Understanding Project 2025

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A Blueprint for Dismantling the Federal Government

“Eternal Vigilance is the price of democracy.”

~ Thomas Jefferson

The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, commonly known as Project 2025, is swimming deep in the waters of the culture wars. Their website makes repeated references to the “radical Left”, the need to “undo the damage done” by elected officials in the opposition party, and “take back our government”. Their website is filled with the typical doomsday rhetoric, categorizing the upcoming election as the “next conservative president’s last opportunity to save our republic.”

The group is working right now to “assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.” It is important to remember that the Administrative State are the Executive and Judicial Branch of our government.

They state their purpose on their website.

“This is the goal of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. The project will build on four pillars that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook.”

The coalition behind Project 2025

They aren’t trying to hide the identities of the people and organizations behind Project 2025. The project is organized by the Heritage Foundation and supported by a coalition of right-wing organizations, monied Trump donors, and organizations led by former members of his administration.

The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 with a $250,000 contribution from Joseph Coors and continues to be funded through the Adolph Coors Foundation and supported by other right-wing groups. The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank based in Washington D.C. that promotes conservative public policies.

Other Participating Organizations Include:

· The American Redistricting Project

· Eagle Forum

· Family Research Council

· The Heartland Institute

· Hillsdale College

· Liberty University

· Moms for Liberty

· Tea Party Patriots

· Turning Point USA

Many of the organizations contributing to Project 2025 are known for Christian nationalism and pushing a radical agenda. The complete list can be found here.

Goal: Concentrating the power of the presidency

The Project seeks to concentrate executive power” over all three branches of government and the Supreme Court. This includes the Judicial and Legislative Branches and divisions like the EPA, SEC, and more. This completely upends the norms and customs this country has operated under for centuries. The result will be unchecked power for the president. If implemented, we run the risk of replacing the office of the president with a dictator.

They use the idea of the unitary executive to justify concentrating the power of the president. Under this theory, the Constitution talks about the president, not the employees of the Executive Branch. The idea is that everyone working in the Executive Branch is an extension of the president’s will and should answer only to him. This includes career prosecutors, scientists, and other professionals.

Under this theory, there is no such thing as independent agencies or civil servants working in a nonpartisan manner. Every employee of every agency would be trained and expected to carry out the orders of the president without question, whether or not the orders are legal or moral.

Remaking the Civil Service

Independent agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, and Federal Election Commission are supposed to be insulated from partisan politics.

Although agency heads are generally political appointees, the people doing the day-to-day work to keep the agencies running normally are career professionals. These professionals have specific knowledge and expertise and hold their jobs, whether a Democrat or Republican sits in the White House.

In recent years, the far right has become increasingly frustrated with civil servants refusing to lie and break the law to advance a radical agenda. They believe the only way forward is to get rid of nonpartisan professionals and replace them with loyal extremists.

The plan is to remove the protections civil servants enjoy from partisan games and make them “at will” employees. Once this change is made, they can be fired for any reason, or no reason at all, and replaced with loyalists and extremists. This would systematically remove the guardrails that protected and preserved our democracy when the former president tried to overturn the election and steal a second term.

Four Pillars of Project 2025

The four pillars of Project 2025 include The Policy Agenda, Personnel, Training, and the Playbook for the first 180 days of the next Republican administration.

The Policy Agenda

The Policy Agenda covers virtually every aspect of our government, federal agencies, and American life. There are sections detailing plans for remaking the economy, defense, all federal agencies, and independent regulatory agencies.

The Department of Homeland Security, EPA, and NOAA are essential for preventing and detecting potentially catastrophic events and responding to them. For example, during an approaching hurricane, NOAA predicts a need for Homeland Security and other administrative agencies and EPA involvement. This is essential for preparing for, and responding to, disasters.

Federal Law Enforcement — Project 2025 seeks to weaken federal law enforcement agencies. Funding for the Department of Justice would be slashed. The DOJ would be directed to pursue political adversaries, and anyone deemed disloyal to the president. The Federal Bureau of Investigations and Department of Homeland Security would be dismantled.

Education — The education plan is to eliminate the Department of Education. Under the guise of “school choice,” they plan on funneling public money to private schools and faith-based post-secondary institutions. In addition to defunding public schools, they plan to eliminate loan forgiveness programs, making it harder for working-class kids to get a post-secondary education.

Environment & Climate Change — Under the Policy Agenda, environmental and climate change regulations would be gutted. This includes dismantling the current strategies being implemented to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They want to gut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and eliminate the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

All efforts to address climate change and reduce emissions would be replaced by pushing fossil fuels. This includes reversing the finding that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful and preventing the government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The Inflation Reduction Act would be repealed, and people would be encouraged to use more fossil fuels. It reads like a fossil fuel industry fever dream.

