With the current administration’s effort to “flood the zone” and obfuscate their illegal and immoral shenanigans, one would be forgiven for forgetting the origins of what has become known as Project 2025.
Project 2025, technically called “The Mandate for Leadership,” was released in time for the 2024 election. It was a policy document created by the Heritage Foundation that offered the next Republican president a blueprint to enact from Day One.
The document was so deeply troubling that Donald Trump infamously distanced himself from it, saying he’d never read it and had no interest in it. Yet, within days of his reelection, he hired the key architects of the plan to hold positions of power within his administration — chief among them Russell Vought.
The plan was and remains so troubling for so many because it advocates not for smaller government but for a larger government used like a sledgehammer to bend the will of the people toward the autocratic vision of a few.
“It’s time to revisit Project 2025 and see what was (and wasn’t) on our Bingo cards.”
In summer 2025, I did a deep dive into the dark-money funders behind the initiative, spending more than 100 hours combing through tax returns to trace who was paying for the document created by Heritage Foundation. Others spoke ad nauseum about how the document was a blueprint to overturn our democratic norms and institute a Christian theocracy in this country. I even went so far as to plug the text of Project 2025 into a word cloud generator to see what turned up (it was scary).
After the dust settled following the election, the staff at Baptist News Global put together a set of Bingo cards tied to Project 2025. Terrified by what the election results would mean for the country, we tried to find a way to inject levity into what was about to unfold for us all.
Now, almost a year into the second Trump term, it’s time to revisit Project 2025 and see what was (and wasn’t) on our Bingo cards. To accomplish this, I’ve referred to the excellent work of Adrienne Cobb, who translated the policy document into a list of tasks and has been tracking which tasks have been accomplished by the Trump administration.
I’ve taken the Bingo cards we created and marked them to show where we stand. If a goal has been completed, there’s an X in the box. Because some of the policy goals are in process but not totally completed, I’ve partially Xed some boxes.
Families Bingo card
Our families Bingo card was created as a catch-all for policies across various agencies that impact the well-being of all kinds of families. But of our cards, this one has the fewest policies in process or completed. That makes sense when considering what it will take to remake the mold of the American family.
First, the government must ban words and ideas. Then, it must eliminate the various agencies that support all kinds of families — not just the kinds a MAGA government deems acceptable (white, heteronormative, single-income, fundamentalist Christian).
One year into the second Trump term, we’ve seen the EPA gutted and Biden-era protections for pregnant women in need of abortions rescinded. We’ve also seen states given wide latitude to place additional restrictions on SNAP benefits.
What I’ll be watching over the coming year is whether the administration will carry through with the Project 2025 plan to eliminate Head Start and instead incentivize women to stay home with their children. Eliminating the free preschool would automatically force poor and middle-income women back into the home because they would be unable to afford child care. If this happens, women’s rights will be set back decades, and too many women will find themselves and their children in abusive situations that they are unable to leave because they will be unable to financially afford to.
Education Bingo card
First, the government must ban words and ideas. Then, it must eliminate the various agencies that support all kinds of families — not just the kinds a MAGA government deems acceptable (white, heteronormative, single-income, fundamentalist Christian).
One year into the second Trump term, we’ve seen the EPA gutted and Biden-era protections for pregnant women in need of abortions rescinded. We’ve also seen states given wide latitude to place additional restrictions on SNAP benefits.
What I’ll be watching over the coming year is whether the administration will carry through with the Project 2025 plan to eliminate Head Start and instead incentivize women to stay home with their children. Eliminating the free preschool would automatically force poor and middle-income women back into the home because they would be unable to afford child care. If this happens, women’s rights will be set back decades, and too many women will find themselves and their children in abusive situations that they are unable to leave because they will be unable to financially afford to.
Education Bingo card
There are a few more marks on the education Bingo card. Although, on reflection, some of our predictions on this card were vague, like “Private schools in voucher programs allowed to discriminate.” By definition, private schools discriminate — they don’t allow every student in. The questions really are on what basis they discriminate and who is left out. Trump has made clear that he wants the country’s education systems to move to vouchers. Time will tell who experiences discrimination in this scheme.
Other predictions we had for education were too specific. For example, this card has “‘Area Studies’ at universities eliminated by Congress.” These specialized programs authorized under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965 were developed as a national security tool to increase the country’s international expertise in the midst of the Cold War.
