run to the hills
Admittedly not quite QAnon but, at the risk sounding like a conspiracy theorist, what exactly is Project 2025, a document that has been referred to as ‘a second American revolution’ and why is it being featured in the US news more and more?
As it transpires, The Heritage Foundation, America’s largest and most influential right-wing think-tank, commissioned the 922-page tome, published last April, to provide a detailed blueprint for the next Republication presidency, specifically the one headed by Donald Trump. It aims to initiate a governing agenda from the very first day of their next conservative administration. Written and compiled by thirty-eight political contributors, the mandate impacts every conceivable policy area and advocates sweeping tax-cuts, sharp limits on abortion, a nationwide ban on pornography, the rejection of transgender rights, the curtailing of clean energy initiatives and active promotion of fossil fuels, the removal of employment quotas, the express use of the military to suppress crime and protest and the mass internment and expulsion of all illegal migrants. I kid you not.
The Donald’s first transition to power in 2016 is generally agreed to have been nothing short of chaotic. Cut from the same cloth as our very own BoJo, he had/has little interest in the detail of policy and relied on ‘staffers’ for that. Somewhat surprisingly, each incoming POTUS has to fill over 4,000 government roles with political appointees and, believing his radical immigration and taxation plans would be resisted by the liberal-leaning ‘deep state’, Trump roundly failed in this recruitment task, causing whole sections of the government machine to operationally break down and cease working.
Project 2025 seeks to avoid a repetition of this by compiling a database of thousands of pre-vetted Trump activists to replace civil servants en-masse. Paul Dans, director of Project 2025, has publicly stated they are “systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army – aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized, ready to do battle”.
Thankfully, at least on the face of it, The Don appears to be underwhelmed by the project and claims to know nothing of it. However, the fact that the 2025 team comprises dozens of his former staffers, including Russell Voight, the current Republican Party’s policy director, surely throws doubt on his public pronouncements? Lest we forget, this is a man who has promised to be a dictator “on day one” and spoken explicitly about using the army against those he calls “the enemy from within”. When pressed to say who he had in mind, he named only the democratic congressman, Adam Schiff. Call me a conspiracy theorist but I can’t see this ending well.
