Project 2025: The Manual for Making America Obey Again (Part 1)
Heritage Foundation’s playbook for Trump 2.0 shows what happens when authoritarian ambition meets bureaucratic precision.
This is Part One of a Two-Part Deep Dive.
In this article I’ll piece to walk you through what Project 2025 is, the people behind it, how it’s being implemented in the United States and why it matters us living in the United Kingdom.
In Part Two, I’ll explore Resolute 1850/Centre for Better Britain in further depth - the Westminster think tank which is quietly adapting the exact same authoritarian blueprint for specifically Reform UK, but with tentacles in the Conservative Party as well, complete with American funding and Heritage Foundation know-how.
Project 2025.
It’s something I dismissed as conspiracy mongering when I first heard about it. It was something that I thought “there’s no possible way that an incoming government could be so idiotic or brazen to actually publicly announce that they would go so openly after women, LGBTQ+ people, “liberals” or the levers of state.
What I should, of course, have taken into consideration, though, was that this was the United States we were talking about and it is the land where anything is actually possible, including having a government that would love to treat Margaret Atwood novels as guides rather than warnings.
In my defence, as soon as Trump distanced himself from it as being from the “severe right”, my scepticism did rapidly vanish, and as the months have gone on since Trump 2.0 kicked off in January of this year, there was no question on what was actually happening.
In doing my reading on the subject, a curious connection came up - another completely innocuous sounding term nudged at me:
Resolute 1850, which subsequently morphed into the Centre for a Better Britain.
And yes, I regret to say - I am going to sound a bit Charlotte Gill-esque at points in this series, but there are things that we should be seriously keeping our eyes on, and to help us all focus our minds, I’ve pulled together an FAQ that will give us all the basics of Project 2025, but more importantly, Resolute 1850/CFABB and the imminent risk that it poses to all of us here in the UK.
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025, or more accurately, Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project, is a doorstopper of a document, coming in at 900 pages and serves as a conservative policy blueprint1, and was published by the Heritage Foundation. It’s a tome that goes well beyond the rhetoric of the right and serves as a handbook of how to implement changes that would fundamentally restructure American governance.
The whole project has four pillars:
A policy guide named “Mandate for Leadership.”
A personnel database of conservative candidates.
A training academy for appointees.
An implementation playbook covering a period of 180 days.
The main goal of Project 2025, according to the project director, Paul Dans, was to “construct a comprehensive plan to deconstruct the out of touch and weaponised administrative state” thereby consolidating executive power by putting the whole of the federal branch of government under the direct control of the President.
It’s a helluva project, with over 400 scholars that contributed, along with at least 140 people who worked in Trump’s first administration being involved in spawning it into the world.
The main gist of it that it’s a blueprint to remake the United States in the image of the far right, something that it is not very subtle about.
Who’s behind it - and why now?
The Heritage Foundation, the organisation that’s behind the publication of Project 2025, has been a significant player in US conservative politics since 19732 and has played the part of the “Brain” of the American Right. The man behind Project 2025 is Kevin D. Roberts who has been Heritage’s president since 2021 and has explicitly characterised his personal role as “institutionalising Trumpism.”
The other key figures behind the project read like a bit of a Trump administration reunion:
Russel Vought - Office of Management and Budget Director in both administrations and now “Shutdown Enforcer.”
Christopher Miller - who was acting Secretary of Defence in the first administration and authored the chapter on the DoD for Mandate for Leadership.
Ben Carson - the current Housing and Urban Development Secretary, who authored the chapter that deals with reversing “Progressive Ideology3” at HUD.
Ken Cuccinelli4 - the Acting Deputy Secretary at the Department of Homeland Secretary and who authored the chapter in Mandate for Leadership dealing with, you guessed it, Homeland Security.
The men involved here aren’t just random policy wonks - they were the guys behind some of the most controversial policies in Trump’s first term.
Cuccinelli was instrumental in implementing the family separation policies at the US/Mexico border, Miller oversaw the Pentagon during those insane few weeks during the Big Lie that led to, and included the delayed National Guard response to the 6th January Capitol Insurrection, while Vought is currently leading the charge on the government shutdown that is, at this very moment, shutting down all federal functions in the United States.
As to the Why Now?
Because the American right had to learn a very hard lesson from Trump 1.0 - specifically that personnel is policy.
During the first Trump term the biggest constraints to him doing whatever the hell he wanted came down to career civil servants, institutional norms and legal guardrails that kept his worst instincts in check. Numerous anonymous officials wrote op-eds during the time about being the (much needed) resistance inside the Trump administration. Cabinet members with actual souls slow-walked orders and civil servants strategically leaked damaging information.
The administrative state, or “The Blob” as Liz Truss likes to call them (which we’ll get to), as maligned as it is, actually worked - it prevented wholesale authoritarian capture as it was being attempted.
The point of Project 2025 is to ensure that this does not happen again - no more “adults in the room”, no more institutional resistance, just ideologically vetted loyalists from day one.
How is it being implemented in Trump 2.0’s America?
Something to note in this story is that Trump, during the 2024 campaign tried very hard to distance himself from Project 2025. He called it “extreme” and claimed he knew absolutely nothing about it. Polling done by NBC during the election showed that 57% of voters viewed it negatively with only 4% seeing it as positive, and even Howard Lutnick, Trump’s transition co-chair called it “radioactive.”
Then Trump won and the mask came off pretty much immediately.
Within four days of taking office Trump signed a string of executive orders, two thirds of which “mirror or partially mirror” Project 2025 proposals. His administration has resurrected Schedule F5, established Musk’s ill fated DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency meant to save money, but which did nothing of the sort), appointed Project 2025 contributors to key positions and is now using the government shutdown to reduce the federal workforce.
