Project 2025; what is it and why you should be scared.

I said I wouldn’t write much more on anything socio-politically related, but recently, there has been a lot of talk on social media imploring people to stay informed about something called Project 2025. Like most who come across this, I was curious because, well, I am a sucker for what I call "Vaguebooking" on Facebook. If you don't know, "vaguebooking" is when someone makes a post on Facebook with no context, enticing the reader to be more curious about the meaning of the post. So I decided to do some digging and what I found was both interesting and terrifying all at the same time. Regardless of whether you lean left or right, I think you should be concerned and stay informed on what Project 2025 is, and today I'm going to be so kind as to give you a quick rundown, including some videos that you should watch.

So what is "Project 2025"?

Created by The Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, Project 2025 is an initiative aimed at creating a "government-in-waiting" for the next Republican presidential administration. It is focused on preparing policies, personnel lists, and transition plans to pave the way for a conservative administration by building for a conservative victory through policy, personnel, and training.

Main Goals

The main goal of Project 2025 is to avoid the pitfalls of the previous administration's early years and ensure preparedness for the next conservative administration to carry out its objectives effectively from day one.

Pillars of Project 2025

The project is based on four pillars: a policy agenda, Presidential Personnel Database, Presidential Administration Academy, and a playbook for the first 180 days of the next Administration. The policy agenda involves assembling an army of aligned, vetted, and trained conservatives to deconstruct the Administrative State. The personnel database and administration academy aim to centralize power in the White House and rein in independent agencies, while the playbook is designed to kickstart the next conservative President's time in the White House.

Organizers

The initiative is being organized by The Heritage Foundation and led by Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) during the Trump administration, and Spencer Chretien, former special assistant to the president and associate director of Presidential Personnel. 1

Controversy

The initiative has drawn both attention and criticism. Some public policy experts have expressed concerns about the potential consequences of the plan, including fears that it could lead to the development of an autocracy, concentrating power in the presidency, and sidelining Congress and the Judiciary.

While presidents often rely on Congress to implement programs, Project 2025 is mainly based on what legal academics refer to as a unitary executive theory, which holds that Congress cannot limit the president's control over the executive branch. Critics of the theory, including Columbia University law professor Peter Strauss, feel it is a fundamentally flawed — and constrained — interpretation of the Constitution.

“The Constitution can only properly be understood as making the president the overseer of the government that Congress creates, not its commander,” he says. “The President is the commander of the military, but the power explicitly defined for him over ordinary domestic government is much less.”

The danger is that implementing the unitary executive theory in this manner would result in the restoration of a political spoils system and the emergence of an autocracy in which one ruler wields total power. As frightening as the project may sound, Wallach believes that some of the proposals for strengthening presidential powers will not be implemented. "Presidential campaign rhetoric has a tendency to promise the moon without that much reference to what's actually legally empowered as a part of the office," according to him. Despite its criticism, the theory raises some valid considerations about what the rule of law involves.

“Those behind Project 2025 would say that they’re trying to vindicate the rule of law against people who are determined to thwart it,” says Philip Wallach, who’s a senior fellow at the nonpartisan American Enterprise Institute. “But critics of the project would say these folks are just hoping to empower themselves beyond what the law actually allows.”

Sources:

1. https://www.project2025.org/about/about-project-2025/

2. https://www.project2025.org/policy/

3. https://katiecouric.com/news/politics-and-policy/trump-project-2025/