The Donald Trump presidency emboldened the far-right flank of the conservative movement in the United States to promote ideas that were considered too out-of-the-mainstream or like pipe dreams more suited for raising money than for actually becoming policy. But a wave of hard-line conservative members of Congress along with ideologically driven judges willing to ignore precedent to advance conservative causes at all levels of federal benches made these ideas attainable.
The Project 2025 stories this week:
How Project 2025 could lead to worse climate impacts while reducing support for communities
Project 2025: How a consolidation of federal power could ban abortion
Project 2025 takes aim at elections: ‘Sowing the seeds of doubt’
Project 2025 and its impact on LGBTQ rights, gender-affirming care
Chaco Canyon buffer zone in the crossfires of Project 2025
After Trump lost the 2020 election, conservative groups started looking at ways to turn the gains they made permanent. And this wasn’t some secret deal that required a decoder ring. Instead they wrote it all down under the Heritage Foundation’s name, and gave the plan a title: Project 2025.
The document is a detailed explanation of the goals of the conservative movement—written by conservative movement members and including dozens of former members of the Donald Trump administration—and touched on just about every political topic in America.
It outlined how Republicans sought to fundamentally change everything from election administration to reproductive health care, from the tax structure to how overtime pay would be calculated.
Obviously, NM Political Report will not be able to cover every aspect of this document that nears 900 pages. But we will cover a few topics related to our regular coverage: reproductive rights, elections, the environment and more.
Throughout the week, these stories that have been in the works for weeks will outline what the goals are and what it means for New Mexico.
In recent weeks, Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025, claiming he had nothing to do with the plan. While the plan was not part of his campaign (his manifesto is called Agenda 47), his campaign previously noted the similarities between Agenda 47 and Project 2025, particularly in gutting the administrative functions of the federal government.
Trump himself only began to distance himself from Project 2025 when Democrats began to highlight some of the more extreme elements of the plan and their connections to Trump’s former administration.
Paul Dans, the chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management under Trump, was the director of Project 2025. He resigned when Trump sought to distance himself from the incendiary document. But even recently, Dans told CNN how he was in contact with the Trump campaign.
Six former cabinet members under Trump contributed to the document. Nearly 150 staff members from the Trump administration in general were part of the plan.
Whether the plan is something that Trump himself personally approved of seems almost irrelevant when you see that it outlines the goals of the kind of people Trump trusts to run the country. Whether it is Trump or his running mate, J.D. Vance or even another Republican running in 2028, the ideas that were once part of obscure blogs or second-rate think tanks are now those that will be part of the discussion for mainstream Republicans.
