OPINION:
I was recently asked to respond to the dire warnings some “Christian leaders” are now voicing about Project 2025. One Free Methodist scholar by the name of Howard Snyder, in particular, is warning that under Project 2025, the United States “will follow China and Russia down the path that leads to dictatorship and the suppression of all liberties.”
He goes further: “The first American Revolution was from tyranny to democracy; [the] second [will be] from democracy to tyranny, though [its] sponsors … prefer to mislabel it ’liberty.’” This “second revolution,” Mr. Snyder says, “will be complete [if Republicans such as Donald Trump are elected]. It will coincide with ’a great awakening,’ which … means the establishment of … Christian Nationalism [where the United States will be a] broadly representative democracy no longer.”
How should thinking Christians respond? Well, first, maybe we should read from the actual Project 2025 document and listen to its authors before assuming predictable critics like Mr. Snyder know what they’re talking about.
Writing for Newsweek (no “right-wing rag,” last I heard), Jeffrey H. Anderson, president of the American Main Street Initiative, says opponents of Project 2025 “have things completely backward. Project 2025’s proposals would reinforce our system of government, not depart from it. They would strengthen our checks and balances, not weaken them. ’Fundamentally transforming the United States of America’ is the stated mission of the left, not the right. Far from encouraging the exercise of unchecked power, Project 2025 is an ode to the Constitution.”
Mr. Anderson continues that Project 2025 is nothing more than a thoughtful, book-length policy blueprint that “a conservative (or any) president would be free to draw from or ignore. Having written the introductions to all five sections of that book, I’m likely one of only a few people actually familiar with the entire work — and it is nothing like what [these antagonists] suggest. As I [state clearly] in the introduction to Section 1, ’Above all, the president and those who serve under him or her must be committed to the Constitution and the rule of law.’
Mr. Anderson concludes: “Indeed, perhaps the most radical thing about [our Project 2025 proposals] is [our] unwavering commitment to the Constitution as written. Far from trying to ’gut’ that glorious document, Project 2025 seeks to restore its fraying fibers. It aims to strengthen separation of powers and federalism, i.e., the division of power between the federal government and the states. In Federalist 51, James Madison said these dual protections provide a ’double security … to the rights of the people.’ Project 2025’s key objective is to “restore the American people’s constitutional authority over the Administrative State.”
In Chapter 3 of the actual Project 2025 document (which I suspect Mr. Snyder and others like him have not fully read), Donald Devine, Dennis Kirk and Paul Dans state: “The people elect a President who is charged by … the Constitution with seeing that the laws are ’faithfully executed’ with his political appointees democratically linked to that legitimizing responsibility. By contrast, an autonomous bureaucracy has neither independent constitutional status nor separate moral legitimacy. Therefore, career civil servants by themselves should not lead major policy changes and reforms.”
One can only ask why Mr. Snyder thinks reining in the unelected administrative state is bad.
In Chapter 2, Russ Vought writes that “the modern executive branch … whether controlled by the bureaucracy or by the President … writes federal policy, enforces that policy, and often adjudicates whether that policy was properly drafted and enforced.” He calls this “constitutionally dire” and “in urgent need of repair.” As Mr. Anderson rightly summarizes, “This is hardly a call for unchecked executive power, but rather, quite the opposite.” Again, why do Democratic sycophants like Mr. Snyder object to this?
I could go on and on. The document for Project 2025 is over 900 pages long, and it could literally take weeks to vet it thoroughly. What is clear, however, is that Project 2025 is little more than a call for constitutional sanity.
The bottom line is that those opposing it are parroting nonsense. There’s no truth to what they’re saying. Howard Snyder and other “rented evangelicals” like him are simply reciting Democratic National Committee talking points. They are reading directly from the left-of-center progressive playbook and showing their long-standing penchant for wealth-shaming, economic redistribution, big government, and soft socialism. Frankly, this hyperventilation about Project 2025 is either poorly informed or intentionally obtuse. Or perhaps there’s a third option?
My old provost, Graham Walker, called this attitude of pedantic condescension the “pathology of the intellect.” His point was simple. The more intelligent you are, the more prone you are to the sickness of the mind. Very bright people like Howard Snyder actually come to believe they’re smarter than everyone else. They know more than you or I do. They know more than everyone. They know more than over 100 of the best and brightest constitutional scholars at The Heritage Foundation and its ancillary organizations. The arrogance is palpable. It’s frankly very sad.
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host.
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