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Rick Bonetti

The Politics of Science

Updated: Aug 27



How do the policies of Project 2025 reflect the published RNC Platform? How does the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for changing the Federal government, if the Republican candidate is elected, compare with the RNC Platform? Shouldn't objective science be viewed independently from political policy?


My July 23, 2024, Rogue Valley Voice blog post Drill Baby Drill? focused on how the RNC convention made clear Republican policy intentions to abandon serious efforts to reduce the causes of man-made climate change in favor of fossil fuel interests.


The July 19, 2024 edition of Scientific American takes a broader look, spelling out What to Know about Project 2025’s Dangers to Science. 


The Republican Platform


On July 8, 2024, "the Republican National Committee (RNC) Platform Committee adopted President Donald J. Trump’s 2024 Republican Party Platform." That day's press release lists "20 GOP Principles, Roadmap to Make America Great Again."


Republican "America first" priorities regarding the economy favor a smaller federal government; fewer restrictions on fossil fuel production; stimulating American manufacturing growth and American job creation; protectionist international trade policies; strengthening border security, fighting immigrant crime; and an isolationist foreign policy of dominance through increasing armaments (an iron dome missile defense shield.) Conservative social policies emphasize traditional binary gender and family identity; an anti-abortion stance; controlling school curriculum; resistance to gun control; and reversing current voter rights. Appeal to Christian nationalism underpins support of this agenda.


Project 2025


Although the 2024 Republican Presidential candidate now attempts to distance himself somewhat from Project 2025, "in 2022 Trump said the Heritage Foundation—the think tank that authored Project 2025—would 'lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.'"

"Although Trump is not among its 34 authors, more than half are appointees and staff from his time as president; the words “Trump” and “Trump Administration” appear 300 times in its pages. At least 140 former Trump officials are involved in Project 2025, according to a CNN tally. It’s reasonable to expect that a second Trump presidency would follow many of the project’s recommendations.' " ~ Scientific American

Project 2025 - Presidential Transition Project - Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise is about "taking the reins of government" with proposed changes of specific Federal governmental Departments in common defense, general welfare, the economy, and independent regulatory agencies. Their "goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State." The 2023 book of 878 pages is a conservative blueprint for "creating policy solutions... based on the core principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. The closing word is"onward", but many American believe it is actually "backward."



Resources


Here's a link to the 2024 Democratic Party Platform (note: although this was released August 18, 2024 references in the document are primarily to President Biden rather than Kamala Harris.)

  1. Our Economy from the Bottom Up & Middle Out

Economic Progress

Investing In America

Good Jobs

Small Businesses

Agriculture

Fighting Poverty

Ending Special Interest Giveaways

2. Rewarding Work, Not Wealth

Cutting Taxes For Working Families

Making The Wealthy & Big Corporations Pay Their Fair Share

3. Lowering Costs

Health Care & Prescription Drugs

Child Care, Home Care, & Paid Leave

Gas & Groceries

Corporate Greed

Housing

Education

Social Security, Pensions, & Medicare

4. Tackling the Climate Crisis, Lowering Energy Costs, & Securing Energy Independence

Producing Cleaner, More Affordable Energy

Lowering Energy Costs

Creating Clean Energy Jobs

Reducing Pollution & Making Polluters Pay

Environmental Justice

Building Climate Resilient Communities

Conservation

Global Climate Leadership

5. Protecting Communities & Tackling the Scourge of Gun Violence

Gun Safety

Policing & Public Safety

Criminal Justice

Violence Against Women

6. Strengthening Democracy, Protecting Freedoms, & Advancing Equity

Judges Voting Rights

Stopping The Influence Of Special Interests

Reproductive Freedom

Women’s Rights

Racial Equity

Lgbtqi+

Disability

Tribal Nations

Combating Hate & Protecting Freedom Of Religion

Freedom Of The Press

Arts & Humanities

D.C., Puerto Rico, Territories

7. Securing our Border & Fixing the Broken Immigration System

Securing The Border

Expanding Legal Immigration & Deterring Illegal Immigration

8. Advancing the President’s Unity Agenda

Beating The Opioid Epidemic

Investing In Mental Health

Protecting Kids Online, Strengthening Americans’ Data Privacy, & Promoting Competition

Ending Cancer As We Know It

Meeting Our Nation’s Sacred Obligation To Veterans And Military Families

9. Strengthening American Leadership Worldwide

Europe

Indo-Pacific

China

The Middle East & North Africa

Western Hemisphere

Africa

Strengthening The U.S. And Global Economy

Leading With Diplomacy And American Values

Strongest Military In The World


 
 

CNN offers an annotation of the 2024 Republican Party platform, noting it is their first new platform since 2016 which "mainlines the former president’s policies and makes Trump himself a focus of the party. It is a fraction of the length of the 2016 platform and written in Trump’s voice." Trump’s signature motto, Make America Great Again" is now the official tagline of the Republican Party.

 

The Non-profit and non-partisan American Presidency Project hosted at the University of California, Santa Barbara has an analysis of the 2024 Republican Party Platform (as of July 8, 2024) and the 2024 Democratic Platform (as of August 19, 2024).

 

Although now out of date, Diffen attempts to catalog recent differences between Democrats vs. Republicans. One still relevant reader comment is that "The Republican party is not conservative. The Republican party has no platform anymore. The platform since 2020 is whatever Trump says it is. It has become a cult, not a political party."





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