This year’s election is a startling one for many reasons. It is the third presidential election in which Donald Trump is the Republican candidate. It is the second time Trump’s Democratic opponent has been a woman. At the beginning of the 2024 election year, Joe Biden had been the Democratic candidate and in June he dropped out, leaving Kamala Harris as the prospective, and eventually confirmed Democratic Nominee. This election also makes Donald Trump the oldest person to run for president, and the only person to run for president to be convicted of 34 felonies–or any felonies, for that matter. This election year, people have worn diapers over their pants and maxi pads on their ears for the first time to show support.
Suffice it to say, this is a “special” election. Voters have a choice in November between a strong, intelligent, caring, decisive woman or an idiotic, dementia-ridden, hate-filled, ignorant, diaper-wearing, science-denying, lying, orange makeup-plastered man. Beyond that, they have a choice between Harris-Waltz’s Democracy or Trump-Vance’s Project 2025 “Presidential Transition Project/Mandate For Leadership”
What is Project 2025? It was created by the “Heritage Foundation,” a “long-time conservative think tank,” and 140 former Trump staffers as the blueprint for a second Trump term. Its major goal is to impose MAGA conservative ideals and turn the seat of the president into a “Unitary Executive,” essentially a king. It is an unconstitutional plan that goes against what this country was founded on.
Project 2025, or as I will call it for the remainder of the article, “Trump’s Diary,” has many plans including gutting abortion/reproductive freedom, mass deportations, abusing surveillance, unlawful force on peaceful protestors, the army deployed on American soil as Trump’s private police force, rollbacks on environmental initiatives, and many many more. All done in an attempt to let MAGAlicans maintain power and gain money without interference, Trump sets himself up as a King.
Starting with mass deportations, which seems extremely relevant, Trump has used many “familiar” phrases and ideas in his proposed policies. Including, rounding up immigrants and putting them into “camps”, branding them with serial numbers, and deporting them all to the same place regardless of nationality. Trump has used rhetoric calling these people “vermin”, saying they are “migrants are poisoning the blood of our country”, and most recently spreading god-awful lies that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Columbus Ohio. This baseless and disgusting claim is not true and in fact, is causing insane damage to Haitian communities in Columbus.
This is just another example of how Trump capitalizes on hate to build power. Recently, he has said that migrants are bringing “bad genes” into the country. This weird conspiracy theory was started by a single racist tweet and twisted by two vile people who know it was made up and have even admitted they create stories all to stay relevant and get their political wants. Much of Trump’s political career is backed by hate, and Trump’s Diary is no different.
Another startling piece on the wishlist in Trump’s Weird Diary™ is the rollback on reproductive rights. Project 2025’s plan for health care overall is insane, including a “massive overhaul of the federal government, including health reforms that would deregulate health care, weaken the ACA, defund and privatize federal safety-net programs, and allow discrimination within (and beyond) healthcare settings…”, but the plans outlined for reproductive freedom are horrifying. It would eliminate the drug mifepristone from the market and prevent it and other reproductive medications from being sent through the mail. It would eliminate any national protection left to reproductive care and give all power to the states. It would also force states and doctors to track abortions and pregnancy to make sure that any abortion in a state that doesn’t allow it is only done within specific specifications. While this is as far as it goes with abortion outside of condemning it and a few meaningless mentions, this is all they need to do at the federal level.
Giving power to the states is what abolishing Roe V Wade did, but now Project 2025 will make a law enforcing that idea. This goes hand in hand with another piece of Trump’s Diary which is to eliminate protections on government jobs and replace the people with political appointees, MAGA Loyalists. Putting people with these same beliefs in the majority of government positions would give Republicans the majority of power in most levels of government. This would allow them to further agendas, such as controlling reproductive rights. This kind of rollback has already happened in Arkansas, which calls itself pro-life while having the 4th highest state maternity mortality rate. It bans nearly all abortions but does not have adequate healthcare to support the pregnancy. It also is one of two states that only has 60 days of Medicaid for new mothers and many rural areas no longer have a maternity wing in local facilities. It also ranks 2nd highest for teen pregnancy and 3rd for infant mortality. Republicans want to ban abortions but don’t want to support those mothers.
Speaking about the “pro-life” stance many Republicans take, they don’t seem to value life over their precious guns. The United States alone has had 199 mass shootings this year alone, more than any other nation in the world. 50 of these events have been school shootings. 50 school shootings this year alone. You’d think that would be enough to impose stricter gun laws and make people stop caring about the, somehow sacred, Second Amendment—something along the lines of the “Common Sense Gun Reform” co-sponsored by Congressman Joseph Morelle. This would include “measures to ban assault weapons, enact universal background checks, ban the sale of high-capacity magazines, reduce gun theft and trafficking, and more. This kind of legislation however hasn’t been passed in the past 25 years that mass shootings have been a topic of conversation.
Another big talking point this election, as with every election, is the economy. Harris and Walz want to cut taxes for more than 100 million middle-class Americans, build 3 million homes with 25,000 in down payment assistance, reinstate the expanded child tax credit, expand the earned income tax credit, fight corporate gouging, and “Support efforts to halt outsized corporate power and control over key markets in our economy, including abuses by the pharmaceutical industry, private equity, and Wall Street, which have padded executive’s pockets at the expense of American families.” What would Trump’s Diary do? It would raise taxes for the median family of 4 by $110,000 a year and $40,000 a year for a single-person household. Enact an average $1.5-2.4 million tax cut for 45,000 US Households making more than $10 million dollars a year annually from the combination of the “two-bracket” system and cuts to taxes on the wealthy’s investment income (link). Set the corporate tax rate down to 18%, which is a $24 billion tax cut to Fortune 100. Finally, “Replace all individual and corporate income taxes with a consumption tax in the long term. This could take the form of a value-added tax well above 45 percent, which would produce an enormous one-time burst of inflation and raise prices.” This amounts to an average $5,200 tax raise for middle-income families and a 2 million tax cut for the 0.1 percent. The main piece Trump has proposed is a high tariff plan that would raise sales taxes and not bring more business into the US like Trump claims.
This, and much more, is just showing the MAGA Republicans don’t care about people, just money and who will give them the most. This plan would destroy our economy, taking away money from the people who need and want to spend it and giving it to those who won’t spend it. This goes hand in hand with its rollback plan for environmental policies. It would gut the EPA, have us abandon trade regulation which is deeply tied to environmental policy, and have the USA step away from the international climate talks which would impact the efforts to reduce climate change. (link)
This macrocosm of insane, unfounded, unwanted, unneeded, unlawful, and above all unconstitutional ideas paints a horrid picture of what will happen to the country should Trump be elected. Furthermore, if these policies are allowed under a potential Trump presidency it would solidify a plan to make Trump and whoever follows him into unimpeded monarchs.
Disclaimer; I am a 17-year-old cis, straight, white male. I am a progressive liberal. This piece is my own opinion, and not a reflection of the other people on the newspaper staff, the newspaper advisor, or the school in any way. This argument will be presented with sources and facts that, to the best of my knowledge and ability, are reputable.
