Divided States, Part 3
Project 2025: A Blueprint for Power Grab in the United States of America
In Divided States, Part 2: What Comes Next If Trump Wins, we explored the unsettling direction a second Trump term could take. But the real bombshell is in Project 2025, a detailed 920-page roadmap by the Heritage Foundation that lays out a plan to reshape U.S. governance entirely. This is no casual policy proposal. It’s a step-by-step blueprint to consolidate executive power, gut federal oversight, and hand the executive branch control with fewer checks, less transparency, and almost no accountability. If Trump wins in 2024, this playbook is ready to roll.
Sound familiar? It should. Project 2025 reads like a mashup of George Orwell’s 1984, where the state controls truth, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where pleasure distracts from reality, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, where religious ideology governs every aspect of life, especially women’s bodies. Each story is a warning, a chilling insight into what can happen when ideology runs rampant, and checks and balances are replaced by a singular vision. Project 2025 may just be the dystopian fiction come to life.
Who’s Behind Project 2025?
The Heritage Foundation is leading the charge, teaming up with the Federalist Society, the Claremont Institute, and other conservative powerhouses. This alliance has shaped American conservatism for decades, but this plan goes further. Heritage’s influence was powerful under Reagan, but Project 2025 takes the ‘government should get out of the way’ mantra and puts it on steroids, creating a government that doesn’t just step back, it steps aside, leaving one man and his loyal inner circle with the power to shape policy as they see fit (American Progress, 2023).
The Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership gave Reagan his conservative vision, and the Federalist Society has quietly loaded the courts with conservative judges. Now, J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, is the newest ally. Vance’s conservative credentials go way back, and his support for Project 2025 shows his readiness to reshape America with the Heritage Foundation’s vision of ‘traditional values’ over progress (Durkee, 2024).
The ‘Deep State’ and the Rise of an ‘Imperial Presidency’
The core of Project 2025 is the idea of eliminating what conservatives call the ‘deep state.’ This is the belief that a network of career officials inside the government is holding back conservative goals. Solution? Replace them with loyalists and reduce the oversight that keeps them accountable. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. warned about an ‘imperial presidency’ decades ago, where the executive branch holds near-dictatorial power over other branches. Under Project 2025, this imperial presidency could become a terrifying reality (Schlesinger, 1973).
This push for unchecked executive power isn’t new. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Patriot Act dramatically expanded executive authority in the name of national security. Indeed, it was a response to a crisis, but as time passed, it became clear that it was also an erosion of civil liberties and privacy, ushering in an era of surveillance and executive overreach. The lesson here? Give power to the executive in times of crisis, and it doesn’t just go away when the crisis does.
Project 2025 is the next phase. This time, the executive won’t just be powerful; it’ll be filled with ideologically aligned civil servants, ready to ignore science, data, and public opinion in favour of loyalty to the president and the plan. This insular power is a fast track to policies that aren’t grounded in reality or public needs but are instead a means to an ideological end.
Why the 2024 Election is a Make-or-Break Moment
The architects of Project 2025 see the 2024 election as their moment. Win this one, and they can install loyalists in key roles throughout the federal government, bypassing hiring standards and stacking the ranks with ‘America First’ believers. Neutrality and expertise? Forget it. Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government warns that partisan hiring undermines institutional integrity and replaces skill with loyalty (American Progress, 2023).
Picture this: A federal workforce that answers not to facts, science, or public interest but to ideology alone. It’s a scene out of 1984 and Brave New World combined, where reality is what those in power say it is, and independent thought is replaced by state-approved dogma (Huxley, 1932).
The Key Pillars of Project 2025: What’s at Stake
1. Civil Rights: A U-Turn on Equality
Project 2025 claims to protect ‘traditional values,’ but it’s really a rollback of rights for marginalized groups. Women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ+ individuals all stand to lose under this new agenda.
Reproductive Rights Restrictions on abortion, access to contraception, and other healthcare for women are all on the table. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Project 2025 ‘obliterates sexual and reproductive health rights,’ limiting access to basic healthcare (Guttmacher Institute, 2024). Sound familiar? It’s the world of The Handmaid’s Tale where women’s bodies are state property, and their rights are sacrificed for the state’s moral agenda (Atwood, 1985).
LGBTQ+ and Trans Rights Project 2025 is a minefield for LGBTQ+ protections. GLAAD reports that many of its architects have anti-LGBTQ+ or Christian nationalist views, which would influence policy in healthcare, employment, and education (GLAAD, 2024). Protections against discrimination? Don’t count on them.
Affirmative Action The Guardian warns that Project 2025 could undermine affirmative action, blocking pathways to education and employment for people of colour and widening socioeconomic divides (The Guardian, 2024).
In short: Civil rights aren’t just on the line, they’re at risk of becoming conditional, based on a narrow interpretation of ‘traditional values.’
2. Education: Indoctrination, Not Information
Education is central to Project 2025, but it’s not about fostering critical thinking. Instead, the plan promotes a ‘patriotic education’ that skips over the darker parts of American history and reinforces a conservative vision.
Rewriting History This new curriculum would rewrite the story of America, downplaying past injustices and focusing on triumphs alone. Historian Jill Lepore argues that such distortions betray the purpose of democracy, which depends on learning from both our achievements and our mistakes (Lepore, 2018). In Orwell’s 1984, rewriting history ensures the state is always right, past, present, and future (Orwell, 1949).
