Make no mistake–a vote for a second Donald J. Trump administration is a vote for right-wing extremism that will threaten the stability of our republic.
Conservative political think-tanks have created plans like Project 2025 from The Heritage Foundation and “The America First Agenda” from the America First Policy Initiative to popularize significant rollbacks on issues as wide-ranging as education, abortion, climate change, and rules determining why government workers can be fired.
Project 2025, for example, proposes eliminating the federal Department of Education, restricting abortion nationwide, ending Title I funding for high-need schools in low-income communities, and getting rid of Title IX protections that ban discrimination against LGBT+ students and school staff.
Similarly, “The America First Agenda” wants to completely end federal funding for Planned Parenthood (the nonprofit that acts as the single largest provider of abortion healthcare in the United States), change federal law to exclude trans- and gender-nonconforming identities by legally recognizing only two genders, and changing all federal workers’ status to at-will employees–which means federal workers can be fired for any reason at any time, including disobeying Mr. Trump. That is particularly concerning because, as the Brookings Institution notes, government agencies need to be able to report unbiased information about health, safety, and the economy to the public.
Each of these vastly different issues poses severe threats to the lives and livelihoods of Americans. One example already evident in many states, like Louisiana, is the restriction or banning of abortion.
Due to Louisiana’s abortion ban mothers have faced prolonged illness due to delayed treatments for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages. Doctors who violate the ban may face up to 15 years in prison, $200,000 in fines, and revoking of their medical license.
Both Project 2025 and “The America First Agenda” support similar restrictions or outright banning of abortion. Either set of policies could lead to even greater and more widespread harm to mothers, including victims of sexual assault. Researchers found, for instance, that 12.5% of assaults result in pregnancy due to difficulties accessing abortion healthcare. And a study from the University of Colorado projected a 24% increase in deaths of mothers if abortion is federally banned.
Yet, somehow, those life-or-death consequences of a single policy–abortion–from Project 2025 or “The America First Agenda” are not the most concerning part of a second Trump administration. Regardless of policies passed or not passed, Mr. Trump has emboldened voters to disregard facts, even about national election results, and his own involvement in the attempted Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection against the United States.
In fact, a 2021 study from the University of Washington found that 98% of survey respondents believed Trump’s claims that the 2020 election results were not trustworthy. Two-thirds of those same respondents said Trump had no responsibility for the attempted insurrection.
That is the most dangerous part of a second Trump administration–undermining the public’s belief in our republic, encouraging voters to believe any lie from a politician instead of multiple credible sources, and using those tactics to pass whatever policies Mr. Trump or a think-tank desires. In other words, the damage inflicted by Mr. Trump becomes a cycle, a hamster wheel of harm to our republic that encourages people to blindly support anything he says or does, even threats to the physical safety of other politicians.
A 2024 Scripps news study found that a majority of Americans think that violence related to the results of the 2024 election will happen, regardless of the results. Those fears are not unfounded. Political violence is at its worst since the 1970s, and threats against election workers spiked during the 2020 election.
As Norton Ambassador David Ruiz (‘26) said, “I think the most interesting thing is that there’s such a willingness to fund things like Project 2025. It’s the fact that so many people are willing to do all these things.”
Concerned citizen and registered voter, Alexis Armendariz, echoed Ruiz’s words.
“It’s going to be up to the states to each decide their curriculum for the schools,” Armendariz said. “That’s dangerous because different states, like red and blue states, are going to teach different curriculums, and we’re all going to learn different stories of the past. A lot of people are going to learn inaccurate information.”
The 2024 election is not just a battle for Republican or Democrat–it is a battle for what people think is reality. Beliefs based on wrong information can lead to real harm, real threats, real damage to the stability of our republic.