How Project 2025 threatens our secular democracy

It’s no surprise that Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, given the unpopularity of its goals. Neither is it a surprise that Trump, notoriously incurious about policy, might in fact be telling the truth when he says, "I know nothing about Project 2025" and "I have no idea who is behind it."

Project 2025, however, has certainly not distanced itself from Trump. It is nothing short of an anti-secular wish list for the future, a roadmap created by powerful Trump allies for a possible second Trump presidency.

I use secular here not to mean nonreligious but in its broad, neutral sense—the vital underpinning of a democracy that separates church and government, affords true religious freedom, and grounds its laws in rational, non-sectarian ethical principles. It is this pluralistic value, benefiting everyone but taken mostly for granted, that is most at risk from this manifesto.

Project 2025’s main document, Mandate for Leadership, asserts that "Religious devotion and spirituality are the greatest sources of happiness around the world." Its anti-secular viewpoint continues with a promise to allow taxpayer funds to pay for religious schools. While insisting a sensible budget requires cutting back on taxpayer money being spent on school lunches, Project 2025 would lavish the taxes of atheists on religious "lessons" teaching future Americans creationism, abstinence-only sex "education", and any other nonsense they care to dream up.

As for the education of adults, the document goes on to suggest the government should, "Fund effective HMRF [Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood] state programs. Grant allocations should protect and prioritize faith-based programs that incorporate local churches and mentorship programs…" Again we see Project 2025 turning away from secular, evidence-based education and toward spending taxpayer money on programs based on faith, which by definition is unproven and unprovable.

Nor do the project’s anti-secular harms stop at education. Those concerned about a possible new pandemic should take note of this extraordinary passage from Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership: "[H]ow much risk mitigation is worth the price of shutting down churches on the holiest day of the Christian calendar and far beyond as happened in 2020? What is the proper balance of lives saved versus souls saved? The CDC has no business making such inherently political (and often unconstitutional) assessments and should be required by law to stay in its lane."

In other words, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “has no business” controlling and preventing disease if it interferes with religious – or at least Christian – worship.

Even countries outside the United States cannot escape the Project’s reach. In regard to foreign aid to Africa, Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership states, "USAID should build on, not compete with, private-sector initiatives launched by global churches, corporate philanthropists, and diaspora groups that have already invested billions of dollars in self-reliance– based projects." This in a time when "global churches" have been recently responsible for pushing for the enactment of anti-choice and homophobic laws throughout Africa, including the infamous Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda.

In what can reasonably be seen as a response to aggressive strategic distancing by the Trump campaign, project director Paul Dans resigned last week. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts has made it clear that the project itself is not going away, characterizing Dans’s resignation as a “reshuffle,” announcing that he was taking over leadership himself.

It’s clear that Project 2025, if enacted, would be a disaster for the country at large and the nonreligious in particular. But perhaps the greatest risk is to our secular democracy. In these unprecedented times, we can afford such a thing least of all. Not only can we not go back – we must go forward.