What You Need To Know About Project 2026

A fascist follow up to Project 2025, and it's as bad as you'd expect

Throughout 2024 and throughout 2025 I’ve written at length on the dangers of Project 2025. Sadly, my analysis has been proven correct. Project 2025 has already decimated our democracy, targeted tens of millions of minority communities in the United States, upended our economy, and advanced fascism. And its authors are not planning on slowing down. This week they released Project 2026, itemizing how they plan to further destroy the American experiment. I read it so you don’t have to. Here are the seven main takeaways from Project 2026, and what we can do to fight back. Let’s Address This.

Photo by Matt Rourke/AP

Project 2026, authored by the Heritage Foundation, a secretive and highly influential right wing fascist organization, proposes seven main initiatives to accomplish before midterm elections. I summarize each of them below and provide a thorough response.

1. “Counter the CCP”

Summary: Heritage argues that China is America’s top threat and calls for economic decoupling, military escalation, and policing businesses that work with China.

Response: There is no question that China is an authoritarian state that violates human rights. But Heritage’s framing isn’t about defending democracy—it’s about manufacturing consent for a new Cold War that serves corporate and military-industrial interests.

Decoupling entire supply chains without planning would devastate U.S. workers, raise costs for families, and destabilize global cooperation needed on climate and pandemics. The solution isn’t fear-mongering and militarization, but strategic diplomacy, human-rights-centered trade policy, and domestic investment in workers and technology—not xenophobic panic dressed up as national security. Sadly, the Trump regime is fully invested in xenophobia, and has zero regard for diplomacy.

2. “Eliminate Regulation, Inflation, and Spending”

Summary: Heritage blames inflation entirely on government spending and proposes slashing federal programs and environmental regulations.

Response: Inflation is the result of multiple forces—pandemic supply shocks, corporate price gouging, geopolitical instability—not simply public spending. In fact, as the DOGE fiasco has already proven with their inability to identify any meaningful waste, fraud, or abuse, the problem is literally not government spending on social welfare programs. The real problem is government spending on corporate welfare, the military industrial complex, and $4.5T in tax cuts for billionaires.

Heritage’s “solution” effectively means gutting protections that keep our air clean, workers safe, and medicine affordable. Deregulation does not lower costs for families; it hands unchecked power to corporations. Cutting federal spending on healthcare, housing, and clean energy would not strengthen working families—it would abandon them. A functional economy demands strategic investment, fair taxation, and oversight—not deregulation for its own sake. Meanwhile, a recent RAND study found that since 1980, the trickle down scam has taken $79 Trillion in wealth from the bottom 90% and redistributed it to the top 1%. This is what class warfare looks like, and Heritage wants to issue the death blow to working people in 2026.

3. “End the Border Crisis and Immigration Chaos”

Summary: Heritage wants a return to Trump-era immigration policies and frames immigration as a threat to national “integrity.”

Response: Immigration itself is not a crisis—America’s failure to create a humane, orderly, lawful system is the crisis. Trump-era policies that violated asylum law, separated families, and detained children did nothing to improve safety or stability. Even now, the Trump regime is blocking immigrants from taking their citizenship oaths and sending ICE after US citizens. These are individuals who have done everything by the letter of the law, and Trump is banning them anyway.

Heritage’s language—“incursions,” “national integrity”—mirrors European far-right rhetoric built on racial panic, not evidence. True border security requires addressing root causes, expanding lawful pathways, respecting asylum obligations, and ensuring due process. Project 2026 does none of this.

4. “Ensure Election Integrity”

Summary: Heritage pushes voter ID laws, bans on ranked-choice voting, and state-level control of elections while opposing federal protections.

Response: This section is a blueprint for voter suppression. Voter ID restrictions target the poor, elderly, and Black and brown voters. Also, we already have voter ID when people register to vote. It is impossible to register without an ID. Republicans attempt to frame Voter ID laws as a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Their voter ID laws ignore that people have already provided an ID, and require additional identification, knowing full well that certain demographics may not have access to those additional ID requirements. In North Carolina, a federal judge ruled their voter ID law unconstitutional because it “surgically targeted Black voters.”

Likewise, banning ranked-choice voting is about eliminating a system that increases participation and weakens extremist candidates. Rejecting federal protections ignores the 150-year history of voter discrimination that required the Voting Rights Act in the first place. Heritage invokes “election integrity” as justification to make voting harder—not safer. All of this contributes to the continued degradation of our democracy, and none of it makes us safer or more representative of We the People.

5. “Expand Education Freedom”

Summary: Heritage wants taxpayer-funded vouchers, elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, and removal of “woke ideas” from schools.

Response: This is privatization marketed as “freedom.” Voucher schemes drain public schools and funnel public dollars into unaccountable private institutions. And most often, these are right-wing white Christian evangelical schools. This is nothing more than a modern attempt to reinstitute racial segregation by funneling tax dollars into private white only Christian institutions.

Moreover, eliminating the Department of Education would further dismantle civil-rights protections for disabled students, LGBTQ+ students, and students of color. The attack on “critical race theory” is a political project to censor discussions of racism, history, and gender—an effort to manufacture ignorance, not excellence. Students deserve facts, not state-approved propaganda. Even now, Texas Governor Abbott is pushing for Turning Point USA to establish a chapter in every Texas public school. This is what indoctrination looks like, and Project 2026 furthers this shameless cause.

