Is Project 2025 the far right’s Nuremberg Laws?

A Surviving Facts blog

I’m a podcast fan, and lately, I’ve been listening to Toy Soldier, a podcast about a 10-year-old boy who survived the holocaust when he was “adopted” by a Latvian Nazi troop who found him in the woods outside a rural Belarus town. His mother had told him never to admit his identity; when she was a shot in a mass execution, he escaped to the forest. The story is more complicated than this, so I encourage you to listen. This podcast led me to others about holocaust survivors. One, about mischlings- a name used for people who were half Jewish- detailed the Nuremberg Laws. These rules defined race for the Nazi ideology, going into incredible detail about a full Aryan as well as for mischling levels for those with a Jewish mother or father. As I listened to the horrific detail, I realized that Project 2025 provides a similar level of detail on gender and the roles of men and woman. With the administration following the Project 2025 playbook, I wondered: If Project 2025 is enacted, then women would be forced by government decree to identify themselves to the government in government decreed way, much like the Jewish were mandated to sew stars onto coats, carry papers and put up signs conforming to the new rules. As an appalled reader of Project 2025, I saw too many similarities to ignore. I have not seen this question anywhere else but it seems to me Project 2025 was the current administration’s manifesto and their far right version of the Nuremberg laws.

Let me explain.

The Nuremberg Laws- so called because they were developed during an annual Reichstag meeting of the Nazi party in the German town of the same name- were enacted in September 1935. The Nazis were not playing around. These laws codified citizenship and the races or blood lines qualifyied for citizenship. The laws embraced false ideologies about distinct races, purporting that some were better than others. For example two German parents made an Aryan, a superior race with full citizen rights. The laws also define mischlings 1 and 2, depending on which side of the family the Jewish race came from. Those “half-breeds” were defined as Jewish, required to wear stars and abide by other rules limiting Jewish freedoms. Mischlings were not spared from hardship or atrocities. Many were exterminated in camps.

Now let’s turn to Project 2025. This document defines all/most immigrants as not being American citizens (some actually are naturalized US citizens), rejects birthright citizenship and goes far enough to propose mass deportations, which have already begun. In fact, immigrants are being housed in “camps” in Guantanamo’s prisons. These immigrants are subjected to a different rule of law, prevented from contacting family and held without clear reasons. A judge has recently ordered the release of 40 prisoners. The point is that these immigrants were not given access to American law. Through definitions in P2025, government officials were able to round them up, detain them and move them to camps.

Isn’t this a slippery slope? The Nazis singled out Jews. But Blacks, Greeks, Middle Easterners, gypsies and other groups were deemed non Aryan. During the Nazi regime, DNA testing did not exist , but it does now. As a blonde-haired blue-eyed woman with some German descent, I certainly look Aryan (and indeed that’s why the 10-year old mentioned in the introduction passed for Aryan- he was blond, blue-eyed and fair-skinned). With today’s DNA tests, I would be deemed a Mischling. I am primarily Greek and Turkish with some German and English. How would an American “race” even be defined? It’s a terrifying thought.

As the immigration issue plays out in the courts, other groups have also been singled out: women, transgendered individuals, and the disabled- to mention a few. Project 2025 defines two genders, a man and a woman. Actually, it defines one gender since it says a person’s gender originates at conception. Surprise!! All embryos are initially female. The Project does not provide guidance (I suppose it wasn’t written by diligent Germans) when a baby is born with both female and male genitalia or other conditions where biological sex and gender may not be aligned. For these no-gender-land babies, what happens? Will they be removed and encamped? Exterminated? Forced to accommodate a gender incongruent with biological sex? What if one’s chromosomes indicate female gender but the biological sex organs are male? This happens in a condition called 46, XX. If P2025 moves forward, these situations will need to be clarified. Take a lesson from the Nuremberg Laws, and you’ll see how variations became part of the oppressed, the encamped, the exterminated. I’m sure this is not what we want in America.

P2025 for those who are born one gender yet experience gender dysphoria becomes even more complex. Given its natural nonbinary nature- meaning there are enough anomalies to question it- the two-gender assertion is scientifically false. The Bible is not a scientific document. It was written long after being created by men with certain ideological ideals. To dictate a society’s approach to gender and biological sex from an unproven storybook is irresponsible and heinous. Already, children with gender dysphoria are more likely to commit suicide than any other teenage segment. In addition, these individuals make up a small segment of our population. We overfocus on this seemingly high emotion topic when children are dying from hunger, being sexually abused and lacking basic medical necessities. How can this issue be more important?

And yet, in the Project 2025 playbook it is.

Part of the reason is because of population concerns. More women ar choosing not to marry or have children. Why not? Research shows they are happier and live longer. Following Korea’s 4B movement, more women also are unwilling to date or have sex with men. Project 2025 states that higher education has done this to women. While higher education does indeed increase critical thinking skills, it certainly isn’t the only reason for the trend. Women are tired of working the “real” job and the home job. Women are tired of the exhausting labor and of the social status they lose when they become mothers. Women are tired of the juggling to make husbands and children happy at the expense of their own happiness.

Project 2025’s solution is to limit women’s access to higher education loans, to define motherhood as the purpose and role of a women, to give men- white men mostly- the jobs women have held and to build up macho bro culture. Nevermind that macho bro culture leads to more violence against and victimization of women. Women are simply collateral in the effort to make men great again.

Imagine this: with Project 2025, your daughter may have limited college choices. She may be unable to vote (yes, that’s in P2025). She will be unable to get prenatal care, gyn/ob support if she miscarries or conceives a baby who will be unable to survive, her community will be other mothers, restricted by the same Project 2025 rules as she is.

The Nuremberg Laws were the foundation for building the entire Nazi apparatus. It defined race, encouraged Aryan women to have passels of kids and it foreshadowed the heinous crimes against a certain set of people. It vilified Jews and enemies of the state, blamed for preventing Germans from having good jobs and food on the table.

How is project 2025 different? It defines gender and gender roles. It also encourages [white] women to have passels of kids to solve a population issue that doesn’t exist. It vilifies women who do not believe in this ideology, feminists in particular. Women and minorities are blamed for taking away good jobs from white men, thereby preventing white men from being able to support their families. Project 2025 already has shown us how it will be implemented- through illegal, unconstitutional, unethical and violent methods. The “mass deportations” have shown this. The legal system is upholding the rule of the land. Let’s hope they continue to do so.

So yes, I believe the far right have set out their modern day Nuremberg Laws by writing Project 2025. Like the Laws, it sets a terrifying path to reordering society to a minority, authoritarian dictatorship. What can we do differently to prevent mass execution and oppression of groups of people as happened in WWII? Unlike the Germans in the late 1930s, we can stop a dangerous and evil scheme from taking over our country. We can preserve the laws and freedoms which have been hallmarks of America for hundreds of years. Right now, we can speak out, write, and protest without retribution. We must maintain connections with friends overseas. We must turn away from the right-owned mass media (fact: they are all or mostly owned by Republican billionaires). We must support voices like Richard Reich and the Meidas Touch podcast which is blasting Sean Hannity, Joe Rogan and Laura Ingraham off the most listened list. This is good news. It says Americans are waking up and seeking unfiltered sources. For our FAFO friends- don’t alienate them. Understand their amygdala has taken over. Help them move to critical thinking by asking simple questions rather than attacking the beliefs or leaders they revere. Join local political groups. Write your representatives. Hold community listening sessions. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s necessary. Unless we want Project 2025 to become the new rule of law. Do any of these before it’s too late.

I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of debate.

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