MY TURN: Project 2025 — Presidential Transition Project
I see from Mr. Regan’s most recent article that he thinks the Coeur d’ Alene Press should be a mouthpiece for his perspective, rather than a voice for the broader views of the community. That doesn’t surprise me. The first thing authoritarians want to do is take over a free press. Democracy dies in darkness, and that’s the whole goal, isn’t it Mr. Regan? You’d hate to have Idahoans know what the IFF and the KCRCC are really up to. Speaking of that, every citizen should know about Project 2025 — The Presidential Transition Project.
When folks endorse the IFF and the KCRCC, they are endorsing Project 2025 — a MAGA blueprint for the next Republican president. Funded by The Heritage Foundation, the Koch organization and the tentacles of a secretive dark money network, this “project” would destroy our democracy. If you peer into the abyss of the vicious goals of Project 2025, you’ll find that MAGA Republicans support outcomes that will hurt all of us, but especially working families.
Among other things, they plan to: Eliminate the Department of Education (that enforces civil rights laws); privatize government institutions such as public schools and prisons; eliminate programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food assistance; require the CDC to track abortion across various demographics; reverse the Biden administration’s support for travel to get abortion health care; prohibit Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds; reverse the Biden interpretation of The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act that requires treatment of women miscarrying; and condemn single motherhood as well as same-sex marriage. Federal civil service positions would be made up of Trump loyalists instead of nonpartisan positions. The plan includes dismantling the FBI and Homeland Security, and slashing funds for the Department of Justice. I guess when your presidential candidate has been convicted of 34 felonies, you’re not enamored with the idea of justice.
Idahoans who think they support MAGA causes may want to re-think their affiliation. If some (or all) of your income is dependent upon Social Security, if you’re a single mom, if you are deeply concerned about health care for women, if you’re committed to saving the environment, if you’re a member of the working poor who relies on food assistance, if you believe in civil rights or if you’re a member of a union, supporting this MAGA agenda will damage your life and your family for years to come. This agenda is an insult to our democracy and is not in any American’s best interests — unless you’re a right-wing billionaire who seeks cheap labor and a subservient population.
The irony is that citizens in a poor state like Idaho are being manipulated by the Heritage Foundation, the IFF, the KCRCC and its many wealthy contributors. Organizations in their coalition are led and funded by billionaire capitalists. They don’t live like you, they don’t pay taxes like you, they don’t think like you, they don’t care about you and they never will. They hope you’ll remain ignorant of their plans and the impact their “blueprint” will have on Idaho, the United States and the world. You’ve witnessed in microcosm the non-functionality of KCRCC trustees at NIC and the CLN. Now imagine a federal government filled with that level of partisanship and incompetence.
• • •
Ethel Steinmetz Marmont is a Coeur d’ Alene resident.