Project 2025: A Conservative Road Map
Introduction
Project 2025, a conservative plan to reshape the administrative state, has been under fire for several weeks. Democrats and liberal media outlets have been stirring up fear among their followers by suggesting a sinister plot to overthrow democracy. Harris’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, stated that the 920-page blueprint was being hidden from the American public, even though it is readily accessible online. The Trump campaign has also distanced itself from Project 2025, with Trump himself expressing confusion about it and describing it as extreme.
This week, Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, announced his resignation. While he claims this was always part of the plan, others speculate that he was forced out.
Project 2025: Key Proposals
Project 2025 is conservative in many respects. It advocates for the prohibition of pornography and the imprisonment of those who produce it, the reduction of federal funding for abortion, and the banning of the abortion pill Mifepristone. It also adopts a hawkish foreign policy stance, advocating for increased defense spending.
Project 2025 and Digital Civil Liberties
Project 2025 strongly emphasizes free speech and the limitation of government censorship efforts. It particularly targets the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), arguing that the federal government should not be the arbiter of truth and that CISA has devolved into an unconstitutional censoring and election engineering apparatus of the political Left.
The project also proposes reforms for the CIA and the Intelligence Community (IC), criticizing the IC for dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop incident as "Russian disinformation" and suggesting that the IC should be prohibited from monitoring domestic disinformation. The FBI is also critiqued for policing speech and monitoring social media for misinformation or disinformation.
Big Tech, Section 230, and Antitrust
Project 2025 is highly critical of Big Tech, arguing that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should promote freedom of speech and address threats to individual liberty posed by corporations abusing dominant market positions. The project also proposes a thorough review of federal policy regarding free speech online.
Regarding Section 230, which provides platforms with immunity for user-generated content, Project 2025 proposes that the FCC should eliminate immunities that courts have added to the statute. However, the document also acknowledges the tension in regulating the content-moderation decisions of private platforms.
China and Project 2025
Project 2025 takes a strong stance against China, recommending the banning of all Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat due to national security risks and potential data and identity theft.
CBDCs and Digital ID
Project 2025 opposes the institution of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), arguing that it would provide unprecedented surveillance and potential control of financial transactions without providing added benefits available through existing technologies. The project briefly mentions vaccine passports but does not discuss digital ID.
Bottom Line
Project 2025 presents a complex mix of proposals. On one hand, it offers commendable plans to limit government powers to intervene in speech. On the other hand, its proposed interventions in Section 230 could potentially increase government involvement in free speech. There are also concerns that some right-wing positions on free speech may be more tactical than principled.
It seems that disrupting the symbiotic relationship between Big Tech and the State is necessary. This would allow for the emergence of new players in an ecosystem that the government can regulate, but not control.
What are your thoughts on Project 2025? Do you think it presents a viable road map for reshaping the administrative state? Share your thoughts with your friends and sign up for the Daily Briefing, which is delivered every day at 6pm.
