Not long ago, President Donald Trump claimed he had “nothing to do” with Project 2025. Thinking back, even when one considers how low Trump’s bar for the truth is, it is still shocking that he denied any involvement with the policy architecture designed by his friends at the Heritage Foundation. But it is equally unsurprising that now he appears to be following along with it.
When I purchased Graham’s book, the cashier explained to me that many customers questioned whether his store carried the hard copy of Project 2025. Since the 2024 campaign, Project 2025 has become a buzzword of sorts, and people are eager to see what’s inside Pandora’s box. “Why would we?” he asked me rhetorically, “the whole point is they don’t want us to read it.”
Luckily for all of us, though, Graham’s book is an accessible introduction before tackling the entire Bible-length Project 2025 document directly, as one can obtain a solid sense of what the entire apparatus entails in under 150 pages. (Of course, everyone should still read the original.) “The Project” is a timely debut by an author who prides himself on his love and passion for politics, writing, and quality journalism.
Graham elaborates in painstaking detail exactly why Trump desires to distance himself from these policy recommendations. As he notes in the book, they are not particularly popular with the American public. For example, the recent omnibus bill passed by Congress works in direct contravention to what many Americans want, especially as it applies to massive cuts to critical services like Medicaid. Medicaid is a worthy example since it registers immense bipartisan support due to its impressive reach and availability for a large percentage of the American public.
There are many instances in Project 2025, however, that are clearly at odds not just with what most center-left liberals stand for, but also with what many common-sense American conservatives claim to represent. Most glaring in my view is the direct intention by Project 2025 authors to expand the power of the executive branch. Graham writes that a “central tenet of the project is that the only way to reverse perilous politicization of the executive branch is to further politicize it.” According to Graham, Russ Vought, an essential figure and architect of the project, currently serving as the Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, is one of the central movers of this expansion effort behind the Trumpian curtain. Vought is a self-described Christian nationalist who believes America is embroiled in a “post constitutional moment” that requires “the aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power – including power currently held by the executive branch – to the American people.”
But will power actually be returned to the people through a forced expansion of the executive? It is not at all obvious how such a plan serves that stated end. That is why a significant portion of Republican marketing is an endorsement of culture war politics and firebrand populism, not actual substance. Vought’s outcry signals that the President should use his vast power to transform the very fiber of American life into his own political and social experiment, and the project document itself spells out exactly how to get there. The fine print in each chapter suggests radical overhauls of federal agencies and institutions to purge anything that might structurally oppose their view of American government.
Whether it is immigration, law, education, tax policy, or healthcare, all domains must not only be aligned from a policy standpoint, but the fundamental makeup of each should also be synced ideologically without deviation. For example, Vought told NPR in 2023 that the “notion of an independent agency like the FCC or an agency that has parts of it that view itself as independent, like the Department of Justice – we’re planting a flag and saying we reject that notion completely.”
Well, indeed, the flag has been planted, and most notions of agency independence have been flatly rejected. Encompassing virtually all policy areas, Trump 2.0 has hit the ground running, and six months into his second term, Trump has caused turbulence unseen at any other point in American history. Graham includes an analysis by Bloomberg Government, which found that “thirty-seven of forty-seven executive actions taken in Trump’s first few days back in office directly or partially matched recommendations in Project 2025.” As it stands currently, Trump 2.0 has implemented 46% of policy proposals that align with Project 2025.
It is important to note that Project 2025 is not unlike other think tank documents, nor is the Heritage Foundation unique in drafting recommendations for future administrations. Both parties have support from a vast web of think tanks and research agencies that help design policy recommendations for administrations that align with their views on particular political issues. However, as Graham points out in the book, Project 2025’s “detailed scheme for execution” is what separates it from the crowd.
One may reasonably question whether there is anything good in the document, and in my interview with Graham, he described that Project 2025’s stated goal of restoring the family “as the centerpiece of American life” is something that clearly no reasonable person could disagree with. However, the devil is in the details. The project’s preferred family construction must also align with the social vision desired by its authors; namely, a rigidly Christian, traditional household with very little wiggle room for ideological or personal diversity. So, in theory, the idea of restoring the family might sound nice, but practically, the project’s implementation decimates the very notion of what America ought to stand for.
For those opposed to Trump and Project 2025, how do we stop the avalanche of change, especially after it has already begun? Graham urges the opposition to put forward a comprehensive alternative not based on culture war or identity politics, but on delivering for everyday Americans. No longer can our leaders sit back and criticize; instead, they must be on the front lines advocating and fighting for change, lest power end up back in the hands of those who currently have it. As historian Greg Grandin said, “you cannot fight fascists by calling them fascists.” The more those on the left resort to pettiness to score temporary political points, the more hardships America will be forced to endure.
Thus, anyone concerned with the fate of American politics needs to read this book. It is a critical guide for navigating our desperate straits, touching every corner of American politics. Friend or foe, you will better understand how Trump’s America operates and how it will unfold over the next couple of years. It is written for the expert and layman alike, and I cannot recommend it enough.
Rating: 9/10
You can watch my interview with David Graham on YouTube and read more of my work on Substack.
