The 922-page document outlines a series of policy proposals that will fundamentally transform the nature of the federal government, experts say. Is the plan really a 'government in waiting'?
Project 2025he Heritage Foundation's latest vision for a potential second Donald Trump presidency has been under the microscope since the Republican National Convention kicked off this week in Milwaukee.
The 922-page The policy document outlines a series of policy proposals that will fundamentally transform the nature of federal government, Northeast experts say. Such goals require the dismantling of the “administrative state” through, among other things, the elimination of entire departments. the reclassification of civil servants as political appointees (known as the Schedule F plan), thereby stripping them of protections; and a “mass deportation” plan that the Heritage Foundation suggests is the largest in the nation's history, the document says.
Is Project 2025 really a “government in waiting”? Many of the ideas contained in the draft reflect that Republican Party Platform as it stands, from immigration to government and regulatory review and education reform.
But the sweeping ideological document could contain the means to carry out many of those party goals, testing the viability of a whole host of radical policies at a time when Republicans control the judiciary, experts say.
“I think there's a good chance that a lot of it will be released, especially if Republicans control both houses of Congress,” he says. Christopher Bossoprofessor of public policy and political science at Northeastern University.
The role of think tanks and a brief history
Nick Beauchamp, associate professor of political science at Northeastern, says that think tanks, as bodies of political, economic and policy expertise, influence the policy process in a number of ways. They shape “people and staff” when it comes to presidential administrations. and, second, they make it easier to fund both causes and candidates.
“The money that comes in is spent in two ways: bringing people under their umbrella to write these papers, who are then trained in the organization's views, and ultimately go to administrations” to directly influence policy, says Beauchamp.
“The other way the money works is that it comes to the think tank that works through the same class of donors who donate both to those think tanks and to the candidates themselves,” he says.
Has been is depicted that the agendas undertaken by think tanks often reflect the interests of their donors. But think tanks can shape who donors give to during elections. That, in turn, “makes people pay a lot more attention to them,” says Beauchamp.
While US think tanks play an important role in politics and public policy, Bosso says there is an asymmetry in how they organize around the two major political parties and the ideas they champion. As an instrument for the dissemination of ideas, the Heritage Foundation is one of several policy institutes expressly dedicated to promoting a conservative vision of American society. There is “no real parallel” on the Democratic side because, Bosso says, “the left is never as organized” as the right.
“The Heritage Foundation is part of a larger tradition on the right, dating back at least to the 1950s, where conservatives are funded by very rich people,” says Bosso. “And that's been the story, which is that the right has always been much more well-funded in terms of being willing to fund think tanks like Heritage, like the Manhattan Institute and others at the state level.”
Founded in 1973, the Heritage Foundation was created as something of a counterpoint to the free-market-oriented American Enterprise Institute, with a greater emphasis on cultural issues, Beauchamp says. Those who “founded it thought the American Enterprise Institute was too academic, in a sense. They thought it was too non-partisan. it was very small-c conservative,” he says.
The Heritage Foundation is ahead in 2024
Think tanks largely conduct their work behind the scenes, often with little fanfare — though their experts often make the rounds on cable news, Beauchamp says.
That didn't happen this election cycle. This month, Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts said the nation he was in the midst of a “second American revolution, one that will remain bloodless if the left allows it.”
These comments generated a publicity storm around Project 2025 — so much so that Trump himself seemed to have distanced himself from it. This is despite the fact that many (at least 140) former Trump administration officials participated in the project, according to CNN. Roberts' comments also came after a Supreme Court ruling that says former and future presidents are entitled to some immunity from prosecution for actions taken while in office.
“His comments, combined with the recent Supreme Court decision, I think caused a lot of people to sit up a lot more and pay attention” to Heritage's latest “leadership order,” Beauchamp says.
Concerns about Project 2025 center around its apparent support for a controversial—and untested—theory: the so-called “unified executive theory,” a Reagan-era view of the executive branch that appears to give the president more control over the federal bureaucracy. The consequences of putting such a theory into practice would be “contrary to what the framers of the Constitution had in mind,” says Bosso — that is, limited government, with checks on the executive branch.
“This is an old, old notion, found mostly in conservative Catholic thought, but even in some conservative views of the unitary state: that the government is essentially an arm of a king, and that the president is almost like a divine right-wing monarchy. says Bosso.
“If they implement this program F program and they basically take away the civil service protections from thousands and thousands of workers and they're able to put their loyalists in their place – that's just a game changer,” he says. “Because now you have the people and the engineers to execute those agendas, even if Trump himself isn't focused on them.”
“If [Trump] he also happens to be carrying Congress, then there are fewer brakes on him than before,” Bosso continues. “The first time he was inexperienced and had a lot of inexperienced people around him. This time, there will be a lot of experienced people and they will be much more organized.”
Among other measures included in Project 2025 is a call to withdraw mifepristone, a widely used abortion pill, from the market. a proposal to ban pornography, with consequences for tech companies that allow it; and a plan to strengthen border policing by abolishing the Department of Homeland Security and combining immigration enforcement with other agencies.
Of all the proposed policies, Beauchamp says the Schedule F plan is among those “most likely to be implemented.”
“I don't know how strong the legal basis is to do that because these things are partly written by Congress,” he says. “Of course, with the Supreme Court on their side, it doesn't really matter. They can interpret these things however they want.''
