Instruction Manual for the Unelected

This is not hard. Project 2025 has recently broken through the American psyche. It is, in simplest terms, an unelected group of planners waiting for the first opportunity to control the American government and our lives. Project 2025 is not a political party. Its members do not carry torches or storm city gates. They are not secretive. In fact, they are quite candid about dismantling the government and the Constitution as we know it. Their work is published in black and white for all to see. It has its own instruction manual. It’s called “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” In brief, it is a how-to of everything you need to know to build an authoritarian government driven by the political ideology of Christian Nationalism.

So where are the sirens and alarms?

Back up. Where were the sirens and alarms leading up to the overturning of Roe v. Wade by another unelected group, the Supreme Court of the United States? For so long we counted on stare decisis, the legal doctrine stating that courts should follow precedent in similar cases. That’s what past Supreme Court candidates told us in confirmation hearings, one after another.

“Roe is settled law.”

There were no sirens and alarms.

And then came Dobbs two years ago. With a single wave of six black-robed arms, stare decisis was turned on its head and Roe was declared “egregiously decided.” After fifty years.

There’s more.

In a major victory for deregulation advocates, the Supreme Court just overturned the forty-year-old “Chevron Doctrine.” The Court’s ruling effectively ended Chevron deference, which previously instructed lower courts to defer to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous laws. By overturning Chevron, the court ruled that agencies such as the EPA can be overruled by federal courts on matters of clean air, clean water, climate science. FDA approvals of food and drug safety can be overruled. It is only a matter of time before more attempts to eliminate mifepristone start all over again. And this time, they will probably succeed.

Every executive agency is now at the mercy of any federal judge who takes a notion to disagree with that agency’s interpretation of Congressional law, regulation, or action. The Centers for Disease Control. The National Institutes of Health. The Veterans Administration. The Federal Communications Commission. Stare decisis be damned. Legal precedent is in the crosshairs. It was dumped for Dobbs. It has been dumped in Chevron. In a breathtaking move, the courts have appointed themselves as sole deciders. Unelected jurists are now poised to pull the levers of power in new and alarming ways.

One of the great ironies of the Dobbs and Chevron decisions is that they fly in the face of a caution by none other than James Madison in Federalist No. 10.

"No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause; because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity."

And yet, we witness the aggrandizement of unelected judicial power like never before. Agencies no longer get deference on legal questions, no matter how expertly they are informed. Now agencies must go to court before going after wrongdoers. As the conservative Supreme Court continues to flex its muscles, we are on notice that it alone will continue to make the most important decisions in our national life. And that is no way to run a democracy.

And what about democracy?

For so long, we have relied on electing our legislative bodies from one of two parties. We trusted that policy differences could be worked out through debate and compromise and ultimately worked into law. Meanwhile the chances of those same debates, compromises and laws stand the chance of being highjacked by recent developments. Power is shifting away from Congress because of their “ambiguous laws,” and toward a conservative unelected Supreme Court and an unelected federal judiciary. We ignore these threats at our own peril.

We know from Gallup and Kaiser Family Foundation polls that only a very slim 12% minority of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all case. Poll results can be misleading, but there is no question that the overwhelming majority of Americans support access to abortion for purposes of reproductive health.

·      Eighty-six percent say decisions about abortions should be made by a woman in consultation with her doctor.

·      Seventy-six percent support federal legislation guaranteeing the right to abortion.

Complicating the matter of reproductive justice are emerging views on the role of religion in society. The first amendment establishment clause in the Constitution is clear:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Article 6, Clause 3 is equally clear:

“No religious test shall ever be required as qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

And yet, these clauses are being reinterpreted and trampled by recent legal cases at the highest levels. Once again, these decisions pull against the popular opinion of vast majorities of Americans living in a pluralistic society.

