What is Project 2025 and why should you be worried about it?

There is growing panic in the United States over a presidential translation plan cooked up by the country’s leading conservative think tank aimed at reshaping the nation if Donald Trump snags a second term in office. But just how worrying is this plan?

Known as Project 2025, it was devised by the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation and was described as a “government-in-waiting” by Time magazine for Trump if the former president is elected again in November, though it isn’t just for him. 

The $22 million dollar thought experiment wasn’t specifically developed for the former president but it is the plan that the Heritage Foundation has envisioned for whichever conservative is able to recapture the executive branch of government in the future. 

Project 2025 was published in 2023 and contains over 900 pages detailing a new conservative agenda that plans to reshape the American government and save the republic according to the Heritage Foundation’s website on its prospective agenda.

Officially entitled ‘Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,’ the Project 2025 website notes the goal is 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 not enough for conservatives to win elections,” the Project 2025 website explains, “If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place.”

More than 400 scholars and policy experts from across the conservative movement and country allegedly contributed to Project 2025 in order to provide the next conservative in office with a playbook to change the country in their first 180 days in office. 

While the terminology used by Project 2025’s authors might seem worrying, those who oppose the plan have made much more concerning remarks about what is viewed by some as a conservative coup to co-opt the American government. 

“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,” said California Congressman Jared Huffman.

BBC News reported Huffman announced the Stop Project 2025 Task Force on June 11th. “We need a coordinated strategy to save America and stop this coup before it’s too late,” Huffman explained. But what are the worst policy points of Project 2025?

In terms of government, BBC News explained that Project 2025 envisions that the entire federal bureaucracy—including independent agencies like the Justice Department—will be placed under the direct purview of the president. 

The approach is known as the “unitary executive theory” and it would allow any future president to implement policies within federal agencies directly, meaning a president could in theory fire and hire anyone he wanted to fill positions in a department.  

“The modern conservative President’s task is to limit, control, and direct the executive branch on behalf of the American people,” Russ Vought states in the second chapter of Project 2025’s first section entitled: ‘Taking the Reigns of Government.’

BBC News reported that Project 2025 refers to the Federal Bureau of Investigations as a “bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization” and calls for the overhaul of many federal agencies as well as the complete elimination of the Department of Education. 

Other worrying policy objectives include consolidating and expanding the power of U.S. immigration agencies; cutting funds for research and investment into renewable energy; and withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market in the United States. 

Two competing economic visions are put forth in Project 2025, one that focuses on a boost to free trade and export barriers while the other would see corporate and income taxes cut, the Federal Reserve abolished, and the dollar returned to the gold standard. 

Photo Credit: Unsplash Fredrick Warren

“Project 2025 is one of the most profound threats the American people face today,” President and Chief Executive Officer of Democracy Forward Skye Perryman said about the conservative plan to change the American government according to The Guardian. 

“From attacking reproductive rights and workplace safety laws, to allowing more discrimination, pollution and price gouging, the far-right interests behind Project 2025 are preparing to go to incredible lengths to implement a dangerous and deeply unpopular agenda,” Perryman added. 

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