A recent poll by the Public Research Institute revealed that 56 percent of Americans agree with the statement “Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy
By Tom Arms | USA
Remember Project 2025? It was the blueprint for a second Trump Administration written by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and published in April 2023.
When it came out only 4 percent of Americans approved of it. Donald Trump said it was “ridiculous and abysmal” and he added: “I know nothing about Project 2025. It has nothing to do with me and I have no idea who is behind it and attempts to connect me with it are pure disinformation.”
Is that so?
After just over nine months of the second Trump presidency it is worth a review of Project 2025 how much it has it has influenced the administration, if at all.
Let’s start with Trump’s assertion that he had no idea who was behind the 920-page document which is actually entitled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” The paper was a collegiate effort. Seven of the key writers are now in senior positions in the Trump Administration.
They are: Russel Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget; Peter Navarro, the White House adviser on trade and tariffs; Brendan Carr, head of the Federal Communications Commission; Tim Homan, the border Czar; John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence; Monica Crawley, Assistant Secretary of State; and Michael Anton, Director of Planning at the State Department.
At the center of Project 2025 is a belief in a strong unitary executive authority. The paper proposes that the president assume that authority by attacking courts and academic institutions; taking control of the military and issuing a slew of Executive Orders that either ignore or override the courts and Congress. Trump has done exactly that.
In his first 100 days, Donald Trump signed 141 Executive Orders. Joe Biden signed 160 in four years and Barack Obama put his name to 277 in eight years. Trump, with the help of Speaker Mike Johnson, has castrated Congress by simply refusing to consult the legislators unless absolutely necessary. Judges who disagree with him are personally attacked as being “on the radical left.”
Project 2025 advocates that the president undermine the independence of selected federal agencies by taking control of them. Top of that list are the Department of Justice and the FBI. Under Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel, he has turned the heart of federal law enforcement into an arm of the White House and is using those agencies to pursue his political opponents such as James Comey, John Bolton, Letitia James and Lisa Cook.
The Heritage Foundation paper called for increased use of fossil fuels and the rolling back of environmental protection regulations. Trump has called for the American oil and gas industry to “drill baby drill.” As for environmental regulations. The Trump-controlled Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has formally proposed revoking the 2009 greenhouse gas “endangerment finding” which underpins the climate regular framework under the Clean Air Act.
President Trump has found a soul mate in Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Between them, they have enacted Project 2025’s proposal to emasculate federally-financed health services. Five members of the board of the National Institutes of Health have been fired. Two other senior figures have resigned. RFK has also fired the director of the Centre for Disease Control two deputies and a thousand workers. Others have resigned in protest. Perhaps more importantly, the administration has frozen the NIH budget. In 2024 the budget was $47.4 billion, most of which went on medical research grants.
America has long had more political appointments than any other Western country—more than 4,000. But the remainder have been appointed according to a merit-based system. Project 2025 proposed that the administration do away with the meritocratic appointments and staff the civil service with conservative loyalists. Trump took a major step in that direction with his DOGE firings. The Director of the Office of Management Budget, Russell Vought, plans to get rid of a lot more during the current government shut down. So far, however, most of the firings have been blocked by the unions and courts. Therefore Trump has not had a chance to replace civil servants recruited on merit with conservative with loyalists. The first step, however, is being taken and he is over three more years.
Taxes were another target for Project 2025, along with tariffs. Trump has reduced corporation tax from 35 percent to 21 percent. His One Big Beautiful Bill reduced the top rate of income tax from 39.6 percent to 37 percent; raised the income levels at which higher tax brackets apply and doubled to $15m the tax exempt amount that people can give away as a gift.
President Trump has not taken up The Heritage Foundation’s suggestion that he instruct the Department of Justice to prosecute people for anti-White racism. But he has signed an EO stopping all aid and assistance to South Africa for alleged “human rights violations” of White South African farmers.
The LGBTQ+ community and civil rights generally were also targeted by Project 2025. Almost from day one, Donald Trump decreed that the Diversity, Equality, Inclusion policy of previous administrations was cancelled. Trump also signed multiple EOs that have reversed or undermined civil rights relating to sexual orientation and gender identity. He has decreed that there are only two biological sexes: male and female and they are the ones with which you are born. Medical care for transgender people has been de-funded and schools have been banned from discussing the issue.
Education, or at least the federal government’s role in education, was another target of Project 2025. The authors want it dismantled. Trump has obliged by signing an EO directing the Secretary of Education to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education to the states and local authorities.”
As part of concentrating more power in the hands of the president, Project 2025 proposed finding means to increase White House control of the military and to use that power to control domestic unrest. First step, find a Defense Secretary (now Secretary for War) who will do what he is told. Enter Fox News presenter Peter Hegseth. He is the loyalest of Trump loyalists. This is demonstrated by the fact that Hegseth uttered not a whisper of protest at the president’s use of the National Guard in Washington DC, Los Angles, Memphis, Chicago and Portland.
I am running out of space, but let me just add that the president has introduced, is introduced or has announced plans to introduce Project 2025’s proposals on tariffs, Christian nationalism, mass deportations, birth right citizenship and a number of policies.
The latest opinion polls still show that only four percent support Project 2025. A recent poll by the Public Research Institute revealed that 56 percent of Americans agree with the statement “Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” Forty-one percent disagree.
Read: Observations of an Expat: Gaza’s Future
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Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He is also a regular contributor to “The New World,” lectures on world affairs and is the author of “The Encyclopedia of the Cold War” (two editions) and “America Made in Britain.”