6. “Root Out the Deep State”

Summary: Heritage claims career civil servants are a “deep state” and pushes for political control over federal agencies.

Response: This is the core authoritarian plank. It’s modern day McCarthyism. Nonpartisan civil servants are not a “deep state”—they are the infrastructure that ensures continuity of government regardless of who holds power. Heritage’s proposal mirrors Project 2025’s plan to purge the federal workforce and replace experts with loyalists, political operatives, and ideologues. That is not “restoring democracy”; it is dismantling checks and balances. A government run by partisan appointees rather than independent agencies is a government on the brink of autocracy. That is where we find ourselves right now, and why this moment is so critical for us to act upon.

7. “Unleash American Energy”

Summary: Heritage calls for ending renewable subsidies, expanding oil and gas drilling, and dismissing climate science as overblown.

Response: Heritage’s climate argument ignores decades of scientific consensus and internal documents from fossil fuel corporations themselves. As I’ve written repeatedly, Big Oil has lied about the climate crisis, knowing full well that their policies will decimate the air we breath, the waters we drink, and the land we use. I encourage you to sign this petition from Make Polluters Pay to build the needed consensus to hold Big Oil accountable for these climate atrocities.

The idea that restricting fossil fuels has no climate impact is mathematically and scientifically false; it mirrors Big Oil talking points designed to delay accountability. Transitioning to clean energy is not only a climate necessity but an economic one—renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels. Heritage’s proposal would lock the U.S. into outdated infrastructure, higher energy costs, and escalating climate disasters at enormous human and fiscal cost. As the old saying goes, there is no Planet B.

So What Should We Be Doing Right Now?

With fascism rising, we must continue to activate, organize, and invest if we hope to enact meaningful change for justice in the next election. Let’s break down what that looks like with specific action items. Here I reiterate guidance I’ve shared in the past on how you can get involved, even if you don’t know where to begin or don’t have expendable funds. I assure you, you do not need money or power to get involved—you simply need a way to channel your rage into progress.

Some of these action items below have immediate effect and others take time. I ask you to engage in both types of calls to action. We must act quickly to protect our immigrant neighbors now, and build capacity to change fascist policy in the future.

1. Activate

Get involved in your local politics, which affects you more than most realize. Whether it is your local school board, your local city council, or your local immigrant rights organization—get involved. Show up to the next meeting, meet your local elected officials, and understand the local issues impacting your community. Google is your friend in finding a local calendar of events. Use it. All politics is local, and it is critical you get involved locally.

2. Communicate

Contact your member of Congress (find them here) and relentlessly remind them that you oppose Project 2026. Even if they are not willing to listen to you, inundate them with calls, texts, and emails. Ensure they hear your outrage as much as possible.

3. Invest

Invest your time and your money into the people and organizations doing the front line work. If you have time to volunteer, make phone calls, knock doors, and sign petitions, do so. If you have the financial resources to donate to organizations working to protect our democracy, especially local orgs, please do so. Even a few dollars a month, if you can afford it, goes a long way.

4. Educate

It is critical we remain informed on the key issues, by educating ourselves and those around us. As corporate media sadly continues to capitulate to fascism, support writers and human rights lawyers working to stop fascism in America (e.g. yours truly). Read the work of non-profit media like ProPublica, The Appeal, and more. We may not have the billions of dollars in dark money from corporate autocrats, but we have strength in numbers and your support makes that difference.

5. Organize

Bring friends with you. You are the best ambassador for justice in your friend group—lead by example. Grab even one friend and drag them with you to the next school board meeting, city council session, next phone banking session to an elected official, or town hall in your local community. We need to build organizational capacity, and that means each one reaches one to get involved. (And when your friend comes to the second meeting, it is their opportunity to reach one more and bring them with).

Conclusion

Like Project 2025, Project 2026 is not a policy platform—it is a roadmap for minority rule. Each section concentrates power, strips rights, weakens institutions, and advances authoritarian governance. The rhetoric is familiar: fear, division, scapegoating, and dismantling oversight in the name of “freedom.”

And while acknowledging the reality of where we are, let me also offer a message of hope. Yes, Project 2025 is here and Project 2026 is coming. And it will do its worst to destroy our lives and install Christian nationalism and religious extremism. In these stressful times, I reflect on history to find hope. I don’t know if these words will be of comfort but here’s how I think about things. I think about the pivotal moments in history. Moments like…

• When Elizabeth Freeman sued for her freedom in 1780 and set a precedent that ended slavery in Massachusetts.

• When Private Mohammed Kahn immigrated from Iran/Afghanistan in 1861 and then immediately enlisted in the Union Army to help win the Civil War.

• When Congressman John Lewis faced Jim Crow police brutality marching across the Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965 and got in good trouble.

I think about the fact we all look at these icons and reflect, “How great if I could’ve been there as the lawyer for Elizabeth Freeman, or the soldier that had Mohammed Kahn’s six, or walked lock step with John Lewis as he marched across that bridge?”

This is our moment in 2025, and soon in 2026. Our moment to demand freedom. Our moment to resist fascism. Our moment to walk across our bridge. So in the future our grandchildren will look back and say, “If only I were alive when [your name] raised their voice against all odds and fought back fascism and injustice, I would have stood with them.”

All this to say, if you feel like crying, don’t fight back the tears, let it out. And then channel the rage to write our moment in history. This is our moment. It is ours. And we have the chance to leave our mark as one committed to justice and compassion.

Let us do so with every fiber of our being.