A Summary: Project 2025 - Foreword - A Promise to America by Kevin D. Roberts, PhD

A condensed summary - Foreword - A Promise to America by Kevin D. Roberts, PhD

This is a summary of the foreword to the entire “Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise.” Kevin D. Roberts is the president of the Heritage Foundation.

Throughout the book this is often shortened to simply, “The Conservative Promise,” or “Project 2025.” He is not consistent with this so I wanted to point this out in the breakdown.

A breakdown of the Foreword

Roberts uses heavy handed language to paint the picture that the United States is on the brink of a complete breakdown. If he and other conservatives don’t completely overhaul everything all will be lost.

A lot of what is laid out in this introduction to the book is an explanation about how the book was created. It’s also referred to as a playbook in some parts.

Over 400 scholars and policy experts contributed in some way to “Project 2025.” The main themes of the book

1. Restore the family as the center of the life and protect our children

2. Dismantle the administrative state (deep state)

3. Restore U.S. sovereignty, borders and bounty to global threats

4. Restore our rights to live freely

The last one is especially ironic because although the authors of this project keep insisting, they want Americans to have as much liberty as possible most of their proposed policies would restrain and control people.

1970’s and Reagan the Warrior

Roberts paints the 1970’s as a horrific time for the United States that was only saved by the Reagan Revolution. Of course, the Heritage Foundation was instrumental in creating Reagan’s many radical changes.

The Heritage Foundation published a breakdown of over 2000 policies it thought Ronald Reagan should implement in a document called “Mandate for Leadership.”

Reagan loved the “Mandate for Leadership” so much he had it printed out for his cabinet members. By the end of Regan’s first year over 60% of the policies included in “Mandate for Leadership,” were implemented by the Reagan administration.

The Heritage Foundation also supplied Reagan’s team with lists of hand-picked applicants for all branches of government.

I mention all of this because it’s a foreshadowing of what “Project 2025,” could become.

1. Restore the family

Things suggested in this section to restore the American family

• Criminalize all forms of pornography

  • Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.

  • Telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

• Eliminate all marriage policies in the tax code and for welfare beneficiaries

• Eliminate all of these words from federal policies, laws and forms:

  • Sexual orientation and gender ideology which they abbreviate as (SOGI)

  • DEI diversity equity and inclusion, affirmative action and anything to do with gender

  • Abortion

• The promotion of universal school choice

• Critical race theory and gender ideology should be removed from all schools

  • The author is a bit extreme regarding what he calls CRT.

  • He wouldn’t just ban CRT he would make it a crime to teach CRT in classrooms.

• Gender affirming care for children should end

  • This would also be treated like a criminal offense.

• Celebrate the overturning of Roe v Wade

  • Stops short of calling for a national ban on abortion but its implied,.

2. Dismantle the Administrative State

This section is a lot of nonsense, and the federal government hasn’t grown much in the past few decades. Most of the growth in government has happened at the state and local level.

• Shrink the size of government

• There’s a lot about how lawmakers vote on the budget without reading it.

• Fire as many federal employees as possible and replace them with hardline conservatives

• Remove all woke policies out of the U.S. military

A lot of what is in this section is just Roberts complaining about everything he hates about the government.

3. Defend the Nation’s Sovereignty, Borders and Bounty from Global Threats

Roberts presents an overly simplified view of the border control and immigration. There’s a lot of lofty language where he portrays leftists, academics and corporate leaders as out of touch elitists who are purposefully trying to harm average Americans.

It’s a very populist message written by someone who obviously has advanced degrees. Roberts is quite proud of his PhD and he uses language most Americans without a college education might not understand.

Roberts brings up the German theologian Dietrich Bonehoffer and uses the term Wilsonian to describe the policies of Woodrow Wilson. His pretentious references and advanced vocabulary wouldn’t hit as well with the plumbers and auto mechanics he pretends to champion.

Many of the authors of Project 2025 have advanced degrees from Ivy League schools. Roberts also claims that the poorest Americans are hurt the most by environment regulations. The exact opposite is true as according to research by the EPA air and water pollution levels are highest in the poorest neighborhoods all over this country.

• Seal the border completely - allow no immigration

• Environmental regulations are anti-human

• Drill for more oil, natural gas, and coal.

• China is evil - we should cut off as much trade with China as possible

• Get rid of TikTok

• Ban any donations to U.S. universities from China

Roberts also advocates for policy changes that would make the United States the dominant oil producer in the world. He basically told a fairy tale as there’s a few reasons why that would be highly unlikely.

Some Basics on the U.S. Oil Industry

This section is not included in the Project 2025. This is a basic fact check on some of the claims made in Project 2025 regarding the U.S. oil industry.