Civil rights groups push against ‘autocratic’ Project 2025
By Marivir Montebon
New York - As the November election comes to close in less than a week, advocacy groups in the US are pushing back against the controversial 900-page document Project 2025 created by the conservative Heritage Foundation as an ‘executive blueprint for a dictatorship.’
The groups based in California contend during a nationwide media forum that Project 2025 will bring down the gains of civil rights and inclusion movements and “bring America to a dictatorship” through its Republican candidate.
Ethnic Media Services forum speakers Manjusha Kulkarni, Esq., Yvonne Gutierrez, Sulma Arias, and Tony Hoang.
Manjusha Kulkarni, a lawyer and head of the Asian American Pacific Islanders Equity Alliance, said that “it is of utmost importance to call elected officials to protect citizens, fight for our voting rights, LGBTQIA+, and reproductive rights. Project 2025 does not reflect our value as a nation.”
The forum was organized by San Francisco-based Ethnic Media Services (EMS) on October 4, 2024. With Kulkarni, guests from civic groups included Yvonne Gutierrez of the Reproductive Freedom for All, Tony Hoang of Equality California, and Sulma Arias of the People’s Action Institute and People’s Action.
The Heritage Foundation released Project 2025 in 2022. Based on a conversative philosophy, the document aims to reshape the US federal government and consolidate executive power if its preferred candidate wins the election.
Experts describe Project 2025 as an ideological agenda designed to push the US toward autocracy. They warn that it would erode the rule of law and threaten civil liberties.
In various instances, Republican presidential candidate former president Donald Trump has denied as having a hand on the creation of Project 2025, despite being close to several of its writers.
Hoang, executive director of Equality California, said during the EMS forum that Project 2025 is a “wrecking ball where the Heritage Foundation is attacking same sex marriage, reproductive rights. It is a road map to roll back time, set back the clock to their world view when America has grown to be diverse. Therefore, the inclusivity should be the philosophy.”
EMS executive director and veteran journalist Sandy Close sees the Project 2025 as inspired by “the fear of replacement” by American conservatives. “They don’t want an America of inclusion. They want to stop it. Full stop,” said Close.
“I believe that Americans who see the anti-democratic implications of Project 2025 will be against it,” said Arias who has been organizing communities to build power and engagement for social issues.
Gutierrez was concerned with the impact of Project 2025 which stipulated to abolish or limit budgets for reproductive health rights. “It unplugs access to abortion services and contraceptives.” That would literally mean death for women needing such medical service but are denied due to religious or morality reasons, explained Gutierrez.
Kulkarni urged the media to write about Project 2025 and its threats. “Inform your readers. Tell stories of our community. Humanize us,” she urged.
The EMS forum acknowledged that Project 2025 is also a threat to media. “It proposes to strip public broadcasting of its funding and legal status, thus endangering access to reliable news for American citizens,” analysts were quoted as saying.
The speakers emphasized that Project 2025 is targeting women, LGBTQ+ persons, and people of color who have persistently organized and pushed for their civilian and democratic rights. #
