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

Politics

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.

By LISA MASCARO, Associated Press

October 22, 2024 | 8:28 am

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

Even though the former president’s campaign has strongly 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 could deploy. 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 fight 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.”

How Project 2025 came about

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.”

When Project 2025 became a viral sensation

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 strengthen. 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.

“This is truly a case of grassroots rebellion,” said Joe Radosevich of the Center for American Progress. “They saw what was being offered as the outline of the race and rejected it completely.”

Particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which ended constitutional protections for abortion, Democrats and their allies wanted to demonstrate how the presidential election would affect people’s lives in the future, rather than simply asking voters to to choose between personalities. .

People wanted a debate about policy, Radosevich said, and not elections “purely based on atmosphere.”

In late June, Google searches for “Project 2025” surpassed searches for Taylor Swift and the NFL, the Harris campaign said.

And by the time a giant replica of the Project 2025 book was dragged onstage for late-night mockery at the Democratic National Convention, it wasn’t just celebrities and liberal conventioneers who were mocking it. Conservatives began blaming Heritage and Project 2025 for damaging Trump’s election chances.

Project 2025 gets a tongue-lashing from Trump

Trump’s campaign never embraced Project 2025 and has actively avoided it, despite its proximity to people and policies familiar from the former president’s time in the White House.

Other conservative groups with close ties to Trump are also preparing for a second term in the White House. Trump’s campaign team had repeatedly warned Heritage to tone it down and not portray Project 2025 as part of Trump’s campaign.

But Roberts seemed undeterred, even as he came under fire in July for suggesting, following the Supreme Court ruling granting the president broad immunity from prosecution over the January 6 insurrection, that the country was in the middle was in a “second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it.”

Trump spoke out strongly against Project 2025 days later.

“I don’t know anything about Project 2025,” Trump posted on his own social media account. “I have no idea who is behind that. I don’t agree with some of the things they say and some of the things they say are absolutely ridiculous and horrible. Whatever they do, I wish them the best of luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

At the time, Trump was rolling out his own policy platform ahead of the Republican National Convention, drafted in part by one of his former administration officials, conservative leader Russ Vought, who also contributed to Project 2025 and its 180-day playbook.

Heritage parted ways with Dans, the chief architect of Project 2025, who resigned at the end of the month, a move that apparently satisfied Trump’s team.

“Reports of the demise of Project 2025 would be very welcome and should serve as a warning to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence over President Trump and his campaign – it will not end well for you,” said Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, the Trump executive. campaign managers, in a joint statement.

The future of Project 2025

As the battle for control of Congress intensifies to the point where a single seat could determine which party controls the House or Senate, Project 2025 is being used by Democratic-leaning outside groups to portray Republicans as allied with their hard proposals.

The House Accountability Project has created microwebsites for more than a dozen House Republicans in some of the most contentious seats, tying their past votes on abortion, government funding and other issues to Project 2025 proposals.

“The House Republican Party is currently pushing policies that are part of Project 2025,” said Danny Turkel, spokesperson for the House Accountability War Room. “They are already bringing this policy to the Capitol.”

The House Republican Campaign Committee claims its candidates have nothing to do with Project 2025, and that the attacks are designed by Democrats to distract from their own border and inflation policies.

“They made up a false attack based on something that House Republicans had never read,” said Will Reinert, press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

He called the attacks a “desperate lie” as Democrats in the House of Representatives “see their chances of regaining the majority diminishing.”