Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative playbook that would overhaul much of the federal government under a second Trump administration, has sparked fear and concern from voters despite the former president’s attempt to distance his campaign from the plan. But while Project 2025 might seem radical, most of it is not new. Instead, the now-famous document seeks to reanimate many of the worst racial, economic and political instincts of the Reagan Revolution.

Project 2025 begins with its authors (one of whom stepped down last month) boasting of the Heritage Foundation’s 1981 publication “The Mandate for Leadership,” which helped shape the Reagan administration’s policy framework. It hit its mark: Reagan wrote 60% of its recommendations into public policy in his first year in office, according to the Heritage Foundation. Yet the 900-plus-page Project 2025, itself a major component of a new edition of “The Mandate for Leadership,” does not contain any analysis of the economic and social price Americans paid for the revolution the Heritage Foundation and Reagan inspired.

If today’s economic inequality, racial unrest and environmental degradation represent some of our greatest political challenges, we would do well to remember that Reagan and the Heritage Foundation were the preeminent engineers of these catastrophes. Perhaps no day in Reagan’s presidency better embodied his policy transformations or the political ambitions of the Heritage Foundation than Aug. 13, 1981, when Reagan signed his first budget.

This budget dramatically transformed governmental priorities and hollowed out the nation’s 50-year pursuit of government for the common good that began during the New Deal. Once passed, it stripped 400,000 poor working families of their welfare benefits, while removing significant provisions from another 300,000. Radical cuts in education affected 26 million students. The number of poor Americans increased by 2.2 million, and the percentage of Black Americans living in poverty rose to a staggering 34.2%.

Of course, this was just the beginning of Reagan’s war on the poor, the environment and education. Following a Heritage Foundation plan, the Environmental Protection Agency’s operating budget would fall by 27%, and its science budget decreased by more than 50%. Funding for programs by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that provided housing assistance would be cut by 70%, according to Matthew Desmond’s “Poverty, By America.” Homelessness skyrocketed. And, as Project 2025 proposes, Reagan attempted to eliminate the Department of Education but settled for gutting its funding in a manner that set public education, in the words of author Jonathan Kozol, “back almost 100 years.” As funding for these issues nosedived under Reagan, financial support for the “war on drugs” skyrocketed and the prison population nearly doubled.

All the while, protections provided to the wealthy ballooned. Tax rates on personal income, corporate revenue and capital gains plummeted. For example, the highest income tax rate when Reagan took office was 70%. He would eventually lower it to 33%.

To ensure that wealth would be a long-lived family entitlement, Reagan instituted a 300% increase in inheritance tax protections through estate tax exemptions in his first budget. In 1980, the exemption stood at $161,000. By the time Reagan left office in 1989 it was $600,000. Today it is $13,610,000. This means that today nearly all wealthy children enjoy tax-free access to generational wealth.

And beginning during Reagan’s presidency, the number of millionaires and billionaires multiplied, increasing 225% and 400%, respectively, while the poverty of Americans across racial lines intensified. Even white males were more likely to be poor following Reagan’s presidency. Today poverty is the fourth-leading cause of death in the U.S., even though this is the wealthiest nation in the world.

If we feel like we live in a country that isn’t working for anyone who isn’t wealthy, these are some of the core reasons why. Looking back at the Reagan era and the Heritage Foundation’s original “Mandate for Leadership,” we must remember that our domestic wounds are largely self-inflicted, results of buying into racial, economic and environmental lies that continue to be sold. It is precisely the types of policies that devastated the nation during the Reagan administration that Project 2025 now seeks to resuscitate. Perhaps the only truly new thing Project 2025 suggests is using more authoritarian means to enact its agenda.

History has hinges, moments that change the trajectory of nations. The greatest progress in our country has almost always emerged during turbulent times. It is up to the United States’ most committed believers to close the door on terror and trauma and open one that leads to new democratic possibilities.

Our current moment represents more than an election. It is a turning point that has the potential to transform the United States for generations to come. We don’t need the version of the past that Project 2025 is trying to sell us. It didn’t work for most Americans then, and it won’t work for most of us now. But perhaps Project 2025 is the push the Democratic Party needed. While the Republican Party veers further into authoritarianism, Democrats must be equally determined to develop a truly equitable democracy and bind the wounds of a deeply divided nation.

Joel Edward Goza, a professor of ethics at Simmons College of Kentucky, is the author of the forthcoming book “Rebirth of a Nation: Reparations and Remaking America.”

