Project 2025 strikes fear into the hearts of many Americans, not in the MAGA cult that wants to “make America great again” in the image of a past that no longer exists, but in the patriots who love the America that wishes to insure that its democratic institutions continue to protect all Americans, and that the government is not highjacked by a Republican party led by a vindictive and embittered former president who is now a convicted felon.
The project, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation with the aim of preparing for a Trump victory in the 2025 presidential transition.
It clearly states its aim on its website: “The most comprehensive policy agenda will have only limited impact without the right people in place to implement it. The project will cast a net across the country to identify conservatives from all walks of life to serve in the next conservative Administration.”
Consisting of over more than 900 pages, the BBC has called it Trump’s “wish list”. It calls for firing thousands of civil servants to replace them with Trump far-right loyalists, expanding the power of the president, dismantling the Department of Education, the Department of Justice and Homeland Security, and other federal agencies, and sweeping tax cuts aimed principally to favor business.
Trump opponents fear that he is openly planning to impose authoritarian-like changes that threaten the democratic institutional infrastructure. Those plans include using the Justice Department to take revenge on his adversaries, sending federal troops into Democratic cities and carrying out mass deportations.
On the environment, the document proposes slashing federal money for research and investment in renewable energy, and calls for the next president to “stop the war on oil and natural gas”.
The project is built on four pillars: a comprehensive policy guide for the incoming administration, a personnel database to identify conservatives to serve in the next administration, training programs for effective governance, and a 180-day playbook of actions to be taken by the new administration.
It seeks to influence the reshaping of the U.S. federal government to support the agenda of the Republican Party—principally the MAGA wing– by controlling a process from recruitment to training.
California congressman Jared Huffman has stated that, “Project 2025 is more than an idea, it’s a dystopian plot that’s already in motion to dismantle our democratic institutions, abolish checks and balances, chip away at church-state separation, and impose a far-right agenda that infringes on basic liberties and violates public will.”
Axios reported that “Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents.”
Opponents to the comprehensive plan represented by Project 2025 are taking the threat seriously and preparing to fight back to forestall such a catastrophic outcome.
On immigration, they are drafting potential lawsuits in case Trump is elected in November and carries out mass deportations, as he has vowed.
Another group has hired a new auditor to withstand any attempt by a second Trump administration to unleash the Internal Revenue Service against them.
Democratic-run state governments are even stockpiling abortion medication as recent legislation has led liberals to fear that a new Trump administration could rescind the approval of, or use a 19th-century morality law to criminalize sending mifepristone across state lines. Washington State governor Jay Inslee has stockpiled the drug, which has a lifespan of five years, to get the country through a potential second Trump term.
Earlier this week, representatives from 50 national and local immigration rights organizations convened at a hotel outside Phoenix for a three-day retreat. On the agenda for two days was “Scenario Planning: Post Election Readiness,” according to Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center.
Next month, the anti-Trump conservative group Principles First and Norman Eisen, who was a lawyer for House Democrats during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment and helped produce an “autocracy threat tracker” focused on Mr. Trump’s plans, are organizing a conference at New York University entitled “Autocracy in America – A Warning and Response.”
Trump loyalists, however, refer to the hypothetical changes as carrying out “The will of the people”. Kevin Roberts, the Heritage foundation’s president, pushed back, denying that there is any threat to democracy: “House Democrats are dedicating taxpayer dollars to launch a smear campaign against the united effort to restore self-governance to everyday Americans.”
