The floundering, disfunction, and chaos that characterized much of the presidency of TFG (aka #P01135809) from 2017-2021 will not recur if he is successful in winning reelection next year. At least, not if his conservative allies have anything to say about it. Over the past several weeks, news has emerged of Project 2025 – the conservative movement’s plan (crafted by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative institutions) for what comes after a second victory by #P01135809 in the November, 2024, Presidential elections.
The stated goal is to avoid the pitfalls of TFG’s first years in office, when his team was ill-prepared, his cabinet nominees had trouble winning Senate confirmation, and his policies were met with resistance – from lawmakers, government workers, and even TFG’s own appointees who refused to bend or break protocol (or in some cases violate laws) to achieve his goals.
#P01135809 is not the only candidate espousing these goals; they are echoed by GOP rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy and are gaining prominence among other Republicans. If #P01135809 wins a second term, the work from this conservative coalition that produced this 1,000-page report ensures that the president will have the personnel to carry forward his unfinished White House business.
So what does Project 2025 (described by its proponents as a “wrecking ball for the administrative state”) propose?
Dismantling Schedule F provisions that protect civil servants from being fired at will. The protection protects that apolitical nature of the career civil service and allows tens of thousands of civil servants to do their jobs without fear of political pressure or blowback from elected officials or the 4,000 or so political appointees at the tops of the agencies. This would mean instability and the loss of decades of experience among career administrators who do their jobs despite who is in charge of the executive branch at any given time.
This is all a little “inside baseball,” but here’s a personal example: one of my close relatives works for a federal agency. She was hired while George W. Bush was president, worked in her job throughout the Obama and TFG administrations and continues in this position during the Biden administration. She runs programs and has a history of accomplishing important goals for her department. If Project 2025 is successful, she could be replaced on a whim by a total novice. In addition to threatening the thousands of individuals who benefit from the program her work supports, this threatens her livelihood and her potential retirement – which is still a decade or so away but which forms an important part of her future plans.
A top to bottom overhaul of the Department of Justice, including its historic independence from the President and ending FBI efforts to combat the spread of misinformation.
Proposals to have the Pentagon abolish it diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and reinstate service members discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
At the White House, the project suggests that the new administration should reexamine the tradition of providing work space for the press corps and ensure that the White House counsel is a political ally of the President and a proponent of the President’s agenda. So bye-bye free press and independent legal judgment in the ear of the President
Beyond these proposals, the project goes into great detail about plans to reduce the role of Congress and of the executive agencies and increase the power of the President to act unilaterally. Overall, the program supports the authoritarian fantasies desired by #P01135809 – a system where the President is in total control and everyone else has to do what he says. Since the 2020 election, we have seen how the guardrails that protect American democracy were challenged and sometimes wobbled, but survived to hold #P01135809 and his enablers (both in and outside of government) in check. The trials are going forward as I write this. If #P01135809 wins in 2024 and is able to implement Project 2025, those guardrails will weaken to the point of nonexistence, and #P01135809 will success where he failed in 2020 and the following years.
This is not the system that the Founders defined and it is not the system that has worked for the United States for over 200 years. It is a system that benefits one person -- #PO1135809 – and we can’t let that happen.
Right on!
The only way to stop this madness is at the ballot box. May it be so.