By Paul Rozycki
Want to know what a second Trump administration might look like? An overview of “Project 2025” might give you a good idea.
The 900-page plan, fully titled “Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise, Project 2025,” would dramatically change the federal government and shift it to the right.
It was put together by nearly 200 Trump officials and supporters in conjunction with the right-leaning Heritage Foundation as the former president prepared to run in 2024.
At a 2022 Heritage Foundation dinner, Trump endorsed the organization and its goals, saying it was “going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do … when the American people give us a colossal mandate.”
And yes, I know Trump has said he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025 and a few of its leaders have stepped aside during his fall campaign. (For those who buy Trump’s denial, I know a Nigerian prince who would be willing to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.)
But, this marks the ninth edition of the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership” series that began in 1981 with the Reagan administration, which itself claimed to have implemented 60 percent of the Heritage Foundation recommendations.
So, there is every reason to believe that Project 2025 could become the blueprint for the nation if Trump should win in November.
What is Project 2025?
Covering all the details of the 900-page document is beyond the scope of a short column, but the overall goal of the project is to dramatically shift power to the executive branch and institute a long list of right-leaning programs. Many critics claim it could lead to an authoritarian dictatorship, while proponents claim it “paves the way for an effective conservative administration.”
Here’s a breakdown of some of the document’s 10 main points:
- End non-partisan civil service and make federal employees political appointments. Project 2025 would make tens of thousands of federal civil service employees political appointees, loyal to President Trump. Rather than having non-partisan civil service employees conducting the routine business of government, it would allow the president or his party to hire those loyal to him and fire those who were not. One of the major elements of the Project would be to create a “unitary executive” with greatly enhanced powers for the president. It could return the United States to the “spoils system” that was common in the 19th century, where government jobs were based on politics and not expertise or competence.
- Place the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Justice Department under presidential control. It would turn the FBI and the Justice department into an arm of the executive branch that could then be used to prosecute anyone who was considered an enemy or opponent of the president. Perhaps needless to say, doing this would greatly weaken the independence of the Justice Department and the FBI.
- Eliminate the Department of Education. This part of the Project would eliminate the Department of Education and would also cut most federal support for programs such as Head Start and many programs for low-income and early education. It also would ban “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” from being taught in schools and would seek to end student loan forgiveness programs.
- Limit immigration. Project 2025 advocates new border agencies that would construct Trump’s border wall, build camps that would detain families at the border, and use the military to deport those in the country illegally. By some estimates more than 11 million could be deported under this plan. The plan would also dismantle the Department of Homeland Security and combine it with other agencies.
- Block abortion access. The word abortion appears 199 times in the document as it outlines ways to limit reproductive freedom. It advocates making it a criminal offense to mail abortion pills or assist anyone with an abortion and would have the government keep track of miscarriages, still-births and abortions and would deny abortion options to those in the military.
- Reduce climate change efforts. Project 2025 would get rid of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration that tracks climate change and forecasts the weather. It would also eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate change department and encourage more fossil fuel production by urging an increase in Arctic drilling for oil.
- Reinstate the military draft and ban transgender individuals from the military. The plan considers the possibility of bringing back the military draft, which has been gone since the early 1970s, and would assure that transgender individuals would be prohibited from enlisting. It would also make it more difficult for veterans to qualify for disability benefits.
- Initiate major economic changes. The Project advocates a wide range of changes in economic policy. Among them are reductions in the corporate tax rate, replacing the income tax with a national sales tax, reducing the capital gains tax, abolishing the Federal Trade Commission (which enforces antitrust legislation) and limiting the power of the National Labor Relations Board (which protects the rights of union workers). Several proposals in Project 2025 would make it more difficult to organize unions and easier to decertify them. The plan also advocates abolishing the Federal Reserve System and returning to the gold standard for the dollar. Additionally, it calls for greater restrictions on trade with China, and would prevent Medicare from negotiating with big pharmaceutical companies for lower prices.
- Establish Christian nationalism. Many of the Project’s policies are motivated by Christian nationalism, which would help enshrine many conservative religious beliefs into law. For example, the chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services urges the next president to “maintain a biblically based, social science–reinforced definition of marriage and family” and is concerned that federal programs will be subjected to “nonreligious definitions of marriage and family as put forward by the recently enacted Respect for Marriage Act.”
- End DEI programs and LGBTQ+ protection. The Project advocates the elimination of existing legal protections for LGBTQ+ people and seeks to “rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics.” The project also seeks to eliminate the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies followed by many businesses and educational organizations.
To be sure, this list is brief and only the tip of the 900-page iceberg. Each of the topics could deserve a separate column and more.
How Project 2025 would be carried out
All the goals laid out in Project 2025 are not simply a wish list. The document also details how to achieve its goals. The Project lays out four stages of completely reworking the federal government. The first stage, as indicated in the above list, lays out the overall goals of a second Trump administration. The second stage outlines a 180 day ‘transition plan’ that would direct federal agencies to adopt the needed changes quickly. The third stage would begin to fill government positions with pro-Trump conservative allies, with what some have described as a “conservative Linked-In” to hire only those who support the Project’s goals. The fourth stage would be the creation of a “Presidential Administrative Academy” to train future government employees to support the goals of Project 2025.
The implications of Project 2025
Even if Trump were to be reelected, it’s not certain that all of Project 2025 would happen overnight — if at all.
Some goals would take action by Congress, some might be illegal and therefore challenged in courts, and perhaps even Trump might not buy into every idea.
But the threat of even a few of Project 2025’s ideas is enormous.
Trump’s 2024 comment that he wouldn’t be a dictator “except for day one” could become a reality if the president is allowed to fire and hire civil servants of his choosing. The FBI and the Justice Department could become the tool of revenge for those considered enemies of the president. Many of the programs that have long supported education, civil rights or the environment could be gone. The ability of workers to organize and join unions would be limited. Tax policies would shift to aid the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. A woman’s right to obtain an abortion would be even more limited than it is now, and Christian nationalism could become national policy.
If anyone has any doubts about what’s at stake in this year’s election, consider how Project 2025 could change the nation. Almost every four years pundits and politicians say “this is the most important election of our lives,” but this year it could be true.
