Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” was published in April 2023, but it has only recently begun to get the attention it deserves.
The 920-page document is nothing less than a blueprint for the next Republican administration to dismantle the U.S. government as we know it. It also proposes to roll back the civil and political rights for minorities, women, and LGBTQ+ populations that have been the fruit of decades of struggle. At the same time, it would curtail or eliminate basic services that are taken for granted, including provisions for the environment, food safety, public education, public health, and more.
Doug Chayka
Many younger American voters don’t remember a time when someone could be fired from a job simply for being gay; or when a woman suffering a miscarriage could die because of a doctor’s fear of performing an abortion. They can’t imagine policies that would intentionally accelerate fossil fuel consumption and the climate crisis, and close down green energy initiatives.
Americans who live on the coasts and in urban areas may be unaware that some states—such as Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas—are already laboratories for such draconian policies, abetted by Republican state legislatures and judges appointed by the Trump Administration. But if the vision of Project 2025 is realized, no one will be immune.
The plan includes the shuttering of entire federal agencies and research programs, starting with the Department of Education, the Clean Energy Corps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Climate Hubs office. It would concentrate additional powers in the presidency and remove watchdog functions currently assigned to the Department of Justice and the FBI as they apply to the executive branch and to combating disinformation.
The transformation would be carried out by implementing Schedule F, a Trump proposal to remove civil service protections from some 40,000 career civil servants, who would be replaced by MAGA militants currently being recruited and trained by the Heritage Foundation’s Presidential Administration Academy. This would allow them to “start implementing the President’s agenda on Day One.”
Project 2025 is the latest installment in the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandates for Leadership” series that began during the Reagan Administration. Until recently, their efforts have met with limited success, but Trump’s election in 2016 signaled a new era. The Heritage Foundation and its constellation of partners, many of them coordinated through the Council for National Policy, swung into action.
The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society presented Trump with a list of friendly candidates for judicial appointments. The Alliance Defending Freedom launched a series of lawsuits in friendly states to advance their social agenda. The Leadership Institute and the Family Research Council trained agitators to disrupt school board meetings by spawning “moms’ groups,” such as Moms for Liberty and Moms for America. Many of these efforts were billed as “grassroots,” but they have been funded and coordinated by the same closely knit consortium that coordinates the 100 organizations supporting Project 2025.
Trump recently declared he “had no idea who is behind [Project 2025],” but that statement was quickly discredited. CNN identified at least 120 former Trump officials who were involved in its creation. Its supporters played an essential role in Trump’s 2016 election, and his current campaign would have no prospects without them.
If Trump or another Republican candidate is elected in November, the measures in Project 2025 stand a far greater chance of being implemented than past editions. For evidence, look no further than Russ Vought. He is the author of the chapter of the project entitled “Executive Office of the President of the United States,” where he writes, “The great challenge confronting a conservative President is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power—including power currently held by the executive branch—to the American people.”
The 920-page document is nothing less than a blueprint for the next Republican administration to dismantle the U.S. government as we know it.
Vought interprets this challenge as guaranteeing that “all policy initiatives are flying in sync,” which he elaborates to mean that the functions of government agencies are reduced and the powers of the White House are enlarged—without the inconvenience of oversight. The National Security Council, for example, “should be fully incorporated into the White House”; a new executive order would “reshape” the global climate change research program, and so on.
Vought is a credible candidate for undermining the federal bureaucracy because he knows it from the inside, as the former director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2020 to 2021. In May he was named to the three-man platform committee for the 2024 Republican National Committee, as policy director.
Many of the other Project 2025 chapters were written by former Trump Administration officials who were often frustrated by bureaucratic obstacles to their policy goals. Project 2025 is notable, not just for its length, but also for its detailed study of the way these obstacles can be cleared, in many cases by executive order.
That said, some of them are far-fetched. The plan states that the “Russia region” counts among those who should “be expected to bear a fair share of both security needs and global security architecture.” What this means in light of Russia’s criminal aggression in Ukraine is difficult to fathom. It states that “economic engagement with China should be ended, not rethought,” an idea that would tank the U.S. economy overnight. It states that “all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them,” which could effectively end adoption, foster care, and child protective services.
A casual reader might dip into Project 2025 and find a few suggestions for improving efficiency and making government services more cost-effective. But a deeper read shows that the Heritage Foundation and its partners are far more committed to blowing up the status quo than enhancing it.