In August, conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, in collaboration with a slew of other right-leaning groups, published its 'Project 2025'. This effectively amounted to a program of government for a future Republican president, should the party win the 2024 election.
Proposals include reintroducing legislation making it easier to fire federal workers; prosecution for distributing abortion pills by mail; and abolishing recently established diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the Department of Defense.
Conservatives are busy preparing for a Republican president to take power in January 2025. Polling shows the firm frontrunner for the GOP nomination is former incumbent Donald Trump. Some right-wing campaigners believe the radicalism of Trump's policy agenda during his first term was severely undermined by bureaucrats, whom they term as the "deep state." The campaigners are preparing a more-radical strategy, should Trump return to the White House.
In total, Project 25 runs to more than 900 pages, with contributions from over 30 authors. More than 50 conservative-leaning campaign groups, think tanks, educational institutions and publications are listed on its advisory board, including the Claremont Institute, Young America's Foundation and the Defense of Freedom Institute.
An introductory note makes clear that the document is intended as the basis of a program for government, with a particular emphasis on what a new Republican president should do immediately after taking office.
It reads: "History teaches that a President's power to implement an agenda is at its apex during the Administration's opening days. To execute requires a well-conceived, coordinated, unified plan and a trained and committed cadre of personnel to implement it...
"For conservatives to have a fighting chance to take on the Administrative State and reform our federal government, the work must start now. The entirety of this effort is to support the next conservative President, whoever he or she may be," the note adds.
The paper calls for a top-to-bottom overhaul of the Department of Justice. This includes curtailing the FBI's program against what it seems misinformation; the reinstatement of former service members who lost their jobs after reducing the COVID-19 vaccine; and the abolition of what is described as the woke agenda within the Pentagon.
One of the most eye-catching proposals is a plan to reintroduce Schedule F, a Trump-era executive order rescinded by President Joe Biden. This would see tens of thousands of federal workers reclassified, making them easier to fire.
Thomas Gift, a political scientist who heads up the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, told Newsweek that this policy kills three birds with one stone for Republicans.
Gift added all this would be "making it easier to root out the alleged liberal 'deep state' that's become a boogeyman for the party since Trump; cutting bloat in the administrative bureaucracy that many think is excessively wasteful to taxpayers; and stopping 'mission creep' in federal departments and agencies that often operate with minimal accountability or oversight."
In summary, Gift said reintroducing Schedule F would amount to "unapologetically taking an axe to the 'fourth branch' of the federal government."
Russ Vought, who was involved in compiling the document and is president of the Center for Renewing America, said to the Associated Press news agency: "The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state."
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While Trump is the strong favorite to secure the Republican presidential nomination, his return to the White House could be complicated by a string of ongoing legal cases. The former president is facing charges relating to claims he orchestrated the payment of hush money to a p*rnographic actress; mishandled classified documents; and broke the law attempting to overturn the 2020 election result, both nationwide and in the state of Georgia specifically. Trump has long pled not guilty to all counts, and insists his prosecution is politically motivated.
A number of legal scholars have said that Trump is unable to serve for a second term due to the Constitution's 14th Amendment. This declares anyone who swore an oath to uphold the American constitution, but then engaged in "insurrection or rebellion," as ineligible to be "Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military."
Trump has dismissed this argument, describing it as "just another 'trick' being used by the Radical Left Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, to again steal an Election" on his Truth Social website.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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