A federal judge ruled Tuesday Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. can sue the Biden administration over alleged social media censorship of his Children’s Health Defense charity, which questions the safety of vaccines.

“The Court finds that Kennedy is likely to succeed on his claim that suppression of content posted was caused by actions of Government Defendants, and there is a substantial risk that he will suffer similar injury in the near future,” U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty in Louisiana said in a ruling. 

The lawsuit alleges the government had pressured social media giants like Facebook, X and YouTube to censor content it considered misinformation.

The Children’s Health Defense, which was founded by Kennedy, says its mission is “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure.” 

RFK, JR. TORCHES MEDIA CENSORSHIP AS HE ENDS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

Critics of the charity have called it “anti-vaccine.” The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine, are “safe and effective.” 

“Judge Terry Doughty carefully and clearly analyzed the law and facts and applied the framework from the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Murthy v. Missouri regarding standing,” CHD general counsel Kim Rosenberg said after the ruling, referring to a similar case brought against the government. 

“The court also firmly found in plaintiffs’ favor that plaintiffs had not waived — and indeed had affirmatively raised — direct censorship claims in addition to listener claims.”

Murthy v. Missouri was recently brought by the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, who accused the Biden administration of pressuring social media companies to censor certain content. 

A Louisiana court banned communication between the government and the companies, but the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision in June, said the plaintiffs had insufficient evidence to prove direct injury and found no direct link to the government in the censorship, adding companies have a right to moderate their own content. 

Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense charity has questioned the safety of vaccines, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says are “safe and effective.”  (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

KENNEDY FAMILY MEMBERS DENOUNCE RFK JR’S DECISION TO ENDORSE TRUMP AS A ‘BETRAYAL OF VALUES’ 

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the decision that “the evidence indicates that the platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Brett Kavanaugh, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson also voted against the plaintiffs. 

The decision came just days before Kennedy suspended his struggling presidential campaign and endorsed former President Trump.  (Reuters/Go Nakamura)

In the Kennedy case, Doughty said there was direct evidence the charity’s censorship had been linked to the government. 

The case will now go back to a lower court, and the injunction will be reviewed, according to the Washington Examiner. 

The decision came just days before Kennedy suspended his struggling presidential campaign and endorsed former President Trump. 

While Democrats celebrated with abandon Thursday over the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee, viewers of Fox News received a prolonged disquisition on the many dire shortcomings of the candidate and her party.

Even before Harris took the stage at the United Center, the channel’s star prime-time commentators Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and their guests, headlined by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, belittled the vice president as unqualified, unserious and a threat to the American way.

The messaging came as no surprise to regular viewers of the most influential conservative news outlet, which delivered long blocks of commentary throughout the Democratic National Convention, seldom showing the people or performances onstage in Chicago.

Viewers were told that Harris and running mate Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, would put capitalism and American values in imminent peril, opening the nation to invading hordes of immigrants and leftist economic policy that would turn the U.S. into another Venezuela.

Gingrich took a swipe at Walz, suggesting he wasn’t what he appeared to be and “was never actually a coach.”

The barb had been tossed out earlier by former President Trump via his Truth Social platform, with the Republican noting that Walz had been an assistant coach, not a head coach, for the football team at Mankato West High School. (Such parsing probably wouldn’t please about a dozen members of Walz’s team who reunited on the convention stage to support Walz on Wednesday night and sang his praises in multiple interviews.)

The Fox crew lit into the Democrats not just with spoken words, but also with on-screen headlines and disquieting video. Consider the chyrons that leaped onto the screen as Watters, then Hannity and Gingrich, chatted: “Dems Ditch Policy, Go All In on Emotion”; “When Will Kamala Do an Interview?”; “Kamala Has Never Cared About the Border”; “Vetting the Extreme Harris-Walz Agenda”; and “DNC Repackages Kamala as the ‘Female Obama.’”

Hannity, Fox’s longtime prime-time personality, assured viewers that the Democratic claims of promoting a more joyful public square amounted to a ruse. As Hannity spoke, the message ”Feel the Rage” flashed on the screen, while Fox also rolled video of protesters burning American flags and immigrants wading into a river to cross into the U.S.

“I mean, there’s joy in people smiling and playing music,” fumed Hannity, a close friend and ally of Trump, “but a lot of rage on that stage. Not a lot about how they’re going to fix America’s problems: inflation, the border, energy, America’s place in the world, law and order. I don’t hear a lot about that at all.”

