The Associated Press reported the right-wing Heritage Foundation and former Trump administration officials are putting together a playbook for either their former boss or another candidate who aligns with their ideals.
Dubbed the “Project 2025” handbook, the 1,000-page document spells out a plan to do away with the federal government as it currently exists. Paul Dans, the director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project and a former Trump administration official, described his motivations to the Associated Press, saying, “We need to flood the zone with conservatives. This is a
clarion call to come to Washington,” Dans said. “People need to lay down their tools, and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.'”In the past, conservatives have pushed for a smaller, more limited federal government by cutting taxes and gutting federal spending. The Presidential Transition Project wants to replace federal employees, who the think tank believes are standing between the group and its goals, going as far as to fire 50,000 federal workers and filling their positions with employees more amenable to their philosophy.
Project 2025 may take its cues and roots from Trump and his presidency, but the rhetoric is finding a home with other Republican candidates like Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy. Federal workers could be fired for any reason, according to the manifesto.
Mary Guy, a professor of public administration at the University of Colorado Denver, warns that their plans are a danger to democracy in general, telling the Associated Press, “It frightens me. We have a democracy that is at risk of suicide. Schedule F is just one more bullet in the gun.”
The group sees presidential powers as broad and far-reaching, evidenced by their document’s diminishing of Congressional powers. The project even proposes to eliminate notifying Congress about the sale of arms to foreign powers. This view, however, is not shared by all conservative groups.
Phillip Wallach, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, sees the group’s plan as a bit unbelievable in their view of the powers of the president, telling the AP, “Some of these visions, they do start to just bleed into some kind
of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says — and that’s just not the system the government we live under.”RELATED CONTENT: CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO HOST LARRY ELDER ENDS 2024 PRESIDENTIAL BID, BACKS TRUMP