Project 2025 and why it's way worse than you think

To understand Trump’s 100-day sprint, look at the long game playing out behind the scenes, says Alex Hannaford. Now America is increasingly at the mercy of a new dictator class

- Alex Hannaford

No one can accuse Donald Trump of easing his way slowly into the job the second time around; of slouching back in his chair in the Oval Office, Fox News on the big screen, remote in hand. In 100 days he's managed to lay off 12,000 federal workers in the name of government efficiency, alienate countless allies, threatened to invade Greenland and take over the Panama Canal, humiliated Volodymyr Zelensky, told Canada he wants to see it become the 51st state (prompting a historic win for Mark Carney) and imposed tariffs on Europe and elsewhere that signal an end to free trade.

But perhaps most notable in terms of his policy agenda is that he has essentially governed by executive order – more than 140 of which have bypassed Congress entirely. And these orders have targeted everything from immigration to education to the detention of 6 January defendants. All in under four months.

Why anyone is surprised, however, is the question. In Project 2025, the sweeping, dystopian blueprint for his second term crafted by The Heritage Foundation, he was presented with the instruction manual of how to govern. While on the campaign trail, he disavowed it, saying: “I haven’t read it, I don’t want to read it.”

But from day one, it feels as if his administration has been following the right-wing plan to disrupt and tear down key government infrastructure. They have set about erasing federal language around gender identity and reproductive health, targeted DEI initiatives, dismantled climate policies, and have been busy stacking the bureaucracy with loyalists. It is clear to anyone following American politics, Project 2025 is not theoretical anymore – it’s happening in real time. And it’s gone further than any of the architects of Project 2025 surely ever imagined.