Project 2025 has been in front of our faces this whole time. We just weren't paying attention.

Honestly, we should have seen this coming.

The biggest lie that America has ever told itself is that it was founded on the ideals of liberty and justice for all. America is quite good at convincing itself and its public that this lie is our nation’s fundamental truth. This is the core of what we learn about our democracy from the moment we introduce the concept of civics in primary school. Our country is different. We are a democracy. We are for the people.

We conveniently overlook one major fact about our democracy: it was built for the elite white people. When we try to bring this to our democracy’s attention, we are gaslit. We are dubbed unpatriotic, hateful, and ungrateful. How dare we besmirch the American name? Our founding fathers fought so that we may be free! Our founding fathers fought so that we may be released from a monarchy that runs like a dictatorship! Our founding fathers fought so that we may have liberty!

Correction: our founding fathers fought so that they may have liberty. Our founding fathers fought so that they may finally have power and be able to lord it over others they deemed inferior. They believed that this democratic nation was their inherent right as white men with favor from God. The persons they speak of in their founding documents with certain unalienable rights that were endowed by their Creator were only white men. Indigenous peoples were not seen as people. Enslaved Africans were not seen as people. Women were seen as only child bearers, wives, and mistresses. And those who were poor, even if they were white, were not seen as human enough to possess the same unalienable rights as those whose signatures graced these documents.

The history of this nation consists of every marginalized group who has fought tirelessly to secure even a small portion of the fundamental rights they were denied in the founding documents. This is our nation’s legacy. Centuries of oppressed, marginalized peoples fighting to be seen as human by those in power, and those in power doing everything they can to continue to deny that liberty. This is where we tend to get confused, or even live in conscious denial. Once again, to maintain this narrative of American superiority and distinction, we are taught to focus on the liberties won following each human rights battle. We are taught that these victories were won because America chose to live up to the ideals it was founded upon, awarding the liberties to those it “always meant to include originally.” Thus, American exceptionalism remains the narrative.

The truth? America was forced to hand over liberties to those demanding them as it fought vehemently to avoid doing so for as long as possible. Typically, the coercion to do so came via a threat to the economy, specifically a threat to the wealth that the white elite successfully hoarded, or public safety. The abolition of slavery? Primarily economic. An emerging middle (white) class needed to labor for wages. Enslaved persons laboring for free prevented them from doing so. The passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Only passed after months of debate and bill revisions to placate Republican support after nearly dying after the introduction of the filibuster. Most of our nation’s leaders at the time were not interested in African Americans receiving equal rights and the backlash that followed for decades afterwards proves that.

It was only when African Americans somewhat won their fight for equal rights that women and the LGBTQIA community were galvanized to do the same. And, when you put into perspective how many decades every marginalized group in America has lived with legal protection for equal rights versus living under legalized oppression, one cannot debate the glaring evidence that our nation was instituted to be a nation of the latter. Likewise, one cannot be surprised that there have been multiple agendas, attempts, and even victorious coups to restore our nation to the ideals of oppression that defined its founding.

Project 2025 is simply the latest attempt, agenda, and coup to restore the legalized white supremacy our nation was founded upon.

It might as well be titled, “Project 1776.” Its creators are dubbing it a 2nd American Revolution. The intentionality is blatant.

Project 2025 aims to eliminate nearly every legally binding protection of rights for marginalized peoples that have entered into American law. Women, LGBTQIA, poor, unhoused, immigrant, Black, Indigenous, and all racialized peoples are at risk of increased discrimination, hatred, and oppression without the legally binding protections we have fought for decades to be included in the law of the land. This is white supremacy saying, “Hey, you were never supposed to be free in the first place. You ain’t slick.”

Let’s be real: white supremacy has been saying this. White supremacy backlash, also known as whitelash, is nothing new. What makes Project 2025 different is that it is an unprecedented, all-encompassing whitelash movement. Rather than the typical case-by-case whitelash scenario we have been able to track throughout history, Project 2025 will be the first time that there is a (likely successful) attempt at the complete restoration of “original white supremacy.” Perhaps, that is where the shock factor comes in. We are used to witnessing case-by-case scenarios, such as book bans and Dont Say Gay bills. Historically, we can track singular whitelash attempts through the death of Reconstruction, the War on Drugs, and the privatization of industry that followed the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is the first time we are witnessing something that will completely gut every single ounce of progress we have made to dismantle white supremacy as we know it. And, it’s terrifying.