Hannity’s hour also featured a segment with a Fox reporter covering pro-Palestinian protests in the streets outside the United Center.

Chicago police and most observers noted that the widespread unrest that had been predicted by some did not occur, and the planned protests failed to draw the tens of thousands of demonstrators that organizers had hoped for. The vast majority of those who came to Chicago marched peacefully.

Fox’s reporter noted that the marchers had been following the prescribed parade route. The group assembled around him was quiet, standing and holding placards, including some that criticized Harris.

“They say, if people are still dying in Gaza, there won’t be any business as usual,” the reporter said. “So they’re not going to shy away from things like vandalism, disruption, escalation, as they call it.” Despite that prediction, the streets remained mostly quiet.

Back in the studio, Gingrich said that a recent speech by Harris on economics “was so far to the left of [Sen.] Bernie Sanders that Gorbachev and Russia would [have] thought it was a radical speech.”

Hannity and Gingrich agreed that the Democrat’s proposed tax on some unrealized capital gains — on real estate or money invested in the stock market — could lead to everyday Americans losing their savings or even their homes.

The problem with the assertions was that they badly mischaracterized the Harris plan, which calls for increased taxes only on those with incomes of more than $400,000 a year. The tax on unrealized capital gains is designed to hit a much higher tax bracket, according to an analysis by the New York Times.

The salvo foreshadowed what’s expected to become a pattern in the final weeks of the presidential race — a series of charges and counter charges about which party’s tax plan will favor average Americans.

The Fox commentators’ beatdown of the Democratic tax plan raised an incongruity: Much of the network’s commentary in recent days had been about how Harris and Walz had not put forward specific proposals. While Hannity continued to stoke that claim, he also battered the quite specific tax plan. And he portrayed the Democrats as extreme leftists.

“Every once in a while, the mask comes off and you realize you’re dealing with someone who’s crazy,” Hannity said, apparently referring to Harris and her tax plan. “And, of course, with Walz, you have the most radical governor in the country, far to the left of Bernie Sanders, and you have with Harris, a San Francisco radical.”

Appearing before Hannity and Harris’ speech, Watters leaned into some of the culture war issues Republicans have employed against Democrats.

After a segue in which he and Fox host Martha MacCallum discussed how hard they had worked out that day and how strong Hannity was in the gym, Watters showed video of CNN commentator Dana Bash praising Walz and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband, for a new brand of masculinity that allows for sensitivity and strength.

Watters used that video as an intro to asking former Democratic House member Harold Ford Jr., a regular Fox contributor, how he felt about the party’s framing of masculinity: “Harold, how embarrassed are you as a Democrat that you guys are now pandering to the low-testosterone men?”

Ford ignored the question and discussed what he thought Harris should do in her speech to show Americans that she is presidential and represents the mainstream of the nation’s politics. Smiling, Watters persisted: “Harold, how embarrassed are you? Your party’s a bunch of low-T guys?”

MacCallum, joining the segment, painted Democrats as too young, gullible or otherwise unaware to understand the shortcomings of the Democrats. “That’s where I think you get those older voters,” McCallum said, “and maybe some white male voters who are not so easily persuaded by feelings and [being] emotional, joyful.”

Watters, who began his Fox career as a smiling and acerbic sidekick to Bill O’Reilly, got in a shot at one other Democrat — California Gov. Gavin Newsom. He suggested that Newsom had not been given a speaking role (outside of announcing the votes of the state delegation) out of Harris’ spite. “He’s being punished,” Watters said. “You can’t be overly ambitious if you’re a man.”

The tone of Fox’s coverage shifted markedly once Harris took the stage and in the follow-up panel discussion.

The cable outlet stuck with the entire 37-minute address and then provided relatively balanced analysis afterward. Fox prime-time anchor Bret Baier and panelists, including Ford, said Harris’ performance was strong.

“It was a forceful speech delivered very crisply, very professionally, with emphasis. There was no stumbling, fumbling, or any of that,” said Brit Hume, a Fox News veteran.

Dana Perino, White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, said Harris’ tough talk on defense and support of Israel were the strongest parts of her address.

But Perino also said Harris had not yet faced tough questions. And she pushed back on Harris’ charge that Trump would invoke Project 2025, a proposal to radically transform the federal government whose authors included many Trump allies and former aides, but which the former president has disavowed.