While no sensible person would take Donald Trump at his word about anything, political messaging matters because of the light it sheds on the values and vision of the messenger. In Trump’s case, the public positions staked out by his campaign and supporters constitute a catalog of freewheeling ill intent unmatched in modern American political history. Here are some examples:
Mass Deportation
Trump’s Agenda 47 platform, as posted on his website, pledges the President to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history,” a promise he reiterated during his GOP nomination acceptance speech. This would include “DREAMers,” asylum seekers, and the millions of undocumented workers who perform jobs essential to the U.S. economy. On “Day One” of his presidency, Trump says he would sign an Executive Order ending birthright citizenship for the children of “illegals.”
Political Purges
Another Agenda 47 campaign plank states Trump’s intention to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again.” This is essentially a pledge to revoke the First Amendment rights of people deemed supportive of Hamas—that is, anyone who criticizes Israel’s massacre of more than 40,000 Palestinians, most of whom have been women and children.
Big Brother in the Classroom
As set forth in Agenda 47, “any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children” will be immediately terminated from receiving federal funding. Who gets to decide what’s “inappropriate”? You guessed it: not you.
Big Brother Everywhere
Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 920-page blueprint for the next Republican presidency, prepared with extensive input from Trump associates, calls for the deletion of all references to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender equality, gender awareness, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights—and a good many more terms—from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”
MAGA-nify Higher Education
If re-elected, Agenda 47 says Trump will purge “all Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucrats” from the nation’s colleges and universities and direct the Department of Justice to “pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination”—by which he means efforts to promote diversity. He also will “fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.”
Wreck the Economy
Record-low unemployment, rising wages, and inflation on the wane are what “Bidenomics” has brought about. If re-elected, Trump would take a wrecking ball to all of that. He has pledged to impose a 60 percent or higher tariff on all Chinese imports and a hike of at least 10 percent on imports from all other countries. That could raise the average household’s tax expenses by an estimated $2,600 - $3,900 per year.
Bring Back Whooping Cough, Diphtheria, Chicken Pox, Polio, and More for Our Nation’s Children
At a March campaign rally in Virginia, Trump vowed to “not give one penny” of federal funding to “any school that has a vaccine mandate.” The crowd cheered.
Reverse Efforts to Address Climate Change
Trump would bring a crashing halt to the Biden-Harris Administration initiatives to reduce carbon output, conserve energy, and mitigate the impacts of global warming. He’s also pledged to “cancel the electric vehicle mandate,” which, in fact, does not exist. If you like what’s been happening around the world lately—the extreme heat, hurricanes, floods, wildfires—Trump is your guy.
End Medication Abortion
Project 2025 urges the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to “reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs,” namely mifepristone and misoprostol, now used in more than half of all abortions in the United States. This could be done without Congressional or court approval by enforcing an 1873 federal law that prohibits the mailing and interstate transport of abortion drugs. Trump has said he is open to such changes.
End All Reproductive Choice Worldwide
Project 2025 calls for a ban on abortion and contraception, emergency or otherwise. It would curtail fertility-related health care like in vitro fertilization (which Trump says he does not support, if you can believe that). And it would remove references to “abortion,” “reproductive health,” and “sexual and reproductive rights” from all U.S. Agency for International Development publications and policies.
Make LGBTQ+ People Disappear
Sound like an overstatement? It really isn’t. Trump’s Agenda 47 says he’ll “ask Congress to pass a bill establishing that the only genders recognized by the United States government are male and female—and they are determined at birth.” People who do not fit into these two gender categories would literally cease to exist, as far as the government is concerned.
Outlaw Gender-Affirming Health Care
Per Agenda 47, Trump will also seek federal legislation “prohibiting child sexual mutilation”—that is, chemical or surgical gender-affirming health care performed with parental approval. Hospitals and health care providers who offer such care would be barred from receiving Medicaid and Medicare payments. Meanwhile, “any teacher or school official [who] suggests to a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body . . . will be faced with severe consequences.”
Do Nothing About Gun Violence—Except Make It Worse
Not even getting shot by a sniper with an AR-15-style rifle has made Trump rethink his refusal to combat the nation’s epidemic of gun violence. He proudly informed a National Rifle Association gathering in February that, despite “great pressure” on him to act during his four years in office, “We did nothing.” If re-elected, Trump has pledged to roll back Biden’s modest gun control measures, including a policy that revokes federal licenses from firearms dealers who violate gun laws.
Order Mass Executions
Project 2025 urges the next administration to “do everything possible to obtain finality” for prisoners on federal death row, as well as expand the use of the death penalty “involving violence and sexual abuse of children.” Trump, in his Agenda 47, says he’ll “ensure that anyone caught trafficking children across our border receives the death penalty immediately.” He’s also said he’ll impose the death penalty on “everyone who sells drugs.”
Eliminate the Department of Education—and Teachers Unions
Trump’s Agenda 47 would eliminate this vital federal agency, which does everything from setting standards for K-12 schools to administering Pell Grants to college students in financial need. Project 2025, meanwhile, seeks to revoke the National Education Association’s Congressional charter, which allows for teachers unions, calling it a “demonstrably radical special interest group that overwhelmingly supports left-of-center policies and policymakers.”
Create a Government of Hardcore Trump Loyalists
Trump has vowed to reinstate the Executive Order he issued shortly before losing the 2020 election to strip civil service protections from 40,000 federal employees to make way for MAGA militants. These are now being recruited by the Heritage Foundation’s Presidential Administration Academy, so they can “start implementing the President’s agenda on Day One.”
End Representative Democracy
While addressing a group of religious conservatives in late July, Trump exclaimed: “Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians . . . . In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”
So we all better vote this fall, while we still have the opportunity.