Project 2025 Raises Concerns in Pennsylvania

A right-wing plan to completely overhaul the federal government if former President Donald Trump is reelected — including instituting a national abortion ban, building an abortion surveillance system, raising prescription drug prices by privatizing Medicare, and dismantling the Department of Education — would be disastrous for Pennsylvanians and would upend life for millions of people across the commonwealth, political leaders and residents said.

Project 2025, a 922-page plan for a far-right takeover of the U.S. government, was created by a coalition of extremist groups spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank helmed by a president who recently warned of bloodshed if the left intervened in what he described as a second American Revolution.

While Trump is attempting to distance himself from Project 2025, educators and Democratic leaders say it’s emblematic of the authoritarian control Trump hopes to establish should he win a second term. Numerous former Trump administration officials contributed to the plan, and Trump’s name is mentioned 312 times in the document.

“It’s really scary,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said of Project 2025. “It is an agenda to take away more of your freedoms. It is an agenda to use the police and the military to settle scores with his [Trump’s] enemies. It’s an agenda to pollute our air and undermine our public health and safety.”

Shapiro made his comments while campaigning with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential run in Ambler, Pennsylvania, on July 29. His concerns follow criticism from doctors, educators, and others. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts has been rallying support for Project 2025 in Pennsylvania earlier this year.

While speaking at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, in April, Roberts described his dream scenario for November’s election: a Trump win, followed by the implementation of a plan that includes dismantling the Federal Bureau of Investigation, minimal federal regulations on natural gas drilling—which has wreaked havoc on Pennsylvania’s environment and residents’ health—and ending the federal Department of Education.

“I suspect if Project 2025, with all its associated organizations, influences the next administration, you’re going to see the following glorious things happen,” Roberts said. “We’re going to see a new FBI director who ‘select-alt-deletes’ the legal code that created the FBI and starts from scratch.”

“But, as you might imagine, I have a personal favorite, and that is, once and for all, we’re going to eliminate, tear out root and branch, the most rotten part of the federal government, which is the U.S. Department of Education,” Roberts added.

Lori McFarland, a retired teacher from Upper Milford Township and Lehigh County Democratic Party chair, said Pennsylvanians would oppose terminating the Department of Education and other initiatives in Project 2025.

“We are a very diverse commonwealth, and if people in Pennsylvania understood the true meaning of all of this, they’re going to want to have nothing to do with it,” McFarland said.

McFarland said she is especially alarmed by Project 2025’s support for a national abortion ban and severely limiting access to reproductive health. The document calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to become the “Department of Life,” which would reject abortion as health care and pressure states to submit data on every abortion performed.

McFarland pointed out that abortion is legal through the 23rd week of pregnancy in Pennsylvania, though that could change if Project 2025 is implemented.

“Here in Pennsylvania, we don’t support this,” McFarland said of outlawing abortion.

“But if the federal government takes over, then Gov. Shapiro won’t be able to do much,” she said of Pennsylvania’s governor who has been a staunch supporter of abortion rights.

Ronna Dewey, the state program director for Red, Wine and Blue, a grassroots group that aims to engage suburban women in politics, said her organization has been raising awareness about Project 2025 and believes knowledge about the far-right plan will drive people to vote in November’s election.

“If we look at Project 2025, there’s clear attacks that are coming,” Dewey told the Pennsylvania Independent at the Shapiro-Whitmer event in Ambler.

In July, Trump told a gathering of Christian conservatives, “I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

“I think everyone needs to take that extremely seriously if they want to preserve our democracy,” Dewey said.