If Donald Trump should win a second term as President in 2024, we would witness an unprecedented purge in Washington D.C. and beyond, as he would exact revenge on anyone who has crossed him in any way. This is not speculation, he himself has explicitly stated this on many occasions and indeed, he counts on it to fuel the loyalty of his MAGA base.
During a recent interview with Univision, Trump defiantly stated, “If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them.”
If Trump carries out what can only be interpreted as threats against both his personal enemies and the American government, legal experts say it would lead to years of legal battles and political clashes with Congress over the limits of presidential authority.
“To some degree we would be in uncharted territory,” Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas School of Law and CNN legal analyst, said. One of the reasons that Trump might be successful at carrying out his blueprint for a government of retribution would be because many of the constraints placed on the President and the government “have been norms and not rules. Those norms were enforced not by litigation, those norms were enforced politically. The reality of a second Trump administration is going to be a lot of novel litigation about these kinds of abuses of what were historically norms constraining the executive.”
Now Axios reports that Trump allies are taking the first necessary steps to stack a staff that would carry out his program. They are pre-screening the ideologies of thousands of potential appointees and employees in case he wins back the White House. Axios has obtained copies of the exact questionnaires Trump allies are using — and that then-President Trump used himself during his final days in office.
These future Trumpers would staff an unprecedented effort to centralize and expand presidential power at every level of the administration.
Unfortunately, Trump has learned valuable lessons from his first term and he is ready to implement strategies that worked–and improve those that did not—for a more effective stranglehold, planning a far more targeted and sophisticated sequel to his slapdash first term, when internal feuding hampered policy wins or permanent changes to government.
Loyalty tests are not new for Donald Trump. The White House’s presidential personnel office conducted one-on-one interviews with health officials and hundreds of other political appointees across federal agencies to root out threats of leaks and other potentially subversive acts just months before the presidential election.
The 2020 questionnaire — paired with the application the Heritage Foundation is currently collecting from job prospects for a future administration — points to a top-down government-in-waiting that would be driven more by ideology than by policy expertise or innovation.
The 2020 “Research Questionnaire,” which Axios obtained from a Trump administration alumnus, was used in the administration’s final days — when most moderates and establishment figures had been fired or quit.
Some of the questions include:
“What part of Candidate Trump’s campaign message most appealed to you and why?”
“Briefly describe your political evolution. What thinkers, authors, books, or political leaders influenced you and led you to your current beliefs? What political commentator, thinker or politician best reflects your views?”
“Have you ever appeared in the media to comment on Candidate Trump, President Trump or other personnel or policies of the Trump Administration?”
Similar questions are being asked for the Talent Database being assembled by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — the most sophisticated, expensive pre-transition planning ever undertaken for either party:
“Name one person, past or present, who has most influenced the development of your political philosophy.”
“Name a book that has most significantly shaped your political philosophy, and please explain its influence on your thinking.”
“Name one living public policy figure whom you greatly admire and why.”
According to Axios an alumnus of the Trump White House asserted to them that both documents are designed to test the sincerity of someone’s MAGA credentials and determine “when you got red-pilled,” or became a true believer.
“They want to see that you’re listening to Tucker, and not pointing to the Reagan revolution or any George W. Bush stuff,” this person said.
The questionnaire does not ask many (or any?) questions about the job applicant’s skill set or expertise. The focus is on their beliefs. “They reflect a vision for a centralized administration where people throughout the administration would pick up the phone and say: ‘Yes, sir.’”
As of now Project 2025 have collected more than 5,000 applications — months before Trump has even been confirmed as the official GOP nominee.
Heritage president Kevin Roberts said recently that Project 2025’s mission is to get the next conservative president “ready to govern in the most aggressive, ambitious, audacious way to destroy the Deep State and devolve power back to the individual Americans.”
America should fear such a day and pray that democracy could survive it.
