How it Started: A Journey Through Project 2025

It started as a post about the document itself on social media. Not a post about the policies. Not a post about the party. 

That post was started by a person who never got into politics much. A person who considered it messy. A person who thought she couldn't affect anything, so why try.

Me. It was started by me. My post. My comments. My thoughts. 

I have heard the stories, read the memes, sorted through the myriad of information and misinformation, and questioned my sources until I was blue in the face. Eventually, however, I've grown tired of wading through memes and accepting my information from others. I figured that I had a background in reading and analyzing documents to glean information and understanding (thank you especially to one amazing high school history teacher). So why not cut out the middle-man and read this document for myself?

The Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (2025) is readily available on the internet, and I downloaded my version directly from The Heritage Foundation website to ensure I had the most-accurate document on-hand. At the time that I downloaded the document, I was able to access the PDF without providing any personal information. However, now it appears that you must provide your first name, last name, and email address to access the document. I find that change rather interesting, but at least the information is still there and accessible here: https://www.project2025.org/playbook/

I had grown increasingly tired of Donald Trump's purposefully misleading narrative in an effort to distance himself from Project 2025. The authors of 2025 even deny the Donald Trump/Heritage Foundation by hiding behind the idea that oh, we've done this for years - ever since Reagan - so this is nothing new (source: https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/the-stories-democrats-tell-about-project-2025) 

But I felt convinced that there was a connection, so when I downloaded the Mandate for Leadership, I completed a simple word search. I searched for 3 last names in an effort to see if all conservative administrations were mentioned equally, giving no preference one over the other. Because maybe then I could believe that an alliance between Trump and the Heritage Foundation is just a matter of a link between a conservative president and an advisory organization.

Reagan: 71 mentions

Bush: 29 mentions 

Trump: 312 mentions

These numbers aren't from a meme. They aren't pulled from a website. These were numbers I tallied on my own, by downloading a document from its source and doing a quick search within that document.

Trump has a history with this organization. He has been praised by them in the past for following and enacting their policies. To think he will not and has not partnered with them on this feels foolish to me. 

If you agree with the policies, that's your choice. However, based on the evidence I have before me, I cannot believe Donald Trump knows "nothing" about Project 2025.

This word search led me to dive deeper into everything, so I'm taking on some light reading and working through Project 2025 piece by piece.  I'll be sharing some points I personally find interesting or concerning or contradictory. My plan is to share no political memes. All content will be curated and created by me.