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Remember: lead with a value, define the opposition, and end with a call to action.
Overview: Project 2025 is a wish-list of MAGA policies that will threaten our daily lives if former President Trump gets the chance to implement it. Over 900 pages, it includes policies MAGA Republicans like Trump and Governor Reynolds have hailed for years and implemented here in Iowa. Written in large part by former Trump staff and the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing, pro-Trump think tank, Project 2025 threatens our freedoms to benefit Trump, his billionaire donors, and a select group of loyalists.
During his term, former President Trump put several MAGA Republican policies in place. His 2017 tax cuts for the rich cost $1.9 trillion and his Supreme Court nominations overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing attacks on abortion rights to flood state courts and legislatures. Project 2025’s MAGA proposals include:
- Cuts to Social Security and Medicare and raising the retirement age.
- Ending the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) and preexisting condition protections, a new tax on health insurance, banning Medicare from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices, ending $35 insulin for seniors.
- Ending marriage equality and banning abortion freedoms – including the abortion pill, IVF, and birth control coverage, and would allow the government to monitor pregnancies.
- Expanding tax cuts for the richest Americans, wealthy corporations and would allow employers to deny overtime pay.
- Attacking our public schools by eliminating Head Start preschool for low income families, dissolving the Department of Education, banning books, cutting school lunch programs and shifting $13 billion from IDEA to block grants and private schools.
Most Americans oppose Project 2025 and know it represents what Trump and MAGA Republicans stand for. Talking about it and the real life consequences of these policies is critical to prevent them from being implemented.
The Headline: Project 2025 is Trump and MAGA’s plan to take away our freedoms to hoard power and wealth for themselves and the richest among us. They want to ban abortion and birth control, let employers pay us less and cut Medicare and Social Security. Project 2025 will limit our freedom to thrive, to decide our futures, and care for our families and communities.
The Message (Multi-Issue): No matter our income, zip code or race, Iowans know our families and communities are stronger when we have the tools to get ahead and the freedom to decide our own futures. But once again former President Trump and MAGA Republicans are attacking our freedom to decide for ourselves and earn a good living. Project 2025 is their plan to ban abortion and birth control, get rid of free preschool, and let employers skirt overtime pay. Governor Reynolds, a Trump ally, already gutted wages and workers rights, took money from our public schools and is banning abortion at six-weeks. Iowans know this is just the beginning under Trump & MAGA’s plan, and we deserve better. Project 2025 is wrong for our country and we are calling on our legislators and neighbors to oppose it and the MAGA Republicans behind it.
The Message (Abortion): No matter our income, zip code or race, the majority of Iowans support abortion access and respect the freedom to decide our own futures. We don’t want politicians interfering with our personal lives. But just as he unraveled our freedoms under Roe v. Wade, former President Trump and MAGA Republicans want to implement Project 2025, a plan that would ban abortion and IVF, and make birth control more expensive by ending insurance coverage. Trump picked the court that overturned Roe v Wade and unleashed attacks on abortion freedom across the states, including Governor Reynolds’ attacks in Iowa. She is hellbent on banning abortion rights and her six-week abortion ban is all thanks to Trump. But it’s just the beginning under Project 2025. Iowans know banning abortion rights is wrong and are calling on our legislators and neighbors to oppose Project 2025 and the MAGA Republicans behind it.
Strategic Insights & Tips:
- Focus on what most Americans are worried about: freedoms and middle class working families. They view Project 2025 is viewed as a dangerous power grab and roll back of freedoms.
- Voters can see, regardless of what Trump says, that Project 2025 describes what he and MAGA Republicans stand for.
- Citing abortion empowers freedom messages. When listing what we will lose, add abortion to remind folks of real tangible loss. E.g: “They are attacking our freedom to decide for ourselves, earn a living wage, afford the medicine we need…”
| DO | DON’T |
| DO highlight voter-facing harms like eliminating the Affordable Care Act and IVF, cutting Social Security and Medicare. | DON’T belabor harms to institutions (firing career civil servants, damage to the justice and electoral systems, etc.) Voters are less moved by things that do not appear to impact them directly and immediately. |
| DO anchor new information you supply to the actions MAGA Republicans have already taken on abortion in order to increase salience and credibility. “Just like they took away our freedom to decide for ourselves whether and when to have kids, they also plan to…” “Just as they are outlawing abortion in states, they plan to…” | DON’T list as many MAGA agenda points as possible. Inundating voters with this kind of information leaves them unable to really feel the potential harms. Even presented with meticulous evidence, it risks coming across as hyperbole to voters who readily discount information received from perceived political sources. |
| DO ascribe the motivations behind MAGA’s nefarious actions. Voters must understand that MAGA Republicans are attempting to seize and hold onto power so that they can rule over us, not represent us. | DON’T obscure the stakes by focusing on process or likelihood of success. |
| DO talk about how Project 2025 is another MAGA effort to control us, decide our futures for us, and take us backwards. | DON’T obscure who is responsible by using passive language like “democracy is eroding” or “autocratic practices are increasing.” |
Shareable Content:
Caption 1: Project 2025 is a MAGA Republican plan developed by special interests to control our lives. They want to ban abortion, cut our Social Security benefits, and take us backwards. We can’t let Project 2025 or anyone else dictate our future.
Caption 2: Trump’s Project 2025 confirms what we already know: MAGA Republicans want to control us and decide our futures for us, taking away our freedom to get the care we need, vote in fair elections and decide whether and when we grow our families.
Caption 3: Trump and the MAGA Republicans unraveled our abortion rights. Now they want to double down with their Project 2025 plot. We have to advocate for our freedoms in 2024! Our freedom to decide is on the line.
Images:
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More Talking Points:
- MAGA Republicans want to rule over us, not represent us. Trump’s Project 2025 promises to remove checks on presidential power, paving the way for a MAGA dictatorship that will take away our freedoms.
- From taking away our freedom to make decisions about how to care for our bodies to stripping away our freedom to thrive with cuts to Social Security and Medicare, Trump’s Project 2025 is the MAGA movement’s plan to control our lives and imperil our livelihoods.
- By eliminating programs like Social Security and Medicare, MAGA’s Project 2025 takes away our freedom to thrive.
- Project 2025 is MAGA’s plan to take away our freedom to make decisions about what happens to our bodies. From banning contraception and abortion to monitoring people’s pregnancies, MAGA Republicans are determined to strip us of our reproductive freedoms and decide our futures for us.
- Trump’s Project 2025 confirms what we already know: MAGA Republicans want to control us and decide our futures for us, taking away our freedom to get the care we need, vote in fair elections and decide whether and when we grow our families.
- The MAGA movement will implement Project 2025, take away our freedoms and take our country backwards if Trump is elected. By joining together as voters this November, we can protect our freedoms, our families and our futures by rejecting the MAGA movement’s plan to divide us and control our lives.
- This November, our freedoms are on the line. Trump’s Project 2025 is MAGA’s plan to control our families and decide our futures for us. By joining together as we have in the past, we can reject Trump’s plan and protect our freedoms.
Research & Resources:
- Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved CNN 7/11/24
- What is Project 2025 The Washington Post 7/12/24
- The GOP’s Trump-centered platform, annotated CNN 7/9/24
- Project 2025 reveals its goal: Trump as president for life Public Notice 4/3/24
- Media Matters Project 2025 Multiple Resources
- Navigator Research 7/10/24
- Progress Now compilation of public resources
- Admin 2025: Project 2025
