The MAGA crowd celebrates Project 2025 and at the same time tries to distance themselves from it.
If you ask the campaign about it, they’ll point you to Agenda 47 as the only official policy agenda. In a speech to the Heritage Foundation in 2022, the former president said the framers of Project 2025 were a great group with detailed plans for exactly how to implement the MAGA movement. Of the 36 speakers in a recent Project 2025 training video, 29 worked for him in some capacity. Then in early July of this year, he said, “I don’t know anything about Project 2025, I have no idea who is behind it. I don’t agree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things… are absolutely ridiculous and miserable.”
You have to be a really smart guy to be ignorant of a suggestion and at the same time disagree with it.
I doubt there is any kind of consensus among the MAGA hordes about when exactly America was great. Did we make it great again after 2016? If so, shouldn’t the slogan be MAGAA? I’m hoping a MAGA supporter can help us answer that question.
One brilliant idea at a time, Project 2025 is the brainchild of the Heritage Foundation and their plan for how to make America great again. Let’s take a look at how they plan to make us great again by abolishing the Department of Education (DoED):
The DoED became a cabinet-level agency in 1980, and for the whole MAGA thing to make sense, America must have been great before then. The DoED has actually been around since 1867 and was created to collect information on and advise schools, much like the Department of Agriculture advises farmers.
The American educational system is and has always been the envy of the world. In 1647, a Massachusetts law required every town with more than 50 families to employ a teacher to teach children to read and write. In 1827, Massachusetts required that all public school classes be free for all children and that towns with more than 500 families have a high school open to all children. Their schools were desegregated in 1855. In 1837, Horace Mann began advocating for nonreligious “public schools,” which laid the foundation for today’s universal public education.
The DoED has four main functions: 1) to set guidelines for federal financial aid for education and to distribute and monitor those funds; 2) to collect data on America’s schools and disseminate research results; 3) to focus national attention on important educational issues; 4) to prohibit discrimination and ensure equal access to education. The Heritage Foundation apparently finds these tasks burdensome.
The Ministry of Education is not involved in setting curricula or educational standards. Abolishing it is an extremely bad idea.
America is great because we have educated generations of citizens to become productive citizens. It is great because we have legions of determined and dedicated public school teachers. Ask Elon Musk or Johnny Morris where the overwhelming majority of their workforce was educated, and the answer is: in public schools. We are the most productive country in the world because we provide free education from pre-K through 12th grade.
That person who knows nothing about Project 2025 must never be allowed to hold power again. Take a moment to read for yourself what it entails and I’m sure you’ll agree.
Chuck McDaniel lives in Battlefield.
