An increasing number of media outlets are reporting on Project 2025–a plan by the Heritage Foundation together with other right-wing organizations intended to be a road map for a second Trump presidency.
Pundits have noted Project 2025’s similarity to Victor Orbán’s “illiberal” democracy in Hungary, where Orban has gutted the civil service and filled government positions with loyalists who support his attacks on immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ+ community, and his efforts to distance Hungary from other NATO nations. Orban’s recent trip to Mar-A-Lago was followed by a less-publicized meeting at Heritage.
So–what is in the Project 2025 plan for a second Trump Administration? Heather Cox Richardson recently spelled it out:
Project 2025 stands on four principles that it says the country must embrace. In their vision, the U.S. must “[r]estore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children”; “[d]ismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people”; “[d]efend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats”; and “[s]ecure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls ‘the Blessings of Liberty.’”
In almost 1,000 pages, the document explains what these policies mean for ordinary Americans. Restoring the family and protecting children means making “family authority, formation, and cohesion” a top priority and using “government power…to restore the American family.” That, the document says, means eliminating any words associated with sexual orientation or gender identity, gender, abortion, reproductive health, or reproductive rights from any government rule, regulation, or law. Any reference to transgenderism is “pornography” and must be banned.
The overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the right to abortion must be gratefully celebrated, but the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision accomplishing that end “is just the beginning.”
Dismantling the administrative state in this document starts from the premise that “people are policy.” Frustrated because nonpartisan civil employees thwarted much of Trump’s agenda in his first term, the authors of Project 2025 call for firing much of the current government workforce—about 2 million people work for the U.S. government—and replacing it with loyalists who will carry out a right-wing president’s demands.
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism describes Project 2025 as a significant threat to democracy. Spearheaded by Heritage and supported by more than 80 extremist organizations, the plan aims to “rescue the country from elite rule and woke cultural warriors.” The Global Project notes reports of internal discussions centered around a proposal that the next “conservative” President invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, in order to allow use of the military to quell civil unrest.
Project 2025 plans what it calls a “robust governing agenda,” with all of the hallmarks of authoritarianism.
It threatens Americans’ civil and human rights and our very democracy. The America that Project 2025 wants to create would involve a fundamental reordering of our society. It would greatly enhance the executive branch’s powers and impose on all Americans policies favored by Christian nationalists regarding issues such as sexual health and reproductive rights, education, the family, and the role of religion in our society and government. It would strip rights protections from LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, women, and people of color. It would dismantle much of the federal government and replace our apolitical civil service with far-right partisans it is already training in anticipation of a power shift. It would end attempts to enhance equity and racial justice throughout the government and shut down agencies that track progress on this front. Efforts to tackle issues such as climate change would be ended, and politicized research produced to back the project’s views on environmental policy, the evils of “transgenderism,” and women’s health would take priority.
There is more, obviously, in a thousand-page document, and it’s all very chilling, but what strikes me is how explicit and professional it is.
Project 2025 represents a very troubling step up from the tracts and manifestos produced by the disaffected and generally disturbed members of militias and groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. This is a professional document, produced and endorsed by people and organizations that already wield considerable power and influence–extremists who have already massively infiltrated the courts, completely taken over of one of America’s major political parties, and who “own” numerous lawmakers in Congress and in a number of states. Those “fellow travelers” are easily identifiable: we need only look at the GOP Representatives who oppose aid to Ukraine, attack trans children, and advocate for a national abortion ban. (Here in Indiana, that includes far-Right Congressman Jim Banks, currently running for the Senate, among others.)
The fact that Heritage felt free to put it in writing tells us the takeover is well underway. That should terrify us all…..
Ah,, the Mein Kampf of the 21st century.
In addition to the newsletter from HCR that you quote, I would recommend reading the article by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker, titled “The forgotten History of Hitler’s Establishment Enablers”. It is equally chilling. You could substitute “t*ump” for “Hitler” throughout the article and you would not know that there is a difference. The similarities are striking. As has been said, “history does not always repeat, but it often rhymes”. These are dangerous times.
Please, everyone, find a grass-roots organization that is working to energize Democratic voters. Get involved by volunteering, writing letters to potential voters, making calls, knock on doors, donate. The antidote to discouragement is to take action. We can overcome the gerrymandered system but it will require maximum effort from a lot of people.
The ugly and terrifying irony of Project 2025 is that it’s going to take a massive amount of micromanagement to fully implement and enforce principles 1, 3, an 4 over all the states and territories and a population of over 300 million people. That will require an equally massive administrative state. Did these people learn nothing from the 20th Century?
Wow,
This sounds like the sovereign society on steroids! It also seems to promote government in the bedroom? So this supposed freedom is actually a ball and chain. Because life’s choices are made for you by government, not by your own inclinations and beliefs.
In a truly free society, a person would be allowed to practice their religious beliefs, or, relationship choices as long as it did not interfere with or be forced on anyone else! In other words, do what you like in your own home. But don’t try and force your will or one’s will on someone else.
Gee, I think we are ready have this particular thought in the Constitution! So in other words, heritage and other organizations want to rewrite the Constitution, or eliminate it all together. Definitely a fascist type of leaning. One that would disenfranchise huge swaths of Americans! And, eliminate the possibility to redress grievances to the government, at the risk of imprisonment or worse.
As we know, after four years of Trump, planning was not his strong suit. That’s why Putin said he prefers Biden as POTUS—predictable. Also, Trump said he was “draining the swamp” but just replaced the Democratic swamp with a Republican swamp. Patrick nailed the irony above: It will take a large administrative staff to implement Project 2025, so they are just swapping the quagmire.
