningham, a retired professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston, who studied politics for decades and is well-versed in Project 2025.
When I asked Cunningham if the policies outlined in the document implemented by Trump are hurting the average American as much as I suspected, he responded: "It's not just bad; it's possibly worse than you could have imagined.'
Although the situation may seem dire, Cunningham warned that now is not the time to be complacent and simply hope for change. Instead, it is crucial for people to organize, protest and hold their elected officials accountable.
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Trump appointed Project 2025 authors to administration posts
The similarities between what Project 2025 proposed and what Trump's second administration has unleashed on Americans is striking, and it would be unwise to dismiss them as mere coincidence. And keep in mind, we still have another 3.5 years to go.
In the first 100 days since he took office alone, nearly 45% of his executive orders closely resemble the policy recommendations advocated by Project 2025, according to an analysis conducted by the Hearst Television Data Team.
And that was just the beginning.
A number of Trump administration appointees were contributors to the project, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and border czar Tom Homan.
Cunningham said Trump's policies, put into place by the people behind Project 2025, are beginning to take a toll on the most vulnerable sectors of society. This alignment appears to be a key component of his overall strategy.
We saw this at work with the passage of Trump's "big beautiful" budget bill where cuts to Medicaid alone could cause as many as 20 million people to lose their health coverage over the next decade. This will happen despite Trump's repeated promises not to cut Medicaid benefits as recently as March. That fits a familiar pattern. Lie. Deny. Enact. Repeat.
Opinion: How much of Project 2025 has been implemented? Enough to break us beyond repair.
It's worth noting that Project 2025 proposed significant changes to Medicaid, including work requirements, limiting eligibility and possibly imposing lifetime caps or time limits on coverage, while also weakening reforms from the Affordable Care Act.
As we look back on the past five months under the Trump administration, the key question is whether we're better off now or if we've fallen further into hardship.
"I think that's easy to answer and it will only get worse,' Cunningham said.
This will be a slow burn. Tax cuts under the bill happen immediately while Medicaid changes are phased in. In other places, the pain is already being felt from mass layoffs of federal employees and DOGE budget cuts.
Education and social safety net endure DOGE chainsaw
Education is place where changes outlined in Project 2025 will begin making a major impact this fall. It called for allowing discrimination against LGBTQ+ students, redirecting taxpayer money to private schools, eliminating Title 1 funding and making cuts to Head Start, which would affect 800,000 preschoolers.
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has promised to dismantle the department and has pushed to cut the Education Department's budget by $12 billion. This reduction would seriously impact minority and low-income children and their families in public schools and rural communities.
The administration already cut and delayed funding for Head Start programs for preschoolers from low income families, which assists 16,000 children in Wisconsin alone.
Project 2025 proposed to make it even more difficult for low-income individuals to afford food. The proposal aims to reverse the Biden administration's initiative to increase SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits over the next decade, a measure designed to keep pace with rising food costs.
Under Trump's budget bill, SNAP will face its largest cut in history, resulting in an estimated 3.2 million adults losing food benefits each month, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
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Picture this: young students stepping into their classrooms, their bellies empty and growling, struggling to concentrate and absorb knowledge as the shadow of budget cuts hovers ominously over their futures.
And it doesn't stop there.
Then came Alligator Alcatraz
Trump's mass deportations align directly with Project 2025's plan to increase executive power and undermine the U.S. immigration system. It proposed implementing asylum procedures at the border, reducing access to legal immigration options, utilizing local resources for mass deportations and detention, and separating immigrant children from their families.
Trump's budget bill allocates $170 billion to deport 1 million people each year. ICE officials have gotten more aggressive, arresting undocumented immigrants at their homes, workplaces, protests, churches, near schools, and even at the Milwaukee courthouse.
On April 18, Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was taken into custody by FBI officials after she allegedly assisted Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, in escaping federal agents following his appearance in her courtroom.
Flores-Ruiz, 31, was arrested after a brief foot chase outside the courthouse. A week later, Dugan, 65, was also arrested at the courthouse. She was charged on April 25 with two federal counts: obstructing a U.S. agency and concealing an individual to prevent an arrest.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political science professor Kathleen Dolan called the arrest of Dugan an 'intimidation tactic.'
'If a judge can be handcuffed on their job, what do you think will happen to you?' she said.
The ongoing mass deportations continue to rip families apart, leaving a trail of profound emotional devastation in their wake. It's disheartening to witness the stark absence of compassion among Republicans regarding this crisis.
Just this month, a migrant detention facility opened in the Florida Everglades. Some Republicans have dubbed the facility 'Alligator Alcatraz,' due to its isolated location and the fact that it's surrounded by lurking alligators and slithering pythons.
The term "Alligator Alcatraz" not only evokes a sense of danger but also highlights the callousness that the Trump administration is willing to exhibit to drive home its message. Disturbingly, they are even merchandising T-shirts that mock what I would call a modern-day concentration camp.
This tumultuous situation sends shockwaves through immigrant communities, escalating fear and uncertainty at every turn.
But when you have a president who has continuously labeled immigrants as sex offenders, murderers, and gang members or suggested that many came to America from insane asylums, one can only imagine the atmosphere of dread that permeates these communities.
This is not the time to become complacent or tune out news
While Trump may seem to have the upper hand, it doesn't mean that everything is bleak. Both Cunningham and Dolan emphasized that now is not the time for people to become complacent.
Dolan urged individuals to stay engaged in politics, even when it feels confusing and tedious. Cunningham stressed the importance of making one's voice heard through protests and by challenging both Republican and Democratic leaders to address the public's needs.
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These are remarkable times with head spinning twists. One time ally and now enemy of Trump, Elon Musk, poised the idea of an third political party on Tuesday.
Musk said the "America Party," would be the place for those not happy with the Republican or Democratic parties. While I agree something needs to change, Musk, who was Trump's largest donor for his campaign is not the right person to lead such a party, especially given Musk's brutal and haphazard spending cuts in his time at the poorly named Department of Government Efficiency and considering Trump said he would look at having Musk deported to his native South Africa.
Besides, Americans don't have time for a new political party. I think a better idea would be for people to unite for a new nationwide "Poor People's Campaign," similar to the one led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1968. This campaign would tackle issues like wealth inequality, poverty and racism, which continue to divide our society. A group in North Carolina has taken up this mantle.
It's astonishing that issues from 57 years ago persist today, including the lack of access to health care and education, as well as inadequate wages.
I know there are people who don't believe that marching has an impact, but when you consider that Project 2025 was designed for a specific type of individual – one who doesn't look like me – and that Trump aligns with that inherently racist, sexist and classist document, it is clear that something drastic needs to change.
This moment presents an opportunity to unite everyone – from diverse backgrounds, races, religions and socioeconomic statuses – around a shared mission.
Too many people are still on the sidelines, watching as individuals are deported, others lose their healthcare and civil rights continue to be eroded. We can either sit back and hope we aren't the next ones affected by the issues on Trump's long list, or we can fight to not only protect what we have but also to help those who have already lost so much.
James E. Causey is an Ideas Lab reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where this column originally appeared. Reach him at jcausey@jrn.com, follow him on X @jecausey.
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