Government
What Is Project 2025 and How Much of It Has Been Implemented?
In 2023, the Heritage Foundation published what it called the most detailed governing blueprint in American history: "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise." Known as Project 2025.
Donald Trump said he hadn't read it and disagreed with it.
Then his administration implemented large portions of it.
What the Document Actually Contains
Project 2025 is organized around a central argument: the federal government has been captured by a "deep state" of career civil servants who use their expertise and tenure to frustrate conservative governance. The solution is to assert full presidential control over the executive branch.
The primary mechanisms:
Schedule F: Reclassify tens of thousands of federal employees in "policy-related" positions from civil service protection to Schedule F — at-will employment that allows firing without cause. Trump reinstated Schedule F on Day 1 of his second term (Biden had reversed it). This is the single most consequential structural change in the federal workforce in decades.
Eliminating "independent" agencies: Project 2025 argues that independent agencies — the Fed, FTC, FCC, CFPB, SEC, and others — represent unconstitutional delegation of executive power. The president should control them. The Trump administration has moved to assert control over several independent agencies, with courts blocking some moves.
Eliminating DEI programs: Project 2025 dedicates significant attention to eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across the federal government, in federal contracting, and in federally funded institutions. This was among the first executive orders signed.
DOJ and FBI restructuring: Project 2025 advocates breaking up the FBI, restructuring DOJ to assert presidential control over prosecutorial decisions, and removing career attorneys and agents. The Trump administration has pursued this through a combination of political appointments, reassignments, and pressure on investigative priorities.
Immigration enforcement: Project 2025 calls for maximum-scale immigration enforcement, invoking emergency powers, and using military for domestic immigration enforcement. The Alien Enemies Act invocations and military deportation operations align closely with these recommendations.
The Trump Distancing Was Tactical
Trump's public disavowal of Project 2025 was strategic. Specific provisions were political liabilities — particularly the abortion chapter (Project 2025 advocated for restricting medication abortion access, which Trump was trying to avoid committing to).
The actual relationship:
- Multiple Project 2025 contributors were appointed to senior administration positions
- The policy chapters were literally used as onboarding materials for new administration staff, according to multiple reports
- Executive orders signed in January 2025 tracked Project 2025 recommendations closely
This isn't a secret or a conspiracy. Project 2025 was designed explicitly to be a governing blueprint that an incoming Republican administration could implement immediately. It succeeded in that purpose regardless of what Trump said on the campaign trail.
What It Means Structurally
The most significant long-term consequence of Project 2025's implementation is the degradation of the civil service norm.
The American federal civil service was established as a merit-based system in 1883 (Pendleton Act) specifically to replace the "spoils system" in which government jobs went to political loyalists regardless of competence. The civil service norm — that government experts serve administrations of both parties and provide continuity, expertise, and institutional memory — was a deliberate design to make government function better.
Schedule F undermines this fundamentally. If expert analysts, lawyers, scientists, and administrators can be fired for giving professional advice that conflicts with political preferences, the advisory function of the civil service degrades. Agencies become more responsive to political direction and less capable of providing independent expertise.
This is precisely Project 2025's goal. Whether it produces better or worse governance depends entirely on whether you believe that political direction produces better outcomes than expert judgment — a foundational question about what government is for.