I wanted to see the Project’s organizational support. It continues to amaze me that these “conservative” organizations misname themselves to conceal their real motives. I looked down the list, and you’d be hard-pressed to identify any of them as conservative because they are falsely named.
If you are proud of your motivations, why conceal your name to mislead Americans?
https://www.project2025.org/about/advisory-board/
Project 2025 has bothered me for nearly a year, glad to see it getting push back. They have a portal online for the true believers to submit resumes to take a trumpian role in a government agency, and the questions are what you would expect from Christofascists. Does life begin at conception? Does America need to vigorously protect the borders? Etc. I don’t know how many candidates they have vetted, but they hope to have a few hundred ready to step in on day one after trump fires all of the senior-most career bureaucrats, and then the toadies can fire any of the rest who fail their loyalty test. I take it very seriously, we all should.
This is my greatest fear. Let’s start with the coming election. If there isn’t a landslide, the difference must be big enough that there can be no doubt who won. TFG has already signaled his intention to foment blood shed. If you think I’m crazy, it’s because you don’t know trumpspeak.
What Theresa said!!
It doers not matter how many apparatchiks they will need, if they take over willing sheep will appear.
They did learn from the 20th century, how to model themselves after Hitler. He thought that his god-thing was on his side.
I suggest that even if a landslide election blows away Project 2025, we will have to remain on guard for Project 2029, and so on. These bastards are not going to just walk away with tails between legs.
This is simply the “draft Constitution” of the MAGA ecosystem.
(Rinse, repeat) They are together; they know what they want. We are splintered and marching in multiple directions. This does not bode well when the “masses” are tired of this and just want to be left alone and, therefore, unlikely to “bother” voting as they don’t understand the difference.
Another thought, one for all the 2nd Amendment fetishists out there. The authoritarian state envisioned by Project 2025 is going to let its citizens have the tools they’d need to overthrow it, whether it’s fair elections, education, or guns. No authoritarian government ever does.
*isn’t.
Democracy and liberty are up against well disguised and organized enemies meant to harvest the future wealth and, more importantly, freedom, from worker/consumer/family/community/US residents.
We have to out-organize, out-smart, out-advertise and just plain out them in November.
Like it or not it’s our guy/girl versus theirs.
I think our job is to expose their rotten core in compelling ways. They realize and counter that by attacking and demeaning our candidates.
We have to build a coalition of those educated in truth and human knowledge throughout society or we will lose what’s most precious to us, the ability to be and live each in our own way.
We have to re-fight, re-litigate, with words instead of weapons, our Revolution, Civil and World Wars over again with every resource we can muster.
We can. We must. We will.
…the plan aims to “rescue the country from elite rule and woke cultural warriors
They’re not perfect, but I prefer the current cast of “elites” ruling the country compared to the Nazis that produced the plan.
And a good place to start is like Dana Milbank in the Washington Post where he is highlighting the insane quotes from “TFG’s” speeches. The Democratic Party needs to swamp the airwaves with ads pointing out these assaults on all of our freedoms and economic futures: tell the factory workers and day labor people that the Republican party wants to make them work until they drop dead from exhaustion.
Unfortunately, I expect this will be the template for every right-wing MAGA or MAGA-courting administration from now on. Win once, and they’ll promptly dismiss all non-MAGA public servants and replace them with “loyal party men” to permanently take control of the “administrative state”, law enforcement, and the military. Legal persecution and violent suppression of everyone on the MAGA “enemies list” is likely to follow, and subsequent elections administered by MAGA can be expected to follow the Putin-Stalin-Russian model.
Democracy has to win every election; fascism only has to win once. As Liz Cheney put it, the country can survive four years of bad policy, but it can’t survive a government that’s determined to abolish democracy. That’s why Trumpism must be not just defeated at the polls, but thoroughly discredited both legally and politically. The country needs a truly conservative party, but the Republican Party in its current form as a hollowed-out stalking horse for fascism isn’t it.
Project 2025 is the blueprint for the Maga movement into the future. Their end (authoritarian power) justifies the means they are using to them.
It’s unnerving to see trump thwarting and manipulating the justice system to make himself look like a victim. In authoritarian systems “persecution” is always their defense against justice.
In the past trump administration firing of all the Inspector Generals and cutting back the IRS was telling. Maddow reported that the pardoned criminal Manafort was rehired by the trump campaign. He was the agent through Ukraine with ties to Russian Oligarch’s monies. When Putin said he preferred Biden to be Potus I think he was lying; he wants a trump puppet.
It appears that Satan and Hitler collaborated to create Project 2025 and easily found completely demented republicans willing to carry out their sinister plan.
If the details spelled out by Heather Cox Richardson were provided to members of militia groups (like the Proud Boys), perhaps they might attack their true enemies at the Heritage Foundation and everyone else that has committed to carrying out this evil plan.
The answer to 2025 and other such returns to the early Thirties of the 20th century is, as usual, a massive landslide in the election this fall rejecting such rejection of democracy. The Grand Ol Opry and Father Coughlin were not so grand; the Biden Recovery from the Trump debacle is grand and rivals FDR’s New Deal policies that gave us forty years of theretofore unknown prosperity.
To do? Vote. Make phone calls. Talk to your friends and relatives, and when appropriate, strangers. Donate. Otherwise this fall’s election may be your last one and the term “election” stricken from the lexicon of the fascist dictionary.
The NY Times today reported that a shell company, Digital World Acquisition Corporation has bailed out Trump by merging with his social media company. What do you want to bet that DWAC is funded by Russia?
Probably goes without saying, but “Vote Biden.”
It heartens me that it is on your radar. It has been worrying me for a number of months now.