Is Trump following the ultra-reactionary Project 25 roadmap?

Trump repeatedly dismissed the Project 25 ultra conservative wish list as "absolutely ridiculous and abysmal" during his campaign. But a Time magazine analysis shows that two thirds of his executive orders so far are either entirely lifted from the 900-page document or at least partially so.

A roadmap drawn up by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, including figures such as Trump's new head of Office Management and Budget Russell Vought,  Project 25 contains a slew of proposals to dismantle the US establishment as we know it.

According to Time, while some of Trump's executive orders, such as the attempt to challenge birthright citizenship, are not directly lifted from Project 25, dozens of them capture the spirit of the document, particularly regarding immigration reform, government restructuring, and deregulation.

The Project 25 vision is so radical that, before Trump took power, satirists had fun lampooning it on social media with posts suggesting the policy plan proposes “women should be mandated to carry ‘period passports’ that track their menstrual cycles and must be kept up to date.”

Image: Screenshot of Halfway Post X account

The Heritage Foundation’s Communications Manager Ellen Keenan said in an email to Reuters that the claim that Project 2025 wishes to keep tabs on menstrual cycles is “false.”

"The Handmaid’s Tale" narrative originated from political satirist Dash MacIntyre on his X account, The Halfway Post. “I don’t report the facts, I improve them,” he states on his account description.

While Project 25’s 900-page proposal does not touch on the menstrual cycle, it does specify restricting abortion rights and getting rid of terms such as “reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” from government documents. So far, Trump has signed an executive order ending “the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.”

The proposals also include a vast expansion of presidential powers and the dismantling of a number of federal agencies, both of which Trump has been quick to act upon.

Besides dismantling the Department of Education, which is on Trump's February to-do list, Project 25's proposes bringing the Justice Department under direct presidential control, enabling the President to more easily implement policies in various areas. This, according to Reuters, is on Trump's agenda and could be the most radical things he does.

It also proposes an overhaul of the FBI, which it calls a “bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization,” and the dismantling of the Department of Homeland Security. With Trump now in the Whote House, FBI agents could be fired if found to have been on duty during the Jan 6 Capitol riots, reports NBC News.

Among the 900 pages, under The Family Agenda, Project 25 proposes that the Health and Human Services chief should “proudly state that men and women are biological realities.” This was one of Trump's Day One executive orders.

It also recommends promoting the message that “married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”

According to papers obtained by Politico, Russell Vought has been developing plans to infuse Christian nationalist ideas into the Trump administration.

Vought’s view on immigration is that permission to stay in the US should depend on whether that incomer “accept[ed] Israel’s God, laws and understanding of history.”

While Trump pretended to have nothing to do with Project 25 during his campaign, Vice President J.D. Vance, praised the vision of Heritage Foundation President, Kevin Roberts in the foreword of Roberts’ forthcoming book, “Dawn’s Early Light.”

“Never before has a figure with Roberts’s depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism,” writes Vance referring to Roberts’ view that it is time to pick apart America’s institutions and start afresh.

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