The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
As President Donald Trump has taken his oath of office and started his second term in the White House, many around American University have become startled and even shocked at the actions he is choosing to take. From claiming he wants to close the Department of Education and legal attacks on transgender and LGBTQ+ youth to the rhetoric Trump uses when speaking on immigration, many of us from smaller Republican, and dare I say less “mainstream” states, have seen the formation of Trump’s national plan occur on the lower levels.
I am from Iowa. Iowa is a small conservative state and, up until recently, a purple state. You may have seen Iowa in recent political news for a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll predicting a victory for former Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump. Trump won the state of Iowa during the 2016 and 2020 elections and ultimately, he won Iowa for a third time in November.
Despite the poll’s suggestion that Iowa is ready for more Democrats, Republicans hold a supermajority in the state, meaning they hold the majority in the Iowa House and Senate and have a Republican governor. For the most part, the Iowa Supreme Court has ruled in line with Republican ideology for the past few years, which means that any Republican agenda item is an easy win.
Many national Republican organizations have noted Iowa’s political predicament and used it to justify many of the items outlined in Project 2025. Trump also outlined goals similar to those in Project 2025 on the campaign trail.
I had a front-row seat as an intern with the Iowa House Democrats during my senior year of high school. I learned about Project 2025 in April 2023, shortly after it was published. My co-workers and I discovered that many of the outlined items had been implemented throughout the last few months of the Iowa legislative session. That was when I first started questioning the similarities between this over 900 page textbook and plans for Iowa’s legislature.
The most jarring similarity is the reduction and restriction of participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Pages 299 to 301 of Project 2025 outline the need to strengthen SNAP eligibility requirements and further limit who can qualify for the program. During the aforementioned session, the Iowa legislature signed a bill that tightened requirements, created difficult guidelines and rejected millions in federal funding that would allow hundreds of Iowa families more food access during the summer, making it increasingly difficult to use the benefits within SNAP. During the 2023 legislative session, Iowa essentially had a practice run for Project 2025 before it was implemented nationally.
Project 2025 also outlines the need to remove diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Iowa’s Board of Regents developed plans to discontinue all DEI programs at all three major state universities. During the 2024 session, they used an education appropriation budget to restrict further funding for DEI programs.
Project 2025 outlines its thoughts on DEI on page 562: “All state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers who are engaged in discrimination are in violation of constitutional and legal requirements.” On Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order following these principles. This policy was a quick and calculated attempt to destroy the protections put in place during the Biden administration. Based on the swiftness of the order, it is clear this pulls directly from the anti-DEI thought process shown in Project 2025. Once again reinforcing the link between Trump and Project 2025.
Project 2025 testing is not just happening in Iowa. Idaho, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida are just a few examples of states that have felt the impacts and testing of Project 2025 over the past few years. Under Trump’s former press secretary and current governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Arkansas passed the Youth Hiring Act of 2023, allowing kids under the age of 16 to work without a permit and without their parents’ consent. Page 595 of Project 2025 states: “[The Department of Labor] should amend its hazard-order regulations to permit teenage workers access to work in regulated jobs with proper training and parental consent.” This is not only taking place in Arkansas; 28 states have repealed child labor laws that go back to the Great Depression, all before Trump took office, further showing the testing of Project 2025.
I was confused when Project 2025, arguably one of the most devastating and damning proposals of legislative policy — which was already being piloted across multiple states — made mainstream headlines for the first time during the 2024 election cycle. How was this the first time my peers who studied politics had heard about it?
With Trump reelected as president, there appears to be no hindrance to his or his advisors’ unrestrained capacity to propose and introduce concepts such as Project 2025. When this happens, it is advisable first to verify the implementation of these initiatives at the state level and assess the effects that have already manifested. This approach will help understand those watching how individuals within that state have managed to safeguard themselves and their families. There are observable instances in Iowa and across the countries of individuals enduring significant hardship due to the exceedingly stringent and inequitable treatment they are currently experiencing.
With AU being a private institution, many of Trump’s overactive executive orders will not impact us as directly as other schools. However, in classes, many students in the School of Public Affairs and the School of International Service talk about the impact of these orders and how states have dealt with the wrath of many of these policies at the state level. To ensure that Project 2025 does not become the guiding force of Trump’s second term, we must stay vigilant about what’s happening and what has happened on the state level and take action now, because the policies tested today could shape the future of our country.
Ritika Shroff is a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs and a columnist for The Eagle.
This article was edited by Quinn Volpe, Alana Parker and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks and Olivia Citarella.
