During the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump insisted that he knew nothing about Project 2025 —the Heritage Foundation's 920-page blueprint for a second Trump presidency. But now that President Trump is actually serving his second term, a key part of the Project 2025 agenda — a dramatic restructuring of the federal workforce — is being carried out with the help of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
In an article published on April 1, however, The Atlantic's David A. Graham focuses on a Project 2025 priority that so far, hasn't been a big priority for the Trump administration: A push for Christian fundamentalist households.
"Project 2025 has proved to be a good road map for understanding the first months of Donald Trump’s second term," Graham explains, "but most of the focus has been on efforts to dismantle the federal government as we know it. The effort to restore traditional families has been less prominent so far, but it could reshape the everyday lives of all Americans in fundamental ways."
Graham adds, "Its place atop the list of priorities is no accident — it reflects the most deeply held views of many of the contributors — though the destruction of the administrative state might end up imperiling the Trump team’s ability to actually carry out the changes the authors want. A focus on heterosexual, married, procreating couples is everywhere in Project 2025."
Graham notes that Project 2025 describes "a range of ways to achieve" that "goal across the executive branch."
"Changes to rules for 401(k)s and other savings programs would be more generous to married couples," the Atlantic journalist notes. "(The Department of Health and Human Services) would enlist churches and other faith-based organizations to 'provide marriage and parenting guidance for low-income fathers' that would 'affirm and teach' based on 'a biological and sociological understanding of what it means to be a father — not a gender-neutral parent — from social science, psychology, personal testimonies, etc.' Through educational programs, tax incentives, and other methods, the child-support system 'should strengthen marriage as the norm, restore broken homes, and encourage unmarried couples to commit to marriage.'"
Graham adds, "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the lead federal welfare program, would track statistics about 'marriage, healthy family formation, and delaying sex to prevent pregnancy.' In this vision, men are breadwinners and women are mothers."
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According to Graham, Project 2025's view of family life is extremely patriarchal.
"With a little imagination," Graham writes, "we can glimpse the America that Project 2025 proposes. It is an avowedly Christian nation, but following a very specific, narrow strain of Christianity. In many ways, it resembles the 1950s. While fathers work, mothers stay at home with larger families. At school, students learn old-fashioned values and lessons. Abortion is illegal, vaccines are voluntary, and the state is minimally involved in health care."
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David A. Graham's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).