Looking at the USA under Trump, first impressions are of an administration with a seeming inability to keep focus. It careens from one wild announcement to another. We see a disaster wrapped up as reality TV. But the real action is not in Trump as saga or reality TV.  Whatever remains of a progressive USA America is being systematically ripped apart by forces coordinated and guided by a far-right project called Project 25 Agenda. It is the blueprint  that the Trump administration is using to launch its soft coup against the American people, and whatever institutions may provide effective resistance. Strongman chaos might be front and centre of what we see, but the decisive action is off-stage.

This article suggests the real significance of the Trump administration is not just on the international stage. It may well start new wars (including with China), but a masterclass in damage stems from its methodical attacks on the American working class and its attempt to dismantle institutions of the liberal – democratic state which were ostensibly put in place to provide “protection”. These attacks present long lasting danger, not just for the American people, but people around the world. Serious reactionary forces are eyeing not just the clown antics, they are watching how this detailed plan is actioned, and if it can go the distance. This analysis indicates that, overall, the Project 25 Agenda is being implemented successfully.  

What is Project 25

Project 2025 is a far-right policy agenda spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation, a powerful conservative think tank, in collaboration with over 100 right-wing organizations, including the following key architects:

• The Heritage Foundation (Primary Organizer)
• The Center for Renewing America (CRA)
• America First Legal (AFL)
• The Claremont Institute
• Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)
• Trump-2016 personnel - over 140 former Trump officials helped write Project 2025. Key figures now in Trump’s 2024 campaign: (i) John McEntee (Head of Presidential Personnel Office, enforcing loyalty purges), (ii) Peter Navarro (Trade advisor, pushing aggressive tariffs), (iii) Kash Patel (FBI).

Project 2025 isn’t just policy—it’s a soft coup attempt to lock in permanent far-right rule by:

• Stripping 50,000 civil servants of their employment protection, classifying them as policy advisors and replacing them with loyalists.
• Criminalizing dissent (anti-protest laws, expanded policing).
• Ending checks on presidential power (e.g. weaponization of the Dept of Justice).
• Redefining the notions of individual rights and freedom of speech as a means of reinforcing and reshaping the cultural hegemony of the ruling elites

Project 2025 represents an authoritarian/reactionary blueprint designed to consolidate oligopoly and monopoly corporate and far-right power, dismantle social welfare programs, and suppress working-class movements by restricting and redefining what is 'democratic activity'.

Heritage Foundation and partners developed Project 25 which has four pillars of action:

1. Policy Agenda (dismantle the 'administrative state') .
2. Personnel Database (Heritage vetted potential appointees for the 50,000 positions spilled by the adoption of Schedule F). See Heritage Personnel Database
3. Training Program (indoctrination in far-right governance).
4. Legislative Playbook (ready-to-pass bills to codify authoritarianism).

How Did Project 2025 Come About?

The origins of Project 25 are found in the Reagan Era. Heritage Foundation’s  first 'Mandate for Leadership' (1981) was a guiding influence on Reagan’s policies. Fast forward to 2017-2021 and Trump’s chaotic first term seems to have convinced far-right groups they needed a more disciplined takeover plan. After Trump’s loss, Heritage Foundation and more than 100 allied conservative organisations began training 'conservative warriors' to infiltrate the next administration. To help do this, they created the 'Presidential Administration Academy' that would complete pre-screening of thousands of loyalists to staff the government.

Why This Matters

Capitalist & Authoritarian Power Grab – via the enhanced corporate control of government, through:

Empowering large corporations and their lobbyists (e.g., fossil fuel, defence, tech and finance industries) by deregulating industries and slashing taxes on the wealthy.

Privatisation of public services (education, healthcare, infrastructure) to further enrich large corporate interests (capitalists) at the expense of workers.

Erosion of Democracy – delivered through (i) voter suppression (via stricter ID laws, purge of voter rolls) which aligns with the far-right agenda to disenfranchise working-class and minority voters, and
(ii) replacing civil servants with loyalists to creates a patronage system, turning government into a tool of the ruling class.(iii) criminalising and 'legislative hamstringing'   civil society and working class organisations from recruiting, campaigning and reinforcing grass roots and self -determining sites of democracy.

