Project 2025 and Agenda 47: Donald Trump’s plan for a police state

Project 2025, a 900-page blueprint laying out the first 180 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency (assuming he wins), calls for an expansion of presidential power that can be described as foundational to the creation of a police state. And while Trump has tried to distance himself from the document by claiming that Heritage’s goals are not his goals, the official policy platform found on his website known as Agenda 47 shows that he’s completely on board.

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 would result in 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.”

While there are many policies in Project 2025 that should cause concern for lovers of liberty, I’m only going to address the most glaring policies, specifically those also found in Agenda 47, and how these policies will radically transform America and ultimately lead to the creation of a police state.

Trump will have complete authority over federal agencies. Trump and his inner circle of Trumpists believe in what is called unitary executive theory, an idea that Article II of the Constitution gives the president, thus preventing Congress to empower federal agencies to do anything contrary to the desires of the president.

Trump referenced his Article II “powers” many times during his first term:

Trump would grant himself authority to bypass Congress on spending issues. Through a misuse of the president’s “Impoundment Power,” Trump would simply ignore congressionally approved spending and do whatever he wants with those funds.

Once again, we already got a taste of this abuse of power during Trump’s first term in office when he redirected money designated for the military to spend on his non-existent border wall after Congress refused to fund it to his liking.

Trump will have the power to rein in the free press, beginning with a renewed emphasis on expanding libel laws to make it easier to sue media outlets for spreading “fake news.”

From the beginning of his 2016 campaign and throughout his presidency, Donald Trump demonstrated a clear hatred of the Constitution because of the limits it placed on the power of government. Nowhere was this more evident than in his self-declared war against the news media, or as he repeatedly called it, the “enemy of the American people,” and his threat to sue them out of business.

Trump will also renew his attempt to rein in social media companies by “revising” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that protects online platforms from certain liabilities for users posts and moderating decisions. Section 230 “reform” was attempted in the waning days of Trump’s first term with help from Attorney General Bill Barr and a few members of Trump’s bought-and-paid-for Republican Party to take down the First Amendment, punish political enemies, and give government more control of the internet.

Trump will weaponize the Department of Justice to go after his political enemies by eliminating the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, a law passed when Richard Nixon tried to use the DOJ to take out those who were investigating his involvement in the Watergate scandal. He will use the DOJ to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

Trump has accused his political enemies of using the Department of Justice against him in the myriads of criminal investigations he has been involved in. So, in retaliation, he plans to use the DOJ as a type of political hit man to take out his political enemies — something he openly admitted was possible last month.

Trump loyalists will be appointed at throughout the federal government by renewing his executive order creating a “Schedule F” employment category that would redesignate tens of thousands of civil servants as political appointees and then fire anyone deemed disloyal to Trump.

Trump’s original executive order was issued in October 2020, but it was never implemented because he lost the 2020 election. However, if it had been, it would have placed nearly every civil servant under Trump’s direct authority.

The “Schedule F” part of Agenda 47 is a specific goal of Project 2025, as is the massive expansion of presidential powers. Kevin Roberts, Heritage Foundation President, estimates that 50,000 civil servant jobs could be eliminated and then replaced with Trump loyalists, and when asked in a New York Times Magazine interview about the motivations behind this move, Roberts said that his goal was “institutionalizing Trumpism.”

Trump will reshape government to such an extent that it can only be described as a police state. For example, he plans on using the military to enforce his deportation scheme and will build massive new detention camps to hold them indefinitely. While illegal immigration is a problem, the use of the military in this fashion can only be described as a police state tactic.

While the constitutionality of such a plan is debatable, what can’t be debated is how he also plans to use the military to go city to city to find illegals to deport, an act that would be illegal since the military cannot be used as a national police force. Besides, how would that be any 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.”

Additionally, Project 2025 has a long list of connections to former (and likely) future Trump administration officials and loyalists, including notable names like Ben Carson, Peter Navarro, and Ken Cuccinelli, just to name a few. So, it’s highly unlikely that he’s telling the truth.

Another troubling aspect of Project 2025 is the open promotion of Christian Nationalism, a belief system that has nothing to do with being Christian and everything to do with Trumpism.

For those who think that those of us concerned about Project 2025 and Agenda 47 are overreacting, let me remind you that Donald Trump has already gone record that he’ll be a dictator on day one of his second term, proving that he’s already planning on acting independently of the Constitution.

It’s clear to see that Project 2025 and Agenda 47 are the tools Donald Trump plans to use to build a police state, something he was already working on during his first term.

 

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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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