Project 2025, a border ‘national emergency’, and Trump’s police state
On Monday Donald Trump confirmed his intention to take a page out of the Project 2025 agenda — he claims to know nothing about the document — by declaring a border national emergency and to carry out mass deportations of immigrants using the US military to carry out his plan and essentially turning America into a de facto police state.
Trump confirmed his intentions in a response to a social media post from Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton (via Yahoo News):
Overnight, Trump responded to a social media post from Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, who said earlier this month there are reports the incoming administration is preparing such a declaration and to use “military assets” to deport the migrants.
“TRUE!!!” Trump wrote.
Project 2025 is a 900-page blueprint laying out Trump’s first 180 days, and the overall theme of the document is an expansion of presidential power that can be described as foundational to the creation of a police state. And while Trump claims to know nothing about the document, the official policy platform found on his website — Agenda 47 — shows that he’s completely on board with everything contained in Project 2025.
Both Project 2025 and Agenda 47 call for a massive expansion and centralization of executive power that James Madison warned in The Federalist Papers, Number 47 can only be described as tyranny:
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
As I wrote in a few months ago, Project 2025 and Agenda 47 will radically transform America and ultimately lead to the creation of a police state. Here a few of the examples I provided:
- Trump will have complete authority over federal agencies using his belief in what is known as unitary executive theory: the idea that Article II of the Constitution gives the president power to prevent Congress from ordering federal agencies to do anything contrary to his desires. Trump referenced his Article II “powers” many times during his first term:
- Trump would be able to grant himself authority to bypass Congress on spending issues. Though this would be a misuse of the president’s “Impoundment Power,” this authority would allow Trump to ignore congressionally approved spending and do whatever he wants with those funds.
We were given a taste of this abuse of power during Trump’s first term in office when he redirected money designated for the military and spent it on his non-existent border wall after Congress refused to fund it to his liking.
One part of Project 2025 and Agenda 47 that particularly applies to Trump’s plans is the revival of a never-implemented October 2020 executive order that created a new employment category for federal employees known as “Schedule F” that would place nearly every civil servant under his direct authority.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts estimates that 50,000 civil servant jobs could be eliminated and then replaced with Trump loyalists under Schedule F. When asked in a New York Times Magazine interview about the end game of such a move, Roberts said that his goal was “institutionalizing Trumpism.”
Of course, the only way to truly institutionalize Trumpism is by force, which brings us to the parts of Project 2025 and Agenda 47 that directly apply to Trump’s recent promise to use the military as his personal police force:
- If successful, Trump will successfully reshape government by using the military to enforce his deportation scheme and use his “national emergency” declaration to build massive new detention camps to hold illegals indefinitely. While illegal immigration is a problem, the use of the military in this fashion can only be described as a police state tactic.
Trump’s plan includes using the military to go city to city, house to house, to find illegals to deport, an act that would be illegal since the military cannot be used as a national police force. Using the military in this manner is no different than the house-to-house searches we witnessed after the Boston Marathon bombing when the Constitution’s protection against “unreasonable search and seizure” was thrown out the window in the name of safety.
Despite Trump’s attempt to disavow any knowledge of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, he has praised Kevin Roberts by name twice this year. On Truth Social in January, Trump praised Roberts as “the highly respected president of the Heritage Foundation,” noting he was a “wonderful guest” on Fox & Friends. Trump urged Roberts to “keep going” and “get the word out!”
In February, during remarks to National Religious Broadcasters in Nashville, Trump personally again praised Roberts, this time from the stage: “Heritage Foundation president, somebody else doing an unbelievable job. He’s bringing it back at levels it’s never seen. Dr. Kevin Roberts. Kevin, thank you, Kevin. Kevin, thank you, wherever you may be.”
Ever hear of Brendan Carr? Trump has picked Brendan Carr to be the next chairman of the FCC. Trump appointed Carr to the FCC in 2017, and as the senior Republican at the agency, Carr will likely chairman appointment. Carr wrote the chapter in Project 2025 that addresses the FCC.
Further confirmation about Trump’s plans to declare a national emergency and use the military to build his police state comes to us from the new “border czar” and former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Tom Homan. In a recent appearance on FOX News, Homan reiterated his plan to “take the handcuffs off ICE” and ramp up arrests but noted that he will need more resources (such as the Department of Defense) to carry it out and said there are “a lot of what-ifs.”
“So, I’ve been asked a thousand times, how many people can you remove the first year? Well, how many agents do I have?” he said. “Can we bring rehired agents back; the ones that are retired bring them back and rehire them. How many buses do I have? How much money do I have for airplanes? Right? Can DOD assist? Because DOD can take a lot off our plate. There’s a lot of what ifs …” (Emphasis mine)
For the Trumpists out there, if you think Project 2025 and Agenda 47 are nothing to worry about, let me remind you that Donald Trump has already gone record that he’ll be a dictator on day one, proving that he’s already planning on acting independently of the Constitution.
It’s already been established that Donald Trump plans to use the border security issue to introduce a mandatory national biometric digital ID capable of giving government the ability to track anyone and everyone it chooses. So, using Project 2025 and Agenda 47 as part of his plan to a police state — something he was already working on during his first term — is just a hop, skip, and a jump away.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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