Project 2025’s Endgame: Grabbing Power, Ignoring Norms, and Institutionalizing Authoritarianism

Trump’s shadow government blueprint: inside Project 2025

Warning: Difficult Content Ahead
Some readers may find the content upsetting or emotionally distressing, as it addresses issues such as political violence, healthcare neglect, and the dismantling of democratic norms. We encourage readers to approach this material with care and seek support if the topics discussed evoke strong emotional reactions.

Donald Trump’s alignment with Project 2025—a Heritage Foundation blueprint—serves three interconnected goals: consolidating executive authority, dismantling institutional checks on power, and normalizing political violence to entrench a far-right ideological agenda. Below is an analysis of the mechanisms and objectives behind these actions:

1. Relocating Federal Agencies: Disruption and Ideological Capture

Project 2025 proposes relocating key agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to Utah and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Florida. These moves are not neutral administrative shifts but deliberate strategies to:

• Isolate agencies from oversight: By relocating agencies away from Washington, D.C., Project 2025 reduces collaboration with other federal bodies and Congressional scrutiny. For example, moving the BLM headquarters to Utah in 2019 caused “confusion and inefficiency,” doubling vacancies and driving out experienced staff.

• Prioritize industry access: The BLM oversees 245 million acres of public land, including oil and mineral rights. Relocating it closer to industry-friendly states like Utah facilitates deregulation and fossil fuel extraction, aligning with Project 2025’s goal to “reduce environmental regulations”.

• Deplete institutional knowledge: Over 135 BLM employees refused relocation in 2020, accelerating a brain drain that weakens agencies’ ability to enforce policies.

2. Schedule F Purges: Creating a Loyalist Bureaucracy

Schedule F allows certain civil service positions, specifically those involved in policymaking or advising, to be reclassified, removing traditional job protections like merit-based hiring and firing rules. This means employees in these roles can be fired more easily and replaced with individuals who align politically with the administration. The aim is to purge 50,000 civil servants and replace them with ideological cronies. This serves to:

• Eliminate dissent: Career experts in agencies like the EPA and FBI are being replaced with Trump loyalists who prioritize political fealty over merit. As Ron Sanders, a former Trump appointee, warned, this creates a system where “loyalty to the president is the litmus test”.

• Weaponize agencies: The DOJ and FBI are being repurposed to target political opponents. Over 18 inspectors general and dozens of career lawyers were fired in early 2025 to neuter accountability.

• Fast-track extremist policies: With agencies staffed by cronies, Project 2025’s agenda, such as criminalizing abortion pills and defunding DEI programs, can be implemented without resistance.

3. Pardoning January 6 Rioters: Normalizing Political Violence

Trump’s pardons of 1,500 January 6 defendants, including Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and Proud Boys founder Enrique Tarrio, achieve two objectives:

• Reward and incentivize violence: By framing rioters as “patriots” and “hostages,” Trump signals that violence in service of his political goals is acceptable. Rhodes and Tarrio have since called for “revenge” against law enforcement and prosecutors, emboldening extremists.

• Erode rule of law: The pardons dismiss seditious conspiracy convictions and assault charges against police, undermining public trust in the judiciary. As terrorism expert Robert Pape noted, this “legitimates and normalizes major political violence”.

The Broader Agenda: Normalizing Authoritarianism

Project 2025’s endgame aligns with its stated “four pillars” in the Mandate for Leadership:

1. Restoring the “traditional family”: Rolling back LGBTQ+ rights (e.g., banning transgender healthcare) and abortion access to enforce Christian nationalist values.

2. Dismantling the administrative state: Neutralizing federal agencies’ ability to regulate industries, protect civil rights, or address crises like climate change.

3. Centralizing power: Concentrating authority in the presidency to bypass Congress and courts, exemplified by Agenda 47’s “unitary executive theory”.

4. Criminalizing dissent: Using the DOJ to prosecute “anti-white racism” while pardoning far-right violence creates a dual system of justice.

Probable Outcomes

• Erosion of democratic norms: The U.S. could mirror Hungary’s “illiberal democracy,” where elections exist but oversight institutions are hollowed out.

• Escalating the cry for political violence: Experts warn pardons may increase attacks on marginalized communities and government officials, as extremists perceive impunity.

• Economic and environmental harm: Deregulation and agency sabotage risk financial crises (e.g., CFPB neutering enabling predatory lending) and unchecked climate disasters.

Conclusion
Project 2025 is not merely a policy roadmap but a radical restructuring of governance to entrench minority rule. By relocating agencies, purging experts, and pardoning insurrectionists, Trump and allies aim to create a government that serves ideological and corporate interests—not the public. The ultimate end is a regime where power is unchecked, dissent is criminalized, and democracy exists in name only.

In the face of growing hardship and fear under a second Trump presidency—especially for marginalized communities—we must respond with active empathy and neighborly courage. Now is the time to reignite a spirit of human connection. Talk to your neighbors. Listen to their stories. Ask what they need. Whether it's sharing a meal, helping with medical needs, or simply being present in conversation, face-to-face care and solidarity can cut through isolation and despair. Real change begins not in grand speeches, but in small acts of compassion—one person, one neighbor, one conversation at a time.