How Project 2025’s right-wing vision became a flashpoint in this year’s elections

WASHINGTON — Over the past year, Project 2025 has endured as a persistent force in the presidential election, with far-right proposals deployed by Democrats as shorthand for what Donald Trump could potentially do with a second term in the White House.

While the former president’s campaign has firmly distanced itself from Project 2025 — Trump himself stated he knows “nothing” about it — the sweeping Heritage Foundation’s proposal to wipe out the federal workforce and dismantle federal agencies is closely aligned with his vision. Project 2025’s architects come from within the ranks of the Trump administration, and top Heritage officials briefed Trump’s team on the matter.

It is rare that a complex policy book of 900 pages has such a dominant presence in a political campaign. But from its early beginnings at a think tank to its viral spread on social media, the rise, fall and possible revival of Project 2025 demonstrate the policy’s unexpected staying power to brighten an election year and not just threaten Trump . but align Republicans in races for Congress.

Despite all this, Project 2025 has not disappeared. It exists not only as a policy blueprint for the next administration, but also as a database of some 20,000 job seekers who could staff the White House and Trump’s administration, and as an unreleased “180-day playbook” of actions that a new president might undertake. Day one after the inauguration on January 20, 2025.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, who recently took the helm of the project, seems to be enjoying the battle and is moving full steam ahead.

“Rest assured, we will not give up,” Roberts wrote in an email to supporters this summer. “We will not back down.”

When Project 2025 debuted in April 2023, it promised to “dismantle the administrative state” by putting forward the personnel and policies that could serve as a roadmap for the next conservative president.

The former Trump administration officials who worked on the project said they wanted to avoid the mistakes of Trump’s first White House by ensuring the next Republican president would be ready with staff and policies to advance his campaign priorities. to feed.

“There is an impetus to really get going,” said Paul Dans, director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, in an Associated Press interview in 2023.

The concept for the book, centered around the Heritage Foundation, the venerable conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., harkened back to an earlier version, the Reagan-era “Mandate for Leadership,” which was reportedly so popular in the White House that it copies were placed on desks to guide the new presidency.

At least a hundred conservative groups, many with Trump administration alumni, came together to formulate proposals for a massive restructuring of the federal government — from appointing more political appointees to the Justice Department to transferring government employees with law enforcement backgrounds to tackle illegal immigration. to dismantle the Ministry of Education.

One of the core proposals would make it easier to staff the government with Trump loyalists by reassigning about 50,000 workers to jobs where they can be fired — a revival of the so-called Schedule F policy that Trump tried to implement before leaving office left. The idea is now central to the conservative vision of dismantling the “deep state” bureaucracy they blame for blocking Trump’s priorities.

The rollout of Project 2025 to mark the foundation’s 50th anniversary was also a debut of sorts for Roberts; he was previously seen as an ally of Trump rival Ron DeSantis, who keynoted the gala event at the start of the presidential primary season.

“The Conservative movement is coming together to prepare for the next Conservative administration,” Roberts said in the announcement. Heritage, he said, was trying to “ensure that the next president has the right policies and personnel needed to dismantle the administrative state.”

President Joe Biden’s campaign had warned about Project 2025 early, in social media posts ahead of his State of the Union address in April, and House Democrats launched a Project 2025 Task Force in June to address their concerns to enlarge. Days later, comedian John Oliver mocked it on his HBO show.

But it wasn’t until Biden’s somber debate performance with Trump in June that Project 2025 had its viral moment.

It wasn’t so much what was said during the presidential debate as what was left unsaid: Biden failed to even mention Project 2025, crushing the hopes of allies who expected more of a knockout.

That weekend, a single thread on X about Project 2025 took off, amassing nearly 20 million views, according to the Democratic campaign. Actress Taraji P. Henson, who had spoken to Vice President Kamala Harris in a segment for the BET Awards show, warned primetime viewers: “The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!” And scores of young TikTok creators speaking directly into their cameras explained the threat they believed Project 2025 posed to their civil, reproductive and other rights in videos that went viral.