The destruction of democracy also includes the targeted attacks on civil society, by intimidation (ranging from public humiliations to massive lawsuits) of dissenting entities and persons, including trade unions. A broader assault can also be observed on progressive political organisations such as refugee support groups, sports organisations, community organisations. Also targeted are dissenting judges, law firms, media outlets (the most egregious being the abolition of public broadcasting) as well as universities and research institutions. Stacking the judiciary, redrawing electoral boundaries, voter suppression measures, increasing federal control of elections, utilising the military to suppress dissent, such as in LA, all of these contribute to the assault on democracy.

Attack on Labour & Social Welfare – (i) through weakened labour protections, making it harder to unionize and easier for corporations to exploit workers, (ii) dismantling social security & Medicaid, Project 2025’s long-term goal is privatisation and benefit reductions, pushing retirees into precarious private markets (even though Trump publicly opposes cuts).

Reactionary Social Policies – (i) White Christian nationalism is projected through the supported criminalisation of abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, (ii) defunding public schools in favour of religious charter schools as proposed further reinforces ideological control, and (iii) militarized repression via expanded police and ICE powers targeting immigrants, activists, and marginalized communities (iv) requiring conformity to government policy for recipients t of government funding – e.g. Universities and research institutes.

Environmental Destruction for Profit – has been an early and prominent attack item with (i) full fossil fuel deregulation as Project 2025 abolishes climate protections, thereby accelerating ecological collapse in favour of oil and gas profits, (ii) defunding renewable energy while further boosting subsidies for coal and oil fracking,  and (iii) corporate land grabs delivered through privatizing public lands for mining and drilling.

International pace setting for the far-right and cowering of the centre – all eyes are on the roll-out of the authoritarian agenda in the USA. The 2025 elections in Australia and Canada were a clear rebuff to the emulation and roll-out of Trumpian styled authoritarianism. All the while there remains a worrying and highly visible kowtowing to the military might and the size of the USA economy. For example,  “withdrawing and reviewing” academic funding for prominent Australian-Palestinian activists both here and in Germany.  

Early Evidence -- Trump is Delivering Project 25 for the Far Right

The table below summarises key proposals of the Project 25 agenda (by policy area) and then lists action taken by the Trump administration. It includes a ready reckoner assessment of the implementation status (not very scientific, but best possible for now) plus an identification of the main actors involved.

The matrix presents an alarming perspective on the devastating effectiveness with which the Trump administration has gone about implementing the Project 25 agenda. The column ‘Trump Administration Action’ has been populated based on internet searches. It is not complete but hopefully captures the major activities. (Please send through any corrections and additions!)

Table1: Project 2025 Implementation Matrix (as of July 2025)

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) is also worth considering as the most comprehensive legislative manifestation of the Trump 25 agenda. It serves as a methodical attack on the working class and a dismantling of key institutions of the liberal democratic state. The OBBBA serves both objectives on steroids. For example, it abolishes Medicaid, women's health services, and a broad range of welfare programs; effects a massive redistribution of wealth through tax cuts to the rich and other fiscal measures; abolishes numerous regulations, structurally changes Federal programs, in addition to those already referred, rescinding funds to scientific organisations; and consolidating immigration enforcements. Its many provisions significantly upscale the delivery of the key objectives of P25.

Key Observations

1. Personnel Overlap: 140+ former Trump officials authored Project 2025, and key architects (Vought, Bondi, Miller) now hold senior roles.( CNN interview re 140 Trump employees)
2. Executive Actions: 64% of Trump's early orders made in January align with Project 2025 proposals. (See TIME Analysis).
3. Tariffs have been delivered in an autarkic manner but largely keep to the script with (i)tariff minimum of 10%, (ii) targeting China in particular, (iii) and moving towards having tariffs assume the de facto role of a consumption tax imposed on imported goods. Point (iii) was a radical position supported by some Agenda 25 stakeholders but not incorporated in final document.
4. Controversial Moves:

• DOJ's Comstock Act Enforcement: Preparing to ban mailing abortion pills despite FDA approval. (USA Appeals Court Upholds Restriction on Abortion Pill)
  
  
• FEMA Cost-Shifting: Disasters now require 50% state funding, weakening federal response.
  
  
• PBS Defunding: FCC investigation launched to revoke non-commercial licenses for public broadcasters.

1. Distancing Attempts: Trump publicly denied connections to Project 2025, despite nominating 30+ contributors to his administration.

