# [[Project 2025]] Public Rollout (April 2023) The moment the conservative movement's governing blueprint went from internal planning document to the most politically consequential policy manifesto in modern American politics — revealing the depth of coordination between right-wing think tanks, legal networks, and the Trump orbit. ## What Is Project 2025 Project 2025 is a comprehensive transition plan organized by the [[Heritage Foundation]], titled *[[Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise]]*. It is a 900+ page document divided into 30 chapters covering every major federal department, written by more than 35 primary authors and hundreds of contributors. The project was established in 2022 and publicly launched in April 2023, with [[Paul Dans]] (former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management under Trump) as director and Spencer Chretien (former special assistant to Trump) as associate director. ## The Coalition Over **100 conservative organizations** participated in the advisory coalition, including: - [[Heritage Foundation]] (lead organizer) - [[Claremont Institute]] - [[Federalist Society]] members in individual capacities - American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - Turning Point USA - [[Center for Renewing America]] (led by [[Russ Vought]]) - America First Legal (led by [[Stephen Miller]]) - [[Conservative Partnership Institute]] (led by former Senator [[Jim DeMint]]) - Multiple state-level policy organizations This coalition represented the broadest institutional alignment of the conservative movement around a single policy document since the original Heritage *Mandate for Leadership* in 1981. ## Key Policy Proposals **[[Schedule F]]**: The flagship proposal — reclassifying up to 50,000 federal civil servants as political appointees who can be fired at will. This would effectively dismantle civil service protections and allow the president to staff the federal bureaucracy with loyalists. Schedule F was originally attempted via executive order in October 2020 but was rescinded by Biden on his first day. **DOJ Restructuring**: Placing the Department of Justice under direct presidential control, eliminating the norm of DOJ independence from the White House. **EPA Dismantling**: Dramatic reduction of environmental regulations and the agency's enforcement capacity. **Education**: Eliminating the [[Department of Education]], restricting curriculum standards, and expanding school choice. **Immigration**: Mass deportation infrastructure, completing the border wall, ending birthright citizenship. **Personnel Database**: A vetted database of thousands of pre-screened conservative candidates ready to fill federal positions on Day One — the operational infrastructure to make the policy agenda executable. ## The Political Explosion Project 2025 became a central issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. The Biden (and later Harris) campaign used it to argue that Trump's second term had a radical, coordinated agenda. Trump publicly distanced himself on July 5, 2024, posting that he knew "nothing about Project 2025" and disagreed with some proposals. Dans stepped down as director on July 30, 2024. But reporting showed the distance was cosmetic: **at least 140 of Project 2025's contributors had worked in Trump's first administration**. The document's policy recommendations tracked closely with Trump's own stated agenda. ## The Leonard Leo Thread [[Leonard Leo]]'s dark-money networks contributed millions to organizations participating in the Project 2025 coalition. This represented the convergence of Leo's judicial strategy (reshaping the courts to permit executive power expansion) with Heritage's policy strategy (providing the specific blueprint for how to use that expanded executive power). ## Implementation By early 2025, approximately **40% of Project 2025's policy recommendations** had been implemented or initiated by the Trump administration, despite the campaign-trail disavowal. [[DOGE Ecosystem]], while not explicitly part of Project 2025, pursued complementary goals of dismantling federal agencies and reducing the civil service. ## Significance Project 2025 is the most visible evidence that the right-wing ecosystem documented in this knowledge base is not a loose collection of independent actors but a coordinated movement with shared goals, overlapping personnel, and a literal written plan. It connects the think tanks ([[Heritage Foundation]], [[Claremont Institute]]), the legal infrastructure ([[Federalist Society]], [[Leonard Leo]]), the policy operators ([[Stephen Miller]]), and the funding networks into a single documented artifact. ## See Also - [[Heritage Foundation]] - [[Federalist Society]] - [[Leonard Leo]] - [[Claremont Institute]] - [[Stephen Miller]] - [[DOGE Ecosystem]] - [[Revolving Door]] - [[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]]