With the 2024 Presidential Election fast approaching, America’s future becomes more uncertain with the two clashing parties fighting for control. With that, the main goal of Project 2025 is to “rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left” as they plan to reshape the Executive branch as soon as the next Republican president is sworn into office on January 20, 2025. That is if they win. 

         The 2025 Presidential Transition is backed by a broad coalition of conservative organizations but is ultimately organized by The Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank. Charles Gibbs, Westfield government teacher, describes a think tank as “what we call in governmental terms an ‘issue network;’ an organization that attempts to raise awareness about particular causes or issues and then to try to influence political leaders to propose and support policy solutions, the Heritage Foundation [being] a fairly well-known think tank in conservative political circles today.” This project builds off of Heritage’s long-standing book series, Mandate for Leadership, the newest addition to the series being the ninth edition, known as Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise.

        The project is built on four pillars “that will, collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative Administration,” (Project2025.org). These four pillars are the Policy Agenda, Personnel Database, Training, and the 180-Day Playbook. Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, describes the goal of the project to “flood[ing] the Zone with Conservatives.” If successful, Project 2025 could lead to the firing of 50,000 federal workers.

        The Policy Agenda comprises a nearly 1,000-page book that details the future conservative agenda for a 2025 Republican administration. The entire agenda is filled with consequential policies, proposals, and programs, but the foreword provides notable tidbits that give some insight into the direction of this project:

• Comply with statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion
• End the “woke” agenda (deleting terms like “sexual orientation and gender identity,” “diversity,” “equity,” and more)
• Conflates pornography with transgenderism and that it must be outlawed
• How to fire “unfireable” federal bureaucrats (Bureaucrats of DHS, ED, DOJ, EPA, etc.) to rid left-wing ideas 
• “At its very heart, environmental extremism is decidedly anti-human.”
• Plans to outlaw all “Confucius Institutes, TikTok, and any other arm of Chinese propaganda and espionage” 
• Promotes “the dynamic genius of free enterprise” over the “elite-directed socialism”

        The Personnel Database portion of the proposition plans to recruit those that align with Project 2025 ideology. You could go to Project2025.org right now, fill out the questionnaire, upload your resume, and be considered for a position in the Executive branch.

        The Training pillar of Project 2025 consists of the Presidential Administration Academy, which is a program that plans “to prepare and equip future political appointees now to be ready on Day One of the next conservative Administration,” (Project2025.org). If you applied earlier, you can also enroll in the academy to earn various certifications. 

        Finally, Pillar IV, the 180-Day Playbook, includes a 180-day transition plan for each federal agency to fit their proposal.

       The leadership of America remains unclear, and with that, so is America’s future.