It’s understandable that Canadians are anxious about the state of American politics this summer. Four months from the U.S. election, President Joe Biden is being hammered by the media while Donald Trump, a convicted felon, is being largely ignored.ANNOUNCEMENTS, EVENTS & MORE FROM TYEE AND SELECT PARTNERSExplore Dazzling New Reads to Inspire You This SummerA world of fresh fiction from local talent awaits. Here’s a sneak peak.Inside Canada’s National Action Plan to End Gender-Based ViolenceWith the help of a new survey, a solutions-based org is building better services for survivors.But it’s not Trump we should be worrying about; it’s his supporters. They’re planning a detailed dismantling of the American federal government, leaving the states free to do as they please — especially those ruled by Republicans.The blueprint for this dismantling comes from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. In April 2023 it published a 900-page document called “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” under its Presidential Transition Project, also known as Project 2025.Through its extensive collection of policy proposals, Project 2025 sets out a comprehensive plan to destroy the U.S. federal government as we know it.The report attracted little attention until recently. But its contents are beginning to be understood — enough for Donald Trump to say he knows nothing about Project 2025 and thinks some of its ideas are “ridiculous” and “abysmal,” but wishes it luck anyway.The Tyee is supported by readers like you Join us and grow independent media in CanadaWith so many Trump veterans among the report’s authors, it’s highly unlikely that he’s as ignorant of the content as he claims. And it’s very likely that Project 2025 is a good preview of a second Trump administration — a wish list, but an achievable one.After all, a similar report by the Heritage Foundation in 1980 saw 60 per cent of its proposals enacted by the Ronald Reagan administration.A good chapter-by-chapter analysis is available from Stop the Coup 2025. The Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, is beginning to get some media attention, and we can expect plenty of criticism of Project 2025 as the U.S. election comes near.Ignoring a key reason for public educationChapter 11 on education deserves extra attention because it shows how Christian white nationalists, calling themselves “conservatives,” intend to roll back American education at least to Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court decision that declared school segregation to be constitutional.More likely, it would dismantle the entire American public education system, which dates back two centuries, to the founding of the first free public high school in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1820.The chapter begins by ignoring a key reason for American public education: it functions as a public service to equip children to grow up to become effective co-proprietors of a democratic nation. Instead, Project 2025 frames education as just another consumer choice, like deciding which SUV to buy.Citing economist Milton Friedman, the authors argue for a system “wherein education is publicly funded but education decisions are made by families.”Education, under Project 2025, would become a concern of state and local governments only, just as it had been until 70 years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren ended “separate but equal” public-school segregation.Back then, it was already clear that Black schools were far from equal; it soon became clear that many Black students were behind their new white classmates. In many parts of the American South, private whites-only schools sprang up, leaving local public schools effectively re-segregated and underfunded.That was a major reason for the creation of the federal Department of Education in the 1970s: to provide under-resourced public schools with the money and expertise enjoyed by private and religious schools.Calls for an ‘anti-woke’ education systemTo get a detailed sense of what Project 2025 would do to education, I recommend Stop the Coup 2025’s Chapter 11 summary. But some measures deserve mention here.They include turning federal education funds over to the respective states to distribute as they please. This could include “education savings accounts,” enabling parents to pay to send their children to any school they wish, including faith-based schools, charter schools or, presumably, home-schooling.Post-secondary education would emphasize apprenticeships and technical career programs, rather than “higher education establishments captured by woke ‘diversicrats.’”Accreditation programs, which now ensure college and university academic quality, would be loosened. Student loan forgiveness would be dropped.Students would be defined as male or female depending on their biological sex recognized at birth. And a great deal of fuss would be made over non-binary and trans students, none of it helping them.R
Source: Inside the Twisted Fantasy Project of a New America | The Tyee