Here’s the thing: with every attempt we have made throughout our nation’s history to amend the original mission of white supremacy upon which this nation was founded, we have never attempted a sweeping dismantling of it. White supremacy has always prevailed as our nation’s foundation. We’ve convinced ourselves that singular revisions, addendums, and additions to our foundation were enough to rewrite history. We’ve gaslit ourselves every time white supremacy backlashes, convincing ourselves that these backlashes were never attempting the covert restoration of oppression, but rather “singular issues.” We allowed ourselves to believe that the election of Barack Obama would truly be the end of every system of oppression our nation thrives on as if electing a Black president wouldn’t embolden the largest backlash of white supremacy our nation has ever seen.

We are ignorant if we don’t believe that Project 2025 is part of the post-Obama backlash we have witnessed since Trump took office. Project 2025 is merely the finale. Every white nationalist rally, racist murder, gutting of DEI offices, reversal of women’s rights, and denial of LGBTQIA+ rights have calculatedly led to this pinnacle moment. We have had a front-row view of the build-up, yet, per usual, we ignored it. The fire was started in the basement. We could see the flames coming out of the window, and we could smell the smoke from our bedrooms, and yet, we twiddled our thumbs in dumbfoundedness until we found ourselves engulfed in those very flames, the entire house now ablaze.

Perhaps this is the wake-up call we needed, though. Now, we are forced to not only attempt to escape this fire, but if we manage to also extinguish this fire, there will be no house left to restore. Our only remaining option will be to demolish and rebuild. And, as I argue in my book, We’ll All Be Free, that’s exactly what we need to do. Well, let me be clear. In my book, I do not suggest the demolition of our society of white supremacy as one would imagine. I suggest that taking a bulldozer to society is not only unrealistic, but would likely result in crumbing and chaos that we can ill afford. Rather, I suggest a brick-by-brick tear-down. One that requires the utmost precise intention and relies on a ripple effect throughout society. At the time of writing my book, that is what felt doable and hopeful. This strategy is what, to me, gave us all the power to begin the work of dismantling without feeling hopeless while waiting for politicians and other leaders to get their act together. We all know that it will take decades, if not, centuries, for the leaders of our nation to admit that we were founded on white supremacy. Right now, our nation’s leaders still play the political game of never speaking ill of America’s founding, and rather, pretend that America just had a few oopsie-daisies moments along the way. However, I wrote my book before Project 2025 became known to the public the way it is now. I had no knowledge or anticipation of it, even though, in hindsight, I should have. And now that the house is burning down, perhaps complete demolition is all that will be left once this is over. Unfortunately, we won’t get there without experiencing irrevocable damage in the process. I am grieved for what is to come.

Right now, the murmur around social media is about voting blue to hopefully avoid Project 2025, a collective frustration that our Democratic nominee will not step aside amidst growing health concerns, and our continuing outrage toward the genocide in Gaza that the same Democratic nominee has gladly used our tax dollars to fund. The mood is grim, apathetic, and furious to say the least. I’m sure I’m not the only one wrestling with emotions of helplessness, fear, and anxiety for what lies ahead. I wish I could conclude this article with solutions. As a writer and educator, I feel the pressure to always have a solution or a beacon of hope that my readers can cling to. I cannot say that I have such hope today. What I can say is that we cannot stop fighting. We cannot stop shouting. We cannot let our fury and apathy turn into surrendering to white supremacy’s will.

I wish the answer were as simple as casting a single vote, and while I believe in the power of voting, if voting alone were the solution, our fight would have ended long ago. We must reckon with the fact that whoever we elect to the highest office will not magically make Project 2025 disappear. This doesn’t mean that this election isn’t crucial or that who we vote for won’t have a large impact on the success of Project 2025, but we are naive if we think that the fight begins and ends in the voting booth. White supremacy has yet to be stopped with a presidency and Project 2025 will be no different. Every single battle for freedom in our nation has been just that…a battle.

This battle is just beginning.

If you’re looking for a word of hope, here’s what I have for you: I believe that liberation will always prevail. Many battles may have to be fought, and even lost, in the process, but I do believe that liberation will prevail.

It has to.

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