The Coalition Against Project 2025 History
It began with a conversation between friends. Many months before the 2024 election, life-long social justice activists Marghe Covino and Michael Gorman were sitting in Marghe’s West Sacramento home and talking about the horrific agenda of the Trump camp. Both were keenly aware of Project 2025, and were lamenting the lack of attention the Project was receiving in the mainstream news, given that the document, developed by the Heritage Foundation, was a detailed revelation of the political agenda and plan of action of the Republican, right wing supporters of Donald Trump. Marghe and Michael discussed the plan to implement Project 2025 should Trump win and give all three branches of the government over to the MAGA movement and the wealthy supporters of Trump. There was the plan in black and white, and nobody was talking about it except a few on-line, independent commentators. They knew the plan had been in the works since at least the Reagan administration and could very well be fully implemented in a matter of months. Someone should do something! How often is that the unfulfilled cry?
Based on that conversation, the two activists decided to develop a web site so they could at least chip away in some small way at the ignorance about Project 2025. They enlisted the help of another close friend, former newspaper editor and web designer Matthew Burlingame. With Matthew beginning designs and Michael researching and writing furiously and Marghe serving as advisor and editor, the work began. In a meeting about the site, Matthew pointed out that he needed a name for the web site in order to register a domain name. Michael went home and brainstormed and came up with The Coalition Against Project 2025, CAP25 for short. CAP25 was not only an easy acronym to remember, but it also had the double meaning of “cap it” as in “stop it.” Also, capping is a term in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning “deliberately lying or making a false statement.” The brief sentence, “Stop capping!” means, “Stop lying!” The web site became CAP25.org.
Michael admits sheepishly that he had no intention of actually forming a coalition. They were just developing an informational website. He admits, “Coalition Against Project 2025 just sounded cool, and the abbreviation had a cool triple meaning.” As the election drew closer and more people became aware of Project 2025 and more news outlets and commentators began discussing it, people wanted to do something about it. Groups began to inquire about joining the coalition and working together to challenge Project 2025. The founders had met Brittany Johansson of the political group Sister District Sacramento and discussed with her the work of the website and the next steps for CAP25. Michael confessed that he did not intend to manage a coalition, administration not being his strongest skill. He saw himself more as the idea guy, the visionary. So began the partnership with Sister District Sacramento, and a coalition was born. The Sacramento chapter of Indivisible soon rounded out the founding organizations, with Jennifer Wood joining the steering committee. Eventually Brittany and Jennifer took over the nuts and bolts of managing the coalition, while Marghe, Michael, and activist Shaun Tanner, who had worked with them on several other projects, served on the steering committee in an advisory and support capacity. Mr. Burlingame, who had only signed up to design a web site, was happy to turn the web site duties over to a new web master enlisted by Brittany and Sister District. From those simple roots, the Coalition Against Project 2025 began to grow and gain strength, thanks to the many organizational partners who began joining.
The Coalition Against Project 2025, quite literally, grew out of the mutual concern of individuals and organizations about Project 2025, and the desire to do something concrete to counteract its negative effects on the United States. As more amazing organizations joined the coalition, Michael composed the ideas of many of the leaders into our Mission Statement:
The Coalition Against Project 2025 Mission Statement
The Coalition Against Project 2025 (CAP25) is a coalition of organizations founded to address the threat that is Project 2025. We seek to educate the public about Project 2025 and its devastating impact on the lives of everyday people, and on the integrity of our constitutional system of government. We intend to explore ways to build bridges between our allied groups in order to foster collaboration, share resources, support each other’s missions and events, develop common goals, carry out collective work, and build the foundations of present and future mass mobilization against Project 2025.