Getting Control of the Machinery of Government

Observations on Getting Control

Table 2 below gives more detail on the identifiable main actors that are steering the Project 25 Agenda. Whatever the vagaries and erratic day to day behaviour of Trump, behind the scenes are senior appointees of the administration with a direct link to the drafting of the Project 25 Agenda. Two key observations presented below.

1. Tight Control of Staff Appointments plus Dollars to Burn

• Project 2025 isn’t just a wish list—it’s a staffing and policy pipeline from Trump’s first term to a more radical second term. Over 75% of its authors have direct ties to Trump’s past or future administration, which helps drive ideological enforcement. (See Wiki Project 25)
  
  
• The Heritage Foundation spent $22 million on preparing the agenda and staffing recommendations to avoid Trump's 'first-term staffing mistakes'.(See BBC)

1. Control of Key Institutions and Far-Right Leverage

• OMB Centrality: Vought's control over budget and personnel allows him to enforce Project 2025 across agencies.
  
  
• Cooperation across Right-Far Right Spectrum: Organizations like America First Legal (Miller) and Center for Renewing America (Vought) served as testing grounds for Project 2025 initiatives.
  
  
• The Heritage Foundation itself offers a Project 2025 Tracker sending visitors to its website to get up to date monitoring of progress against each of its demands. Progress is visualised dashboards tracking overall progress, by each of the 317 objectives/demands, as well as policy area and by line agency. [1]

Table 2: Project 2025 Key State Actors with Heritage Foundation Links

A Political Lesson and the Damage Done

There is every reason to believe the second Trump administration is better organised and more focused on delivering a comprehensive agenda for the re-configuration of the state and an broad scale attack on the American working class. But it has not been the only significant influence. Elon Musk via DOGE added a more aggressive and threatening dimension than proposed by the Project 25 Agenda:

By and large, Project 2025 has set out to figuratively hack federal agencies by exploiting weaknesses in an obscure body of law known as administrative law, which governs how those agencies are supposed to operate. For example, it calls on the “next conservative president”—in this case Trump—to abuse loopholes in a statute called the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to make it easier to install leaders at agencies without having to put nominees through the standard Senate confirmation process.

In contrast, DOGE has focused on literally hacking federal agencies and their operations by exploiting weaknesses in the government’s information-technology infrastructure. This strategy was on display when DOGE-affiliated personnel commandeered the Office of Personnel Management’s email servers to send out threatening messages to all career civil servants…and when they captured the Treasury Department’s payment systems in an attempt to shut down the flow of federal money to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In seeking to deconstruct the administrative state, Project 2025’s recommendations include a mix of gutting agency capacity and weakening or rescinding the regulations and policies they implement—often through the standard administrative process, which can be time-consuming and involves a fair degree of expertise and care.

In contrast, DOGE goes all in on gutting agency capacity with scant attention to actual policy change. Why go through the hassle of eliminating disfavored policies when you can simply render them dead letters by depriving agencies of mission-critical staff and other essential support resources necessary for their enforcement?[2]

The Musk contribution to the carnage has been monumental since Trump’s inauguration. It is estimated that DOGE eliminated nearly 280,000 jobs across 27 government agencies in just the first three months of the Trump administration.[3]  

Clearly there are also other radical conservative influences at play in the Trump administration than just the Project 25 Agenda. Yet it stands out for its coherence across sectors, and a long term plan backed by decisive political appointees that drill further down into the bureaucracy. The intention is to give it deeper policy reach and more effective operational execution capabilities. Also, no doubt, to effect an incursion of staying power within the state (or what conservatives term the deep state).

The extent to which this Project 25 Agenda prevails remains to be seen. For now, we can say it has succeeded on imposing itself on the Trump administration. It offers a lesson to socialists (and the broader left) on the value of building alliances around a comprehensive agenda for deep structural change. An agenda that can deliver on deep values with a road map for reaching long term objectives.

Note about the author

Adam Rorris is an economist who has worked for various UN agencies, the Australian federal government and various State governments of Australia. Adam is also currently a Committee member of the SEARCH Foundation.

[1] The quality of the interactive page from Heritage Foundation, is streets ahead of that undertaken by progressive groups (see Center for Progressive Reform). This may in part be a measure of funding differences but also suggests better coordination and communication strategy on the part of the conservative/far-right movement.

[2] Slate

[3] See Report by Challenger & Gray