The extreme policy recommendations of Project 2025 provide a preview of the catastrophic consequences of a second Trump administration. The recommendations appear in a 920-page book, Mandate for Leadership, published in the spring of 2023. Project 2025 was led by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. The director and an associate director of Project 2025 were former Trump administration officials, and many other former Trump alumni took part in the book’s drafting. When work on Project 2025 began in 2022, Trump said, “[t]hey’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.”
After criticism of Project 2025 began to circulate, Trump claimed ignorance. Project 2025 was shuttered and its leader resigned. But it had already completed its work. Its comprehensive recommendations are ready for implementation if Trump returns to office.
The recommendations are only one part of Project 2025. Equally disturbing is its database of 10,000 Trump supporters who are interested in government jobs. Project 2025 has vetted them for their fealty to Trump and has given them video training on its goals. The plan is for Trump to reclassify thousands of federal jobs as political rather than civil-service positions, so he can remove the current employees and replace them with his loyalists. From the very outset of a second administration, by using this army of loyalists, Trump could begin to adopt Project 2025’s recommendations.
The scope of Project 2025 is unprecedented. It contains hundreds of recommendations on everything from child labor (allow minors to hold hazardous jobs (p. 595)) to the language the government should use in official documents (eliminate any reference to “climate change” in all government statements and publications (training video “Hidden Meanings”)). Underlying these recommendations are a few basic principles.
Slash the powers of the executive branch and concentrate its surviving authority in the office of the President. For example, Project 2025 recommends either stripping away the law-enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission, an independent agency that enforces antitrust and consumer-protection laws, or eliminating it altogether (pp. 872-73). It suggests transferring any remaining FTC authority to the Department of Justice (p. 872). At the same time, through the removal of civil-service protection for Justice employees, Project 2025 would bring the Justice Department directly under the control of the White House.
Diminish or eliminate the ability of the federal government to devise and enforce safety standards. Project 2025 recommends new restrictions both large and small on the government’s ability to protect the public from various dangers. For example, it would gut the Biden Administration’s work to reduce toxic “forever chemicals” called PFAs in drinking water by, among other things, “revisit[ing] the designation of PFAs as ‘hazardous substances’” (p. 431).
Reorient governmental activities to benefit private commercial interests. For example, Project 2025 recommends that the National Weather Service cease providing free weather reports but continue to gather weather data for use by companies that sell weather forecasts (p. 675).
Empower the federal government to interfere in individuals’ private lives. Project 2025’s recommendations cover the gamut of culture-war issues. One of the most consequential is its recommendation that the FDA withdraw the long-standing approval of abortion medications, which as the Project notes, are now used in over half of the abortions performed in the U.S. (pp. 457-58). This would make an abortion far more difficult to obtain for many, even in states where abortion remains legal.
Slash legal immigration. Project 2025 recommends deep cuts in legal immigration. One recommended mechanism is to eliminate Temporary Protected Status (p. 145), which allows immigrants to stay in the U.S. if the Secretary of Homeland Security deems their home country unsafe for them. About 850,000 American residents have TPS, including some Afghan citizens who worked with U.S. forces during our military presence in their country and were evacuated by the U.S. upon the return of the Taliban. The end of TPS would subject everyone with TPS status to the risk of deportation.
These are among the things a second Trump administration would try to do. You can help prevent it from happening. Work to elect Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and the full slate of Democratic candidates to federal, state, and local offices.
Note: The Project 2025 publication appears in several different formats on the web. The page numbers given here are those at the bottom of the page cited in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.
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