The More Voters Know About Project 2025, The More They Hate It. Extreme GOP Plan. Billboards, 7 States

Last edited Fri Jul 12, 2024, 08:12 PM - Edit history (2)

Daily Kos, July 12, 2024. Ed.

Interest in Project 2025 continues following Trump's attempt to disavow it. On Thurs., CNN took his I-dunno-nothin’-about-it claim and found at least 140 Trump administration people who helped write the autocratic agenda, including 6 former Cabinet secretaries and “more than half of the people listed as authors, editors and contributors to ‘Mandate for Leadership,’ the project’s extensive manifesto for overhauling the executive branch,” CNN reports.

People are trying to find out what Project 2025 is all about. Navigator Research, a consortium of progressive polling firms, recommends how we should talk about it and what Democrats need to be saying about it as the election heats up. This week Navigator released final results from its latest survey conducted June 20-24. It found that the most salient message about Project 2025 is that it “is an unprecedented, extreme Republican plan that will fundamentally alter the American government making Trump even more dangerous in a 2nd term by granting him presidential powers like no president before him has ever had.”

Navigator found that the message that worked best for Democrats and independents was that Project 2025 would "roll back and eliminate Americans’ constitutionally protected rights and freedoms," and the message that worked best for non-MAGA Republicans was that it would "hurt hard-working American families and seniors." There’s plenty in the authoritarian plan to worry Americans. - It seeks to end no-fault divorce and restrict access to birth control—even condoms. It demands cuts to Social Security—raising the retirement age from 67 to 70—and wants to privatize Medicare. There are the proposals to curtail food assistance, eliminate Head Start, restrict help to disabled veterans, and roll back overtime pay requirements for hourly workers.

Voters of all stripes know Trump, so all his efforts to distance himself from these policies won’t work.

The majority of people surveyed by Navigator also believe that Project 2025 describes policy positions of the Republican Party and Trump, and that Republicans would implement it if they win full control of the government in 2024. The big takeaway from this is that the more people find out about it, the more unpopular it is. Navigator writes, “Project 2025 is underwater by 48 points at the end of this survey … with nearly 3 in 4 independents opposed to it … and Republicans split on the plan … [and ] more than 9 in 10 Democrats are opposed to Project 2025 by the end of the survey.”...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/12/2253280/-The-more-voters-know-about-Project-2025-the-more-they-hate-it

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- 'Democratic billboards stress Trump link to rightwing Project 2025 manifesto.' Billboards will go up in 7 swing states as campaign seeks to publicize manifesto and tie it to ex-president, The Guardian, July 12, 2024.

Democrats will put up billboards in swing states that show Donald Trump and tie him to Project 2025, a conservative manifesto that could become reality if he wins in November. The Democratic National Committee’s paid media campaign escalates liberal efforts to publicize Project 2025 and tie it to the former president after he sought to distance himself from the plan.

The blueprint for a second Trump administration is led by the rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation and counts support from more than 100 other conservative groups. According to a plan first shared with the Guardian, 36 billboards in both English and Spanish will go up in nine cities in seven battleground states: Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Philadelphia, Green Bay, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Raleigh and Charlotte. They show Trump’s face alongside language such as “Trump’s plan to be a dictator on day 1: Project 2025. Google it” and say that the project “guts checks and balances, seeks revenge and bans abortion nationwide”.

Joe Biden has used similar terms when discussing Project 2025 this week, posting on X: “Google Project 2025.” The president has also directed people to a website his campaign created that details the project’s goals and how they would affect Americans. But Biden did not bring up the project during the debate as some expected, missing an opportunity to attack Trump over extreme policies. Project 2025 has become a trending topic in recent weeks as the left tries to warn voters of what Trump could do with a second term. The 900-plus-page document goes agency by agency to propose a wide variety of changes to US policy and law, a comprehensive dismantling and realignment of government.

Among its biggest ideas is stacking the government with more people politically beholden to the president, consolidating his power. It also proposes mass deportations and strict immigration restrictions, turning the health and human services department into the “department of life” and infusing the federal government with anti-abortion policies, and getting rid of agencies such as the Department of Education. The project is especially opposed to LGBTQ+-friendly policies and diversity initiatives, suggesting eliminating them throughout government...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/12/democrats-billboards-trump-project-2025