Project 2025 is a Go

On fighting the new government's playbook

The freedom to read is officially under attack.

Trump has re-captured the White House. Republicans have retaken the Senate, too. No matter what the next four years bring — and I’m trying very hard not to spin out in wild speculation this morning — one thing is clear: our new government wants to ban books.

Photo by s j on Unsplash

Project 2025’s homepage lays out seven bullet-pointed aims of the new Conservative mandate. Among them is this:

Improve education by moving control and funding of education from DC bureaucrats directly to parents and state and local government

We don’t know exactly what this is going to look like yet but we can guess. Trump has talked openly about abolishing the Department of Education while also slashing funding from public schools that don’t comply with the new (probably white Christian) federal education agenda. These positions are maddeningly contradictory but ultimately point in the same direction: the people behind Trump’s new administration want to dictate what kids learn, and what they read.

We can look to red states and even Conservative-run districts to see how this might play out. I’ve been documenting the assaults on LGBTQ+ books, black history and sex education across the country, as well as the attacks on librarians and teachers. These are previews of what we’ll likely face on a much larger scale in the coming months and years.

I don’t know what else to say except, we will fight this.

We will fight this because we know reading matters. We will fight this because it’s an attempt to control the minds and bodies of our kids. Nothing is more impactful, or more important.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve held back from posting because I wanted so badly to believe that a Harris victory would make a Substack like this one less urgent. Today, we know that’s not the case. Over the next few weeks, I intend to put my head down and continue to present you with resources for protecting books.

In the meantime, take a walk. Read a good old-fashioned banned book. Protect your energy.

We’re gonna need it.