Paul Dans, Trump’s former Director of Management and Personnel and the director of Project 2025 has resigned and left the Heritage Foundation following Trump’s “disavowal” of the project. It is obvious that Trump realizes that Project 2025, the wish list of more than 110 conservative groups, has become a millstone around his neck given how effectively Democrats are now exposing the impact it would have if implemented. Trump has claimed he has “no idea who is behind it,” but more than 140 former Trump appointees were involved in writing and editing the project, including 6 cabinet secretaries.
Someone had to go, and Dans is the sacrificial lamb.
It is important to note that the Heritage Foundation has been writing a policy compilation for Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan. In the first two years of his administration, Trump had implemented 64% of the policy proposals in the 2016 version.
But according to Dr. Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation,
“Under Paul Dans’ leadership, Project 2025 has completed exactly what it set out to do: bringing together over 110 leading conservative organizations to create a unified conservative vision, motivated to devolve power from the unelected administrative state, and returning it to the people. This tool was built for any future administration to use.”
No matter what Trump may say in his attempt to woo his base of independent voters, Project 2025 will live on. It is not simply a wonky 900+ page far-right authoritarian policy manifesto. In December 2023, it moved on to a second stage of actively recruiting and vetting the personnel who would step in on Inauguration Day if Trump were to win. Their task is to act as a new layer of political appointees to replace career federal civil servant experts within all departments and agencies in the federal government.
All of those employment applications ask if the applicant supports Donald Trump. That vetted database could be used not just for filling federal positions, but in the event Trump loses it could be useful to governors of deep red states for filling political appointments and preferentially promoting career civil servants who will favor these far-right policy stances.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/30/politics/project-2025-paul-dans/index.html
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/01/trump-government-job-applications-2025
The Project 2025 cat (I love cats!) is out of the bag. Trump can deny all he wants to. This document, women demanding reproductive freedom and the ascendancy of Harris make for campaign gifts.
Blue Trifecta is what I visualize. And President Harris will appoint a new AG to bring Trump and crew to justice.
Not fooled one bit. Dans job was to oversee and assemble the Project 2025 900+ page document and that’s what he did. Assigned job done, he moves on. Sacrificial lamb for PR purposes only, he’ll surface somewhere else continuing the work of their warped and delusional minds. Project 2025 lives on as a manifesto manual.