While these specialized “Area Studies” are being eliminated, Congress isn’t the one doing it. Rather, the Office of Management and Budget headed by Vought, the key architect and co-author of Project 2025, is the agent of destruction. So, should this square on the card get an X even though we got the mechanism for elimination wrong? I think so.
One in-process square on our education Bingo card is the termination of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, the bipartisan program signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007.
The program incentivized individuals to embrace jobs in public service that often pay less than corporate jobs. These individuals were guaranteed their student loan debt would be forgiven after 10 years of public service. Executive Order 14235, “Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness,” takes aim at public service jobs the administration doesn’t like, saying they will root out those organizations that participate in “illegal” activities.
This is a red herring since any nonprofit that actually engaged in anything illegal would face legal scrutiny from the attorney general of the state it operated in. This thinly veiled threat by the president to punish individuals who have devoted their lives to serving the poor and standing up for democracy is a tragedy for all of us who benefit from those who serve the public.
Other predictions we had for education were too specific. For example, this card has “‘Area Studies’ at universities eliminated by Congress.” These specialized programs authorized under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965 were developed as a national security tool to increase the country’s international expertise in the midst of the Cold War.
While these specialized “Area Studies” are being eliminated, Congress isn’t the one doing it. Rather, the Office of Management and Budget headed by Vought, the key architect and co-author of Project 2025, is the agent of destruction. So, should this square on the card get an X even though we got the mechanism for elimination wrong? I think so.
One in-process square on our education Bingo card is the termination of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, the bipartisan program signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007.
The program incentivized individuals to embrace jobs in public service that often pay less than corporate jobs. These individuals were guaranteed their student loan debt would be forgiven after 10 years of public service. Executive Order 14235, “Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness,” takes aim at public service jobs the administration doesn’t like, saying they will root out those organizations that participate in “illegal” activities.
This is a red herring since any nonprofit that actually engaged in anything illegal would face legal scrutiny from the attorney general of the state it operated in. This thinly veiled threat by the president to punish individuals who have devoted their lives to serving the poor and standing up for democracy is a tragedy for all of us who benefit from those who serve the public.
Religion/Censorship/Propaganda Bingo card
In hindsight, it makes sense that this BINGO card is the one primed for a win in the near future. Censorship and propaganda are two of the key markers of authoritarian governments. And, make no mistake, hundreds of scholars from across the political spectrum say there is little doubt the U.S. is sliding rather quickly into authoritarianism.
The only in-process square we’ve noted on this card has to do with the National Weather Service. While the NWS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weren’t technically “eliminated” as we predicted, they were gutted by Elon Musk, 19-year old Edward “Big Balls” Coristine and the other “contractors” hired by DOGE. Realizing the mistake and real-life consequences of gutting the agencies tasked with warning U.S. citizens of dangerous weather, the government has been on a spree to rehire almost all the scientists originally fired for “efficiency.”
The other squares we’ve marked on this card include the purging of career, nonpartisan civil servants and climate scientists. We missed out on including squares for the purging of scientists and the government doing away with vaccine recommendations.
But, with the administration banning words and phrases within government agencies — words like “gender” and “climate change” — we almost have a Bingo.
If we continue to play along on this card, the question becomes which will happen first: Will the government ban the phrase “reproductive rights” or will same-sex marriage be outlawed?
At one year in, Project 2025 is 50% complete
While our Bingo cards were intended to be a lighthearted call to awareness, all Americans should be aware and very concerned with the speed at which the administration is fulfilling the policy goals of Project 2025.
As noted above, an excellent source for tracking the individual policies is the Project 2025 Tracker developed and maintained by Adrienne Cobb.
That half of the overall “mandate” has been enacted in one year is terrifying.
This is a roadmap to eliminate our liberal democracy and replace it with a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. It’s a call to fundamentally reshape what America looks like and who “real” Americans are. And we’re halfway there.
It has been said time and again, but it’s worth repeating: The Christian nationalism that undergirds Project 2025 is a threat to all Americans, even white Christians.
That is because the type of Christianity and the type of whiteness elevated by the ideology are narrowly defined. If for no other reason than self-preservation, it is time for white American Christians to wake up to the fact that this administration is not only stripping rights from fellow Americans but are coming for the rights of all but a select few.
Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as the first Justice and Advocacy Fellow at Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas where she recently was ordained to the gospel ministry. She earned the master of divinity degree and a certificate in spiritual direction from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company, which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.
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