Fascism Road: Project 2025 & the Real Deep State

By Jessie Seigel/November 12, 2023

Project 2025 is the far-right Heritage Foundation's fascist wet-dream come to life. And in former president, Donald Trump, Heritage and its more than 50 conservative cohorts think they've found the perfect vessel to bring that dream to fruition.

If Donald Trump manages to take the presidency a second time, he plans to use the federal government to wreak vengeance on his critics and opponents with no holds barred.

According to the Washington Post, Trump has told advisers in recent months that he will want his Justice Department to investigate his former Chief of Staff, John F. Kelly, former Attorney-General William P. Barr, his ex-attorney Ty Cobb, and the former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley. He also has publicly said he would appoint a special prosecutor to "go after" President Biden for corruption regardless of the fact his corruption claim is unsupported by any evidence. Candidate Trump already has his minions in the House of Representatives working on an unwarranted Biden impeachment.

In an interview with Univision, Trump even said: "If I happen to be president and I see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, I say "Go down and indict them.' They'd be out of business; they'd be out of the election." Never mind that Trump has innumerable indictments against him--like the energizer bunny, he goes on and on and on.

If Trump retakes the presidency, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 will provide him a blueprint not only on how to pull off his revenge, but on how to quickly make himself a dictator.

Installation of Loyalist Hacks at Every Level of Government

Project 2025 refers to its Mandate for Leadership as "the opening salvo of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Its voluminous content, the product of over 400 conservative contributors, proposes ways to place the entire Executive Branch of the federal government---and even independent agencies currently overseen by Congress--under Trump's direct presidential control.

The Hill has reported that the government usually has about 4,000 political appointees, and "a long-term workforce of more than two million" civil servants. Civil servants are meant to be apolitical, serving both Republican and Democratic administrations without favor.

In late 2020, then President Trump issued an executive order establishing a new employment category for federal workers--Schedule F--which would essentially enable the president to fire at will any executive branch employee.

President Biden rescinded the order when he took office in 2021. But if Trump retakes the presidency in 2024, it is extremely likely that he will reinstitute it. According to Axios, as many as 50,000 civil servants could then find themselves reclassified as Schedule F, lose their employment protections, and thus be far more easily fired and replaced if they do not succumb to Trump's whims. Loyalty to Trump could become the sole criteria by which federal workers are judged.

As Mother Jones opined: "...this would destroy the civil service, booting out of federal agencies employees with expertise and experience and replacing them with political hacks." It would be a return to the corrupt spoils system.

Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage Foundation, told The Hill that Project 2025 has already identified several thousand potential conservative recruits and set a goal of providing a database--by the end of 2024--of up to 20,000 potential administration officials as candidates to replace civil service employees fired.

Heritage's plan is meant to move forward even if one of the other Republican contenders for the presidency obtains the office. Roberts said that Heritage and its partners have briefed Trump, Ron DeSantis, and their teams, as well as Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Mike Pence (who has now withdrawn from the race). They plan to give private briefings to all of the conservative candidates.

In addition, Project 2025 proposes that Trump, if president, sidestep the requirement for senate confirmation of presidential cabinet nominees by installing allies in acting administrative roles, as he did in his first term.

With complete control of the government--of the Justice Department in particular--Trump will will be free to have his lackeys prosecute and lock up his opponents and critics regardless of the law or any evidence of wrongdoing.

Suppression of Dissent and Backing of Violent Loyalists

Internal communications reviewed by the Washington Post suggest that Project 2025 is developing a plan for Trump to use executive orders to deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act almost immediately after taking office.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the Insurrection Act authorizes a president to deploy military forces inside the United States under limited circumstances:

The statute implements Congress's authority under the Constitution to "provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions." It is the primary exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, under which federal military forces are generally barred from participating in civilian law enforcement activities.

Despite the posse comitatus general bar, under Project 2025's plan, Trump may invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, allowing him to define any civil demonstration that later occurs as an insurrection and use the military against it--something he already tried to do during his prior term in office.

Furthermore, under the proposals advocated by Project 2025, Trump--who has already promised to pardon January 6 insurrectionists--could order the Justice Department not to investigate or prosecute supporters who commit new acts of political violence against his opponents. He could also order federal law enforcement to stand down when such violence occurs.

The Real Deep State

The term "deep state" is defined by Oxford Languages as "a body of people...believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy."

Wikipedia builds upon that definition, stating that it is "a type of governance made up of potentially secret and unauthorized networks of power operating independently of a state's political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals."

Those definitions in no way accurately describe the established organs of democratic government to which Trump and his right-wing propagandists apply it. But it does accurately describe the Heritage Foundation and the numerous other far right organizations with whom it has combined to inflict a self-serving agenda on the nation.

Under the deceptive title of "think tank," the Heritage Foundation has been at this for decades. It's first Mandate for Leadership, released in January 1981, contained more than 2000 ultra-conservative policy proposals. The conservatives' front man, then newly elected President Ronald Reagan, obediently distributed Heritage's book at his very first Cabinet meeting.

Project 2025 expands upon that to aid the next presumably far right president in seizing sole power to impose their right-wing agenda on the nation.

If Trump obtains complete power, the Project 2025 crew will probably find--to their own detriment as well as ours--that they are unable to control him. If they cross him, he will turn on them too.

Of course, that thought provides no satisfaction to those who want to save democracy.

What can be done?

On an individual level, the first imperative is educating oneself--learning about and recognizing the many anti-democratic efforts and their sources. The next is educating others who may not have the time or patience to investigate on their own.

On a larger scale, in the same way that Heritage has combined with other far right organizations, the various institutions that believe in democracy need to combine and work in concert to expose and counter the anti-democratic forces. And finally, citizens need to continue to use the one sure weapon they have, while they still have it--the vote.