Economy — The architects of Project 2025 are not fans of the Federal Reserve. The Department of Commerce would be eliminated. Unsurprisingly, the tax policy is filled with more giveaways for the wealthy and corporate welfare. The corporate tax rate would be reduced to 18% and a flat tax would be implemented that favors the rich over the middle class. After implementing these reforms, they want to include a 3/5 vote threshold for passing future tax increases. Notice that they want to do this after they pass their agenda. Not before. They have to ram it through first.

Throughout the plan, inflammatory language is used to denigrate gender ideology, LGBTQ rights, DEI provisions, critical race theory, women’s reproductive care, and abortion. For example, “the radical left hates families” and “the radical left wants to eliminate the family and replace it with the state”. These statements are as hateful as they are untrue.

The Policy Agenda is rife with disinformation about everything from sex education and reproductive rights to climate change and civil rights. The ideas and rhetoric often mirror what is heard in Trump rallies when he threatens to jail his political opponents and inflames his base with lies using intentional disinformation while promoting repeated misinformation.

Personnel

They are building a conservative resume database filled with extremists who will do the bidding of the next Republican president. These will be people willing to ignore the law and carry out the president’s orders without question.

Their goal is to build a database of 20,000 potential candidates to replace the career civil servants currently doing their jobs in a nonpartisan manner. They are working to have the database built and collated, ready to be shared with the next Republican president’s transition team.

Currently, positions in the federal government are held by career civil servants who stay in their jobs for many years, ensuring things run smoothly. Replacing seasoned experts in their respective fields with loyalists would grind the government to a halt. The entire federal government would be transformed into a political operation. Imagine the chaos of replacing all positions in the federal government and all agencies every four years.

Training

Online training for potential employees is provided by Project 2025. Their online education system is known as the Presidential Administration Academy. The training courses are offered free of charge to those interested in working for the next Republican administration and helping advance their agenda at all levels of government.

From their website:

“This academy provides aspiring appointees with the insight, background knowledge, and expertise in governance to immediately begin rolling back destructive policy and advancing conservative ideas in the federal government.”

They offer self-paced courses and certificate programs in:

· Prepared to Serve

· Conservative Governance 101

· The Administrative State and the Regulatory Process

· Conservative Governance: Advancing Policy

Aspiring appointees are required to take all courses listed under each certification. The classes can be completed online, and the candidates must pass the exams to become certified. They want to know that candidates have internalized their propaganda.

The Playbook

The Playbook is a blueprint for the first 180 days of the next Republican administration. The Playbook includes a comprehensive plan for each federal agency. Depending on the agency, this ranges from step-by-step plans for gutting to immediate authoritarian elimination.

Reactions & Warnings

Former political appointees, legal experts, law professors, journalists, and members of Republican administrations have issued warnings about Project 2025.

The Guardian reported on these warnings:

“Donald Ayer, the former deputy attorney general who served in the George HW Bush administration, said: “It is appalling that a presidential candidate could suggest using the Department of Justice to go after his political adversaries, to go after Biden and his family, and to effectively make the Department of Justice an arm of the White House to be used for its political purposes.”

Michael Bromwich, Justice Department Inspector General (1994–1999) said,

“The plans being developed by members of Trump’s cult to turn the DOJ and FBI into instruments of his revenge should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares about the rule of law. Trump and rightwing media have planted in fertile soil the seed that the current Department of Justice has been politicized, and the myth has flourished. Their attempts to undermine DOJ and the FBI are among the most destructive campaigns they have conducted.”

Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn wrote:

“There is an authoritarian danger that threatens American democracy. It is a separate peril from Donald Trump and his tens of millions of rabid supports. It is the right-wing infrastructure that is publicly plotting to undermine the checks and balances of our constitutional order and concentrate unprecedented power in the presidency. Its efforts, if successful and coupled with a Trump (or other GOP) victory in 2024, would place the nation on a path to autocracy.”

Preventing a Radical Right Deep State

Although far-right politicians and pundits endlessly decry the “deep state”, this entire project is a blueprint for creating a radical right deep state. It undermines the rule of law and separation of powers in every aspect of the federal government and regulatory agencies. Voters need to understand what is going on behind the scenes. We can’t wait for the next election to see how it all plays out.

We have the opportunity to torpedo the plan in the voting booth. If they don’t win this time, they plan to shelve the project until they regain the White House. The only solution is to stop them at the ballot box.