There has been a lot said about Project 2025, a 920 page handbook from the conservative Heritage Foundation.
In 2022, Trump said: “This is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.”
Two years later, in the debate with Harris, he said “I have nothing to do with Project 2025. I have not read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
140 of the experts who worked on Project 2025 came from the Trump Administration, some very high up.
Project 2025 has four stated goals:
1) dismantle the administrative state
2) restore the family as the center piece of American life
3) defend the nation’s sovereignty and borders
4) secure God-given individual rights to live freely
I’ll write about the other three in upcoming columns, but the first one, “Dismantle the administrative state” piqued my curiosity. I didn’t even know what an “administrative state” was.
A little research showed that the administrative state is all those government departments whose names are familiar, but whose work is too dense for most of us to understand: The Department of Defense, The Justice Department, the Department of Interior, The Department of Education, and so on. There are 15 in all. The Administrative State is, it turns out, most of the government.
Back when the country started there were around 3.9 million people and no departments. Apparently Washington, Jefferson, and the others didn’t feel they needed them.
Then, in 1887, with the US population nearing 63 million, President Grover Cleveland decided the country was getting too big to handle alone. So, his administration created the first department, The Interstate Commerce Commission.
The Administrative State is not new.
In 1946, population now 141.4 million, President Harry Truman formalized and expanded the administrative state with the Administrative Procedure Act, which set procedures for Executive Branch Agencies to follow when making rules.
As with any big, politically run democratic organization, the administrative state is not very efficient. Think what happens when you try to argue with the IRS, get anything through Congress, or just change your voting district.
In fact, democracy has never been efficient. Books and movies have been written about just that, especially comedies (Wag the Dog, The Candidate, Dave).
Winston Churchill, who led England through the terrifying days of WWII, famously said, “…democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”
The most efficient form of government is a dictatorship. No waste there, at least in the opinion of the dictator. Of course, no form of government is scarier or more brutal. We all know that Hitler killed 6 million Jews, but few know he killed 7 million others, too. Over 20 million Russians are estimated to have died under Stalin, and over 45 million under Mao Zedong.
Which brings us back to Project 2025 and the Administrative State.
Project 2025 proposes making the government more efficient by shrinking it. They want to eliminate the Department of Education, privatize the National Weather Service, the Transportation Security Administration, the National Flood Insurance Program and others, overhaul The Department of Justice, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Affairs, and dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Maybe the biggest change to the Administrative State is the “Unitary Executive Theory” which proposes that the entire federal bureaucracy (aministrative state) be controlled by the Executive Branch, in other words, the President.
Today, government employees can’t get fired except for cause. So employees have worked during and through assorted administrations. That’s kept a rudder under the boat no matter which party was at the helm.
Consider, instead, huge groups of government employees fired because of their political affiliation and replaced by workers loyal to the President. Experience, gone. Acquired knowledge and skills, gone. Institutional history, gone.
For the next four years, consider something scarier: these loyalists making rules that allow the President to radically change the government… including rules for electing a President.
Which may be what Trump considered when Sean Hannity of Fox News asked him about becoming a dictator, “No, no, no … other than Day 1.”
Which may be why, when Trump recently implored Evangelicals to vote, he said, “And again, Christians, get out and vote just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore…”
Before you really get scared, remember Trump denied any involvement with Project 2025. Personally, I believe him.
OK, kidding…
Did I mention that the most efficient form of government is a dictatorship?
(Remember: you vote alone, your vote is private, no one has to know who you voted for.)