Then, this week, Trump explicitly referenced Project 2025 on Truth Social - announcing his meeting with Russell Vought, “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame” to determine which “Democrat Agencies” should be eliminated.
The simple fact is that Trump lied, a fact that should surprise absolutely no one, and voters were warned with the blueprint being public well before the election, and now being enacted, line by line.
What is the impact of Project 2025 on Press Freedom?
The assault on the media by Project 2025 has been particularly vicious.
The administration, via Executive Order6, defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, specifically targeting NPR and PBS, pretty much exactly as recommended by Project 2025.
Brendan Carr, the man who wrote the FCC chapter for Project 2025, was conveniently appointed to lead the FCC and immediately launched an investigation into public broadcasting.
The administration itself has restricted press access, blocked outlets like the Associated Press from presidential events and ceded complete control of the White House press pools directly to Trump’s own team.
All of it exactly as outlined in the Project 2025 recommendations - and it has not let up.
After the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Trump administration immediately weaponised the event and joined a Republican campaign, amplified by the Vice President, targeting anyone who showed any criticism towards the man.
, the Washington Post’s last full time black opinion columnist was dismissed from her position in the aftermath for social media posts. The paper called the posts “gross misconduct” and that they were “endangering colleagues.”
Journalists are not the only group being targeted in this campaign with teachers, firefighters, members of the armed forces and Secret Service agents also being sacked for any comment that was perceived, rightly or wrongly as insufficiently mourning Kirk.
This is Project 2025’s media strategy in chilling action - defund public broadcasting, restrict press access, investigate journalists over leaks and weaponise tragedies to purge critics. The blueprint called for treating media access as “a privilege rather than a right” and now they’re enforcing it.
Why does it matter to the UK what is happening to the US under Project 2025?
Because we need to understand what we’re up against - and looking at the American blueprint is going to be essential in recognising exactly what is being quietly imported into our country.
The warnings for the US have been there for a while now - Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian specialising in authoritarian leaders has characterised Trump’s implementation of his policies as an attempt to wreck democracy in the United States, while other experts on democracy have warned that Project 2025 could destroy the US system of checks and balances and create an imperial presidency.
While so far I’ve mainly concentrated on the impact on institutions, the authoritarian nature and goals of Project 2025 become even more apparent the moment you zoom in on the people who will be, and are being, most hurt:
Women
In the 900 page tome, there are approximately 200 references to abortion, and the plans laid out in Project 2025 would effectively create a nationwide ban, including revoking FDA approval of mifepristone and completely eliminating emergency abortion protections which will give allowance to hospitals to deny life-saving care to women.
LGBTQ+ Communities
By eliminating all federal protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, Project 2025 would look to achieve systematic erasure of the LGBTQ+ community, while also requiring educators who acknowledge transgender existence to register as sex-offenders.
Black and Minority Communities
A report by the NAACP Legal Defend Fund shows how Project 2025 would weaken anti-discrimination laws and redirect the DoJ to prosecute “anti-white racism” instead of protecting hard-won civil rights.
Disabled Communities
Through Medicaid cuts and accessibility funding being eliminated, disabled Americans would be pushed back to an earlier era of isolation, exclusion and institutionalisation.
Project 2025 isn’t only authoritarian because of its policy content, but its direct and measurable impact on different communities within the United States. The system of dismantling institutional checks on executive power being combined with the deliberate targeting of vulnerable communities makes it a clear and present danger for the united states.
The consolidation of power in a single executive unconstrained by law, democratic norms and institutions meant to protect the public should have had everyone sitting straight up in their chairs in shock, yet somehow much of the world, including me for a while, just sort of shrugged.
It could well be because the US’s political chaos has started feeling chronic, a background hum of dysfunction - loud, erratic but oddly familiar.
But while we’re now all watching the end-game for Project 2025 roll on, there is something much quieter - and arguably even more dangerous - beginning to coalesce and take shape in the United Kingdom.
Project 2025 didn’t stop at the edges of the Atlantic - its ideas are now being refined, repackaged and imported to Westminster under a new name: Resolute 1850.
In Part Two we’ll be exploring the transatlantic right wing authoritarian pipeline - how Heritage Foundation expertise and Project 2025’s blueprint are actively and systematically being adapted to fit in with British politics through the Conservative Party, Reform UK and a network of think tanks operating in the shadows of parliament.
And if you think that it can’t happen here, just remember:
Americans thought so too.
Part Two Will Be Available at 06:30 UK Time on 7 October 2025.
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And reads like an Ayn Randian attempt at writing The Handmaid’s Tale after a head injury - a bureaucratic fever dream where the state exist with the sole purpose of protecting billionaires from empathy.
It was founded by Paul Weyrich and Edwin Feulner as the corporate response to what was viewed as the excesses of the 1960s - feminism, civil rights, environmentalism, all those things that make conservatives turgid with annoyance really.
Defined by the GOP as “socialists brandishing rainbow flag out to steal all our money” but which in, reality, is just the idea that the government should make life fairer for people - which is exactly the reason they hate it so much.
Also known as “Cooch” which should tell you exactly all you need to know about him.
An Executive Order he had a go at in his first administration to replace civil servants with agreeable Yes-Men loyal only to him
Increasingly the modern version of an Imperial Diktat.
An idle thought occurred to me this morning. I’m really not into conspiracy theories, but what if Someone put just enough money behind the first black president’s candidacy to ensure that there would be a backlash that favoured Project 25 and Gilead totalitarianism?
Thank you Bear fir explaining so clearly what is happening in America, it is frightening