Rumors of Project 2025's demise are greatly exaggerated

Paul Dans, the director of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, has stepped down amid increasing controversy and criticism from the Trump campaign. Yesterday, the Trump campaign released a statement celebrating " Project 2025's Demise," but there is no reason to believe that the news is anything but damage control.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts stated that Dans' exit came after the project had achieved its initial goals and was built for future administrations to utilize, which is precisely the point. Project 2025 remains quite relevant, given our upcoming presidential election.

There is good reason to believe that pressure from Trump's campaign, which has sought to disassociate itself from Project 2025 in recent weeks, played a role in Dans' departure. The project has faced significant backlash for its proposals, which include drastic policy changes that many view as authoritarian and detrimental to civil liberties.

Although released in April 2023, Project 2025 has gained more prominence as the 2024 election approaches. It is the latest iteration of 40 years of conservative policy recommendations from the Heritage Foundation. Ronald Reagan adopted half of them in his first year in office, and Donald Trump, despite claims of unfamiliarity with the project, enacted 64% of that version's recommendations in his.

Regardless of the Trump campaign's desire to distance itself from a plan lacking Americans' support, 31 of the 38 people responsible for Project 2025 served in Trump's first administration. Trump's campaign platform, ' Agenda 47 ', mirrors Project 2025's economic, national security, education, and healthcare policies. Specific similarities include the call to reclassify civic service employees to strip them of labor protections. Given this track record, thoroughly examining the proposals is essential for understanding their potential impact on a potential second Trump administration.

On June 4, 2024, Fulcrum contributor Steve Corbin wrote about Project 2025, noting:

"The 30 chapters are a daunting read. Project 2025 proposes, among a host of things, eliminating the Department of Education, eliminating the Department of Commerce, deploying the U.S. military whenever protests erupt, dismantling the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, removing protections against sexual and gender discrimination, and terminating diversity, equity, inclusion and affirmative action.

"Additional mandates include: siphoning off billions of public school funding, funding private school choice vouchers, phasing out public education's Title 1 program, gutting the nation's free school meals program, eliminating the Head Start program, banning books and suppressing any curriculum that discusses the evils of slavery.

"Project 2025 also calls for banning abortion (which makes women second-class citizens), restricting access to contraception, forcing would-be immigrants to be detained in concentration camps, eliminating Title VII and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act, recruiting 54,000 loyal MAGA Republicans to replace existing federal civil servants, and ending America's bedrock principle that separates church from state."

Corbin's article led The Fulcrum to start a series about Project 2025. Since then, we have published analyses of many sections and will end with over 35 writings. The current news of Dans' decision to step down amid increasing controversy and criticism from the Trump campaign does not deter us from our mission.

At the series' commencement, we noted that while an in-depth analysis of our democracy is laudable, Project 2025 is a biased political report designed to build a case for conservative solutions using inductive reasoning. We argued for deductive reasoning that analyzes problems and offers solutions regardless of their political mold—a " Cross-Partisan Project 2025."

Our mission is more critical than ever. We will continue to explore Project 2025 objectively, asking:

Nothing has changed as a result of the Heritage Foundation's decision to back off of its public alignment with Project 2025, and reporting on Project 2025 is more critical than ever. The overwhelming response from our readers to our series shows that Americans yearn for something different. They want news based on critical thinking, reexamining outdated assumptions, and using reasoning, scientific evidence, and data to formulate and test public policy for 2025 and beyond.

Our reporting and analyses are based on a philosophy that drives us to seek common ground among diverse perspectives and experiences. That is what America deserves.

The Fulcrum is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news platform covering efforts to fix our governing systems. It is a project of, but editorially independent from, Issue One.