A poll in late 2022 by Pew Research Center found that 40% of Americans said “hell, yeah” we should practice a Christian ethic in this country where people treat each other well. Asked whether Supreme Court Justices should bring their own religious views into how they decide major cases, a staggering 83% said “hell no.” Justice Samuel Alito's comment about the United States being a "place of godliness" has fueled a controversial notion. Some extremists have interpreted this to mean that the country should conform to a Christian nationalist ideology. These groups oppose abortion, same-sex marriage, transgender rights, and various liberal views in books, school curricula and public spaces. This notion of a Christian nation goes far beyond a country where people “treat each other well.”

Instead, it verges dangerously into narrowly defined, biblically infused beliefs of authoritarians telling the people of a pluralistic and diverse democracy what they can and cannot do. That is the goal of Project 2025. That is the goal of Christian Nationalism. Christian Nationalism is not a religion. It is a political ideology as expressed succinctly by Roger Stone who said:

“Don’t think that this is a fight between Republicans and Democrats, liberals, and conservatives. This is nothing less than an epic struggle between good and evil. A struggle between light and dark, a struggle between the godly and the godless.”

Good and evil. Light and dark. Godly and the godless. As defined by Roger Stone. Unelected Roger Stone.

That’s chilling.

Many Americans and Christian Church leaders, including the National Council of Churches and the Joint Baptist Committee have pushed back against Christian Nationalism calling it a danger to the country.

Russell Vought doesn’t care.

Vought is a self-avowed Christian Nationalist on a mission. He is not content with past conservative victories like tax cuts for the rich and health threatening right to life legislation. As a key architect of Project 2025, he has built a movement to turn back the tide of progressive liberalism. He, as do other Christian nationalists, insists that religious beliefs must inform public policy for the entire country—on everything from immigration to abortion, IVF, contraception, human sexuality, foreign policy, gun ownership and every matter that has long been sheltered by the right to privacy. As we saw with the Roe decision by the unelected Supreme Court, privacy rights have taken a back seat to restraining and controlling human behavior. Vought and his unelected cadre plan to take these battles to the next level. All that is required are the right conditions in a future conservative administration.

How will they do that? The instruction manual provides guidance.

The most obvious way is to enforce the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief. In essence, the espoused unitary executive theory provides unchecked plenary powers that would make King George III blush.

Ironically, the unitary executive theory does not necessarily require a brilliant monarch. Vought along with the multi-billion-dollar-funded Project 2025 run out of the Heritage Foundation have written the instruction manual for this monarch. All a presumptive monarch has to do is nod in agreement and loyal unelected minions will handle the rest.

The instruction manual set forth in Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” has everything a monarch needs to pull the levers of authoritarian power. This manual sets forth the “mandates” for each department of the executive branch.

Cabinet Secretaries will be given their extremist marching orders in areas from foreign policy and national security to finance and taxes, law enforcement, education, immigration and public health.

Cabinet Level Officials will be so ordered as Cabinet Secretaries in areas of environment, climate, trade, intelligence, science, and technology.

The Project 2025 instruction manual has a chapter for each of these areas. One poignant example plays out for the Cabinet Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

·      First, rename the department as the Department of Life

·      Next, impose fetal personhood as the definition of life and immediately eliminate health procedures that do not comport with that definition. Women’s agency will be regulated. Women will be subjugated to the dictates of a plenary executive and political appointees.

The details are clearly spelled out in the instruction manual “Mandate for Leadership.” You will find them in Section 3: The General Welfare, Chapter 14: Department of Health and Human Services, by Roger Severino, pages 449 to 502.

Find it. Read it. Remember that these are not proposals. These are not debates. These are pre-determined dictates if Project 2025 architects seize control in 2025. The President of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, lays out this vision for Project 2025 in the Forward of “Mandate for Leadership.” He was recently quoted:

"We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

That is a threat. Should anything get in Roberts’ way, the instruction manual recommends the use of a few nifty tools with potentially violent outcomes:

·      The Insurrection Act [quashing protesters with military force]

·      The Alien and Sedition Act [expediting migrant deportations]

·      Impoundment [seizing the power of the purse from Congress]

Project 2025 plans to cut, gut, dismantle, and squeeze the administrative “deep state,” until it heels to its demands. Some examples:

·      Slash funding for the Department of Justice

·      Set up a direct reporting line from the DOJ to the President

·      Dismantle the FBI

·      Dismantle the Department of Homeland Security

·      Eliminate the Department of Commerce

·      Abolish the Department of Education

·      End the independence of the Federal Communications Commission and place it directly under White House control

·      Weaken the Federal Election Commission

·      Sharply reduce environmental and climate change regulations

·      Reform public health

Newly appointed Cabinet level officials in a Project 2025 world will have plenty of backup and support. The instruction manual calls for a wholesale decimation of the Civil Service workforce with a program called “Schedule F.” It’s just another term for “massive federal job cuts.” Here’s how it works:

·      Fire up to 50,000 or more federal career civil servants hired for their expertise.

·      Replace them with patronage hires.

·      Require nothing of patronage hires except loyalty. Expertise not required.

·      Remove the independence of agency oversight.

Both Project 2025 and the American Accountability Foundation under the direction of Tom Jones are currently vetting acceptable personnel now in order to be ready on day one of a favorable administration. The instruction manual “Mandate for Leadership” is clear about the logic and need for Schedule F to strengthen the unitary executive.

“Empowering political appointees across the Administration is crucial to a President’s success.” [Mandate for Leadership, Section 1, Taking the Reins of Government, page 20]

Patronage, like nepotism, is nothing new.

Case study: In the 1930’s a water tank came crashing down through a nine-story building killing a number of individuals along the way. The unit had just been inspected three days before. Turns out the inspector was a former salesman selling malt to beer brewers. He got the job with no specific expertise in water tanks or their inspection. He got it through patronage. Asked about the incident, he said the water tank “looked alright to me.”

At the time of this writing, the American people are not asking for liberty to be preserved by firing thousands of federal workers and replacing them with malt salesmen. Liberty is preserved by standing up to an authoritarian power grab by the unelected. Liberty is preserved by standing up for our inalienable rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights enshrined in our Constitution.

Liberty is preserved by preserving our democracy.

Make no mistake about it. This is not about some far-off cabal or conspiracy theory that we should not take seriously. Project 2025 is a detailed instruction manual to install unelected ideologues in our government. These ideologues are ready to dismantle our democracy and our Constitution. They are just waiting for the conditions to be right.

If that doesn’t set off the sirens and alarms, what will?

It is our duty to recognize the threats and act. We the people must speak out with our votes demanding that our elected officials put an end to the tyranny of Project 2025, its allies, and the dreams of its unelected zealots.

Resources & Recommendations

Project 2025. Building Now for a Conservative Victory though Policy, Personnel, and Training.

Mandate for Leadership. The Conservative Promise. Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project

Where do Americans Stand on Abortion. Gallup Poll. Updated: June 17, 2024

Abortion in the 2024 Election and Beyond. Kaiser Family Foundation. March 7, 2024

Christian nationalism is a danger to our nation Baptist News Global. By Marvin McMickle. August 10, 2022

The Dangers of Christian Nationalism in the United States: A Policy Statement of the National Council of Churches. Adopted by the Governing Board April 20, 2021

Report on Christian nationalism and the January 6 insurrection. From The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). Released February 9, 2022

Ken Burns, H’24 Keynote Address to Brandeis University's 2024 Graduates

Netflix 6-Part Series 2024. Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial

Netflix Documentary 2023. Stamped from the Beginning. Based on Ibram X. Kendi's book exploring the history of racist ideas in America.

Amicus with Dahlia Lithwick “The Supreme Court’s Appeal to Heaven” featuring journalist and author, Katherine Stewart who charts the rise of Christian Nationalism in the United States; and Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State

New York Times. June 29, 2024, The Imperial Supreme Court. By Kate Shaw.

The Atlantic. The Big Winners of this Supreme Court Term. By Nicholas Bagley. June 29, 2024

The Atlantic. How “Pro-Life” Lost All Meaning. By Charlie Sykes. June 24, 2024