Rebuttal to Foreward: A Promise to America
by: Kevin D. Roberts, PhD
In “Forward: A Promise to America,” Kevin D. Roberts presents Project 2025 as a vision for reclaiming American governance from what he describes as inefficiency, overreach, and bureaucratic control. He paints a picture of a nation in crisis, offering the project as a solution to rein in government and restore the country's foundational values. While Roberts’ tone may sound patriotic and constructive, the underlying agenda of Project 2025 is deeply troubling. Its blueprint, if followed, would centralize power, erode democratic protections, and undermine critical social, environmental, and economic safeguards that have long served to protect the American people.
This article presents a detailed rebuttal to Roberts’ forward, unpacking the dangerous implications of the promises made in Project 2025.
1. Concentrating Executive Power: A Threat to Checks and Balances
At the heart of Project 2025 is a proposal to empower the executive branch by diminishing the roles of regulatory agencies and oversight mechanisms. Roberts’ forward champions this idea as a means of eliminating inefficiency and restoring order. However, the push to centralize more power in the executive branch threatens the system of checks and balances that forms the cornerstone of American democracy.
The U.S. Constitution was designed to ensure that no single branch of government—executive, legislative, or judicial—would hold disproportionate power. Each branch has a specific role in providing oversight and accountability, which prevents any one branch from overreaching. Project 2025’s focus on increasing presidential authority risks undoing this balance, leading to a government where executive decisions are made with minimal checks from Congress and the judiciary.
This type of power consolidation could lead to authoritarian governance, where critical decisions affecting the public are made unilaterally, with little to no input from elected representatives or regulatory agencies. Democracy thrives when power is distributed, not concentrated. Project 2025 represents a dangerous departure from the principle of separation of powers, which is essential for ensuring government accountability and protecting individual liberties.
2. Undermining Independent Agencies: Politicizing Public Protections
Roberts portrays independent regulatory agencies as unaccountable and overly powerful entities that hinder progress. He argues that placing these agencies under tighter executive control will make the government more efficient. However, this proposal overlooks the essential role these agencies play in protecting public health, safety, and welfare.
Agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were created to regulate industries, prevent corporate abuse, and protect the public from harm. Their independence from political influence ensures that decisions are based on evidence, science, and the public interest rather than political or corporate priorities.
By bringing these agencies under direct executive control, Project 2025 risks politicizing decision-making processes that should be grounded in objective analysis. Such a shift would allow regulatory decisions to be driven by the priorities of the administration in power, rather than by what is best for the public. The rollback of essential protections could lead to increased environmental degradation, consumer exploitation, and unsafe working conditions, all to the benefit of corporate interests.
Independent regulatory agencies serve as a critical check on industries that have the power and resources to influence government decisions. Weakening these agencies would lead to an erosion of public trust and a government that is more responsive to political and corporate interests than to the needs of its citizens.
3. Threatening Voting Rights and Democratic Participation
Although Roberts’ forward does not explicitly address voting rights, the broader goals of Project 2025 raise concerns about its impact on democratic participation. By centralizing power within the executive branch and weakening independent oversight, Project 2025 could create conditions that make it easier for future administrations to manipulate voting laws or undermine fair elections.
Over the past decade, there have been numerous efforts to restrict voting rights through measures like voter ID laws, gerrymandering, and reducing access to early voting. These measures disproportionately affect marginalized communities, including people of color, low-income individuals, and young voters. Project 2025’s focus on reducing independent oversight raises fears that these efforts could expand unchecked, further disenfranchising millions of Americans.
Without strong regulatory oversight and judicial review, policies that restrict voting access could become more prevalent, leading to an erosion of democratic participation. A healthy democracy relies on the principle of one person, one vote, and any efforts that weaken voting rights should be seen as a direct threat to democratic governance.
4. Deregulation: Prioritizing Corporations Over Public Welfare
Roberts’ forward emphasizes the need to reduce government regulations, framing this as a strategy to unleash economic growth and innovation. However, this promise to cut regulations hides the reality that many of these protections are in place to safeguard public health, the environment, and worker rights.
Environmental regulations, for instance, are crucial for reducing pollution, combating climate change, and protecting public health. By dismantling regulations on industries such as fossil fuels, Project 2025 would allow corporations to prioritize profit over environmental sustainability, leading to greater pollution, environmental degradation, and worsening public health outcomes—especially for vulnerable communities.
Similarly, reducing regulations on industries such as finance, healthcare, and consumer goods would remove protections that prevent exploitation and abuse. The 2008 financial crisis, caused in part by deregulation of the financial industry, serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of unchecked corporate power. Deregulation would once again open the door to risky and unethical business practices, potentially leading to economic instability and crises that disproportionately impact working-class Americans.
5. Weakening the Social Safety Net: Harming Vulnerable Americans
While Roberts frames deregulation and reduced government intervention as ways to empower individuals, these measures would harm millions of Americans who rely on the social safety net. Programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other forms of public assistance provide crucial support to families, seniors, and people with disabilities.
Project 2025’s emphasis on reducing government’s role in providing social services threatens to weaken these programs, leaving vulnerable populations without the resources they need to survive and thrive. In an era of growing economic inequality, dismantling the social safety net would exacerbate the divide between the rich and the poor, leaving low-income families to fend for themselves in an increasingly competitive and unstable economy.
Social programs exist to provide a level playing field and to ensure that all Americans have access to basic necessities, regardless of their income or social status. Project 2025’s proposals to reduce or eliminate these programs would only serve to deepen inequality and further marginalize those already struggling to get by.
Conclusion: The False Promise of Project 2025
Kevin D. Roberts’ “Forward: A Promise to America” claims to offer a vision of a restored and revitalized nation, but in reality, it presents a blueprint for undermining democracy, eroding public protections, and centralizing power in dangerous ways. Project 2025 would dismantle the checks and balances that safeguard American governance, weaken independent institutions designed to protect the public, and place corporate and executive interests above those of everyday citizens.
The promise of America lies not in the concentration of power but in the preservation of democratic ideals—equality, accountability, and fairness for all. Instead of delivering on these promises, Project 2025 threatens to unravel them, putting the rights and welfare of millions of Americans at risk.
To protect the future of American democracy, it is crucial to reject the dangerous path laid out in Project 2025. Rather than empowering a select few, we must work to strengthen democratic institutions, protect voting rights, uphold regulatory safeguards, and ensure that the government serves the people, not just those in power. Only by defending these principles can we fulfill the true promise of America: a government of, by, and for the people.