How to Talk About Project 2025's Attacks on Democracy
Because many red states are no longer democracies TODAY (Scroll to the end to listen)
In 2021, Vox ran an article highlighting Republican attacks on democracy. Even though it is over 3 years old, the whole story is worth reading.
According to that article, the US Republican Party is an abnormal extreme GLOBALLY for its commitment to democratic norms and protecting minorities.
The GOP is an extreme outlier compared to mainstream conservative parties in other wealthy democracies, like Canada’s CPC or Germany’s CDU. Its closest peers are almost uniformly radical right and anti-democratic parties. This includes Turkey’s AKP (a regime that is one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists), and Poland’s PiS (which has threatened dissenting judges with criminal punishment).
Source: Vox
Things have gotten so much worse since 2021. But we can do something about it. Here’s how.
Since this article was published, red state democracy has further deteriorated. Florida governor Ron DeSantis ousted the board at New College of Florida and installed his fascist cronies. The state of Texas unilaterally took control of Houston’s independent school district. (Houston is traditionally more liberal than other parts of Texas.) When Ohioans overwhelmingly passed an amendment to protect abortion rights, Republican legislators began trying to overthrow the will of voters.
But nothing underscores the Christian Nationalist Republican Party’s anti-democratic zeal more than attacks on the right to vote.
In 2023, the Center for Public Integrity found this sobering statistic: Since the 2020 election, twenty-six states, all red Republican, have made it harder for certain segments of their populations to vote. For persons of color, younger voters, immigrants, and the disabled, it is harder to vote now than it was in 2020. These states have also been laser-focused on reducing opportunities for DEMOCRATS to vote.
Here’s a list of the 26 states that made it harder to vote since 2020:
Montana
North Dakota
South Dakota
Wyoming
Iowa
Utah
Arizona
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Texas
Missouri
Oklahoma
Louisiana
Wisconsin
Indiana
Ohio
West Virginia
Pennsylvania
New Hampshire
Tennessee
Mississippi
Alabama
Florida
Georgia
South Carolina
Alaska
Project 2025 operates on the premise that our voting processes are not secure. For anyone living in these states, Republican politicians have already used Project 2025 policy recommendations to restrict access to voting. Residents are already living in the world Project 2025 envisions.
If you live in one of the listed states, find out what voting rights you’ve lost since 2020. Use those losses as talking points and draw a line to Project 2025.
Because if Republicans win in November, we will not have another free and fair election. The whole point of Project 2025 is to give Christo-fascist Republicans control of all American government for years or decades.
Republicans have also used their corrupt Supreme Court to expand gerrymandering.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, gerrymandering uses the process of redrawing legislative and congressional district lines following every 10-year census to give one party an unfair advantage in elections. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v Common Cause that federal courts are not forums to challenge partisan gerrymanders, further weakening the Voting Rights Act.
Gerrymandered maps have become even more extreme since the 2020 census. Project 2025 aims to make it impossible for any party except the Christo-fascist Republican Party to win elections.
Texas Republicans went so far as to hire a private law firm to draw up their latest gerrymandered maps. When those maps were challenged in court, they claimed the map’s sources were protected by attorney-client privilege. In a brazen bit of doublespeak, Republican politicians are actually trying to reframe gerrymandered voting maps as “legal advice.”
The state of Indiana has one of the most obscenely gerrymandered maps in the United States. Other states with extreme gerrymanders include: North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Louisiana, Utah, Texas, Arkansas, and Ohio.
To talk about this issue with your connections, find out more about gerrymandering in your state. This map from Represent.Us is a good tool to share attacks on democracy due to gerrymandering in your area.
Many voters don’t know how profoundly gerrymandering impacts them. They don’t vote because they think their vote doesn’t matter. Gerrymandering makes so many voters feel unseen and hopeless. Between now and Election Day, we must use this data to convince more people to vote blue for freedom and democracy.
Christian Nationalist Republicans refusal to compromise erodes democracy.
In my newsletter What Is a Christian Nationalist, I wrote about Christian Nationalist politicians’ refusal to compromise. Because they believe the United States is a Christian (nationalist) nation, they insist that our laws should be drawn from their interpretation of the Bible. Any law that does not jibe with their interpretation of the Bible must be overturned.
Since 2022, we have seen how a small faction of radicalized Christian Nationalists have repeatedly taken our government hostage. Over and over again, they insist upon having their way without compromise because they believe they are ordained by God to force their interpretation of God’s law on everyone in America.
For the sake of democracy, it is imperative that readers know whether every candidate on their ballot is a Christian Nationalist. I put together questions voters can use to find out whether a candidate is a Christian Nationalist. Please use it as a tool to talk about the dangers of Christian Nationalist candidates in your communities.
For even more ammunition, this article in The Guardian is an excellent primer on Republican attacks on democracy in one red state - Tennessee.
Conservative domination – maintained by gerrymandered districts, disenfranchised voters and an increasing sense of political despair – insulates Tennessee Republicans from political consequences for unpopular decisions. Challenged in public by increasing activism on the left and apocalyptic rhetoric on the right, Tennessee Republicans stopped just chipping away at democratic norms and began hammering full-on like coalminers on Rocky Top.
Source: The Guardian
Tennessee Republicans are following Project 2025’s blueprint for dismantling democratic norms and the rule of law. Florida’s nickname is “DeSantistan” for a reason: It is already a Christo-fascist state. Alabama didn’t become “Talibama” without an attorney general who is willing to bar women from leaving the state, counties that jail women for “endangering the unborn,” and a state Supreme Court that redefines frozen embryos as “extrauterine children.”
Point to these examples when talking about Project 2025. It isn’t some obscure conspiracy-ridden document. It is a detailed plan to convert the United States government into a Christo-fascist regime. Red states are already using it to subjugate their populaces and destroy democracy.
Christo-fascist Republicans have made even more overt attacks on the right to vote.
They are also chomping to repeal the 22nd Amendment, which would allow a President to serve more than two terms. This was specifically recommended by a Project 2025 partner, The American Conservative.
Christian Nationalists have also called for repealing the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. Some Republicans have called for it to be raised to as high as 25 to thwart Gen Z’s impact at the ballot box.
" because if Republicans win in november, we will not have another free and fair election". Totally accurate.
Voter suppression and intimidation has definitely amped up in the last 4 years, Republican secretaries of state are purging thousands of voter rolls. With bullshit reasons like "well, they haven't voted in 7 years"..... as if voting is a use it or lose it right. They then send these little mailing postcards to your home to notify you which completely look like junk mail so most people don't even know they were purged- and it's all by design from the Republicans. I think the Democratic secretaries of State should start doing the same thing to all registered Republicans,..... I feel pretty confident that the Republican secretaries of state are first looking at which party the person is registered under before they purge them.
Tennessee has one of the most if not the most draconian process to try to get your voter rights back after felony conviction- you have to pay all of your court costs and be up to date on your child support, as if either one of those have anything to do with your right to vote. I'm actually surprised this hasn't been challenged to the Tennessee Supreme Court and beyond - because you know very well that there are registered Republicans in Tennessee (that have never been convicted of a felony) that are absolutely not paying child support. The additional new law they want to add to this is that the person has to get back their gun rights- as if owning a gun has anything to do with voting, two completely different things, not to mention not everyone owns a gun anyway, you can't force someone to qualify to purchase a gun in order to give them the right to vote.
Excellent! Thanks!