Politicizing Science Scientific facts are also at risk. Project 2025 proposes removing evolution and climate change from the curriculum, undermining scientific literacy in favour of ideological messaging. The Belfer Center warns that such suppression will leave future generations unable to address critical challenges (Belfer Center, n.d.). In Brave New World, this conditioning creates passive citizens who accept what they’re told without question (Huxley, 1932).
In short: With Project 2025, education becomes less about truth and more about controlling what people think. It’s about conformity, not knowledge.
3. Deregulation: Profits Over People
Project 2025 has a deregulation agenda that prioritizes corporate freedom over public health, workers’ rights, and environmental protections.
Environmental Rollbacks The project cuts back the power of the Environmental Protection Agency, making it easier for corporations to pollute without accountability. The Belfer Center warns that such deregulation disproportionately harms marginalized communities (Belfer Center, n.d.).
Weakening Worker Protections By rolling back labour rights and safety standards, Project 2025 makes workers vulnerable to corporate interests. Economist Dani Rodrik cautions that deregulation often enriches the powerful while leaving workers defenceless (Harvard Economic Review, n.d.).
In short: This is a world where corporate profits take priority over public welfare. It’s a recipe for exploitation, where people are valued only for their productivity.
4. Judicial Takeover: Ideology Over Impartiality
Project 2025 includes a strategy to dominate the judiciary, embedding conservative ideology across all levels of the court system.
Supreme Court A conservative supermajority means progressive policies on reproductive rights, civil rights, and voting rights could face serious rollback.
Lower Courts The project also seeks to stack lower courts with conservative judges, ensuring that ideology shapes the law from the ground up. The Harvard Law Review warns that an ideologically driven judiciary risks turning courts into partisan tools (Harvard Law Review, n.d.).
In short: Project 2025 aims to reshape American law to reflect a specific agenda, compromising impartial justice by aligning the judiciary with partisan goals.
Conclusion: The Future at a Crossroads
Project 2025 is an unprecedented power grab, pushing the U.S. toward an imperial presidency where one branch rules all. The Center for American Progress warns that the plan risks ‘destroying the U.S. system of checks and balances,’ leaving the executive branch accountable to almost no one (American Progress, 2023). It also opens the door to the harshest extremes of neoliberal capitalism: relentless deregulation, a drastic reduction in worker protections, and unchecked corporate power. Under this model, profits come before people, and the well-being of the average citizen is left to the whims of the free market.
However, this project begs a critical question: how badly must neoliberalism have failed the American people for MAGA, Trump, and Project 2025 to emerge as a better alternative that so many are willing to try? Has the promise of opportunity and progress given way to such frustration and disillusionment that people would risk authoritarianism for a chance at change?
The stakes in the 2024 election go far beyond party lines; it’s a choice between democracy and autocracy, between rights for all or privileges for a few. Will the U.S. remain a country that protects diverse voices, civil rights, and personal freedoms? Or will it become a state where a narrow ideology decides who gets rights, who deserves protections, and who is left behind?
This election may be the last chance to protect what truly makes America free.
References
American Progress. (2023) Project 2025 would destroy the U.S. system of checks and balances and create an imperial presidency. Available at: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-destroy-the-u-s-system-of-checks-and-balances-and-create-an-imperial-presidency/ (Accessed: 25 October 2024).
Atwood, M. (1985) The Handmaid’s Tale. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. (n.d.) Political Influence and Deregulation. Available at: https://www.belfercenter.org/ (Accessed: 25 October 2024).
Durkee, A. (2024) J.D. Vance’s Ties To Project 2025 Explained Ahead Of Tonight’s VP Debate. Forbes, 1 October. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/10/01/jd-vances-ties-to-project-2025-explained-ahead-of-tonights-vp-debate/ (Accessed: 25 October 2024).
Guttmacher Institute. (2024) How Project 2025 seeks to obliterate sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR). Available at: https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/how-project-2025-seeks-obliterate-srhr (Accessed: 25 October 2024).
GLAAD. (2024) Project 2025: What it means for LGBTQ+ rights. Available at: https://glaad.org/project-2025/(Accessed: 25 October 2024).
Harvard Economic Review. (n.d.) Deregulation and Labor Rights. Available at:
https://harvardeconomicreview.org/ (Accessed: 25 October 2024).
Harvard International Review. (n.d.) American Isolationism and Global Stability. Available at: https://hir.harvard.edu/(Accessed: 25 October 2024).
Harvard Law Review. (n.d.) The Risks of Judicial Ideology. Available at: https://harvardlawreview.org/(Accessed: 25 October 2024).
Huxley, A. (1932) Brave New World. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Lepore, J. (2018) These Truths: A History of the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Levitsky, S. and Ziblatt, D. (2018) How Democracies Die. New York: Crown.
Orwell, G. (1949) 1984. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Schlesinger, A. M. (1973) The Imperial Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
The Guardian. (2024) Project 2025 poses significant risks to Black Americans. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/project-2025-black-americans (Accessed: 25 October 2024).
The Heritage Foundation. (2023) The Heritage Foundation and the conservative agenda. Available at: https://www.heritage.org/(Accessed: 25 October 2024).