Project 2025: What scares Democratic delegates the most

CHICAGO — Saturday Night Live star alumnus Kenan Thompson and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis both appeared on the Democratic National Convention stage Wednesday night carrying a comically oversized book.

That prop, used throughout the third night of the convention, was intended to represent Project 2025, the controversial “presidential transition plan” from conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, that lays out a plan to overhaul the government with extremely conservative policies following a Republican presidential win.

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Thompson performed a sketch where he called out specific pages in the book. He told an OB/GYN doctor, a diabetes patient, LGBTQ+ woman and a civil servant how their lives would change under the plan.

Polis called the plan “Donald Trump’s roadmap to ban abortion in all 50 states” and noted it also calls for the governmental power to limit access to contraception and in-vitro fertilization.

“Project 2025 would turn the entire federal government and bureaucracy into a massive machine. It would weaponize it to control our reproductive and personal choices,” Polis said.

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But within the sprawling document, what single item scares Democrats more than any other?

Democratic delegates from around the country shared with Raw Story what parts of Project 2025 raise the most concerns for their personal lives.

“What concerns me number one is that my husband is an employee of the government for a large agency and that is one of the targeted areas,” said Carole Cadue-Blackwood, a Kansas delegate.

Cadue-Blackwood, who identifies as an indigenous person, said she also is concerned about “taking care of our elders, that should be paramount.”

“As a gay man, the fact that they want to fundamentally change my right to marriage, the ability for workplaces to discriminate against me, restaurants to discriminate [against] me, personally, that's a huge issue for me,” said Guy Cecil, a delegate from Washington, D.C., and longtime Democratic political operative.

Cecil also said he has a Black niece and nephew who would have “fewer rights than they did when they were born,” under Project 2025.

“There's a lot of things that are troublesome, but the reality is, it's their overall approach to creating essentially an autocratic government that wants to have control over every aspect of our lives, which is ironic given that’s their argument against Democrats,” he said.

Mayra Rivera-Vazquez, a South Carolina delegate, said the deportations of immigrants proposed in the plan are of most concern to her as a Latina.

“We’re not taking jobs from no one. We’re coming here to achieve the American Dream, so everybody deserves a chance to thrive,” Rivera-Vazquez said.

Gina Spade, a Kansas delegate, was worried about the Department of Education and other civil servants who could lose their jobs if they don’t support a Trump administration.

“I used to be a federal employee and the idea that they can just replace people who gained expertise, worked for years on these issues, especially the scientific issues, just is crazy, really harms the country,” Spade said.

Tony Vauss, a New Jersey delegate and mayor of Irvington, N.J., said the scariest part of the plan was it being “supposedly drafted in secret.”

“There's so many different aspects of the whole 900-plus pages that is scary for democracy, is scary for the future of this country,” Vauss said.

Trump disavowed Project 2025 last month, saying he knows nothing about it or who is behind it.

"President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” said Trump campaign advisers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, in a statement on July 30. “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign— it will not end well for you."

The Trump campaign acknowledged Raw Story’s questions about Project 2025 but did not respond to them.

The Project 2025 website notes that Paul Dans and Spencer Chretien, who served in the Trump administration and advised the president, are leading the project. The website also says historically “the Trump administration relied heavily on Heritage’s ‘Mandate’ for policy guidance, embracing nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office.”

Vauss doesn’t buy Trump’s alleged ignorance about the Heritage Foundation’s plan.

“For Donald Trump, everything is a means to an end,” Vauss said. “People discovered it. He wanted to back away from it, so I really don't trust anything he says.”