On Tuesday, news outlets across the United States reported that Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, a controversial conservative agenda policy plan unveiled this year by the Heritage Foundation, was stepping down. Project 2025 is much more than a document: it is a machine and a blueprint that remains an ongoing possibility.

The announcement came amid attempts by former president Donald Trump and his campaign to distance himself from Project 2025. Trump’s presumptive opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, has invoked it in recent days to blast the Trump agenda as ultraconservative and contrary to the values of most Americans.

From the headlines, a reader might have inferred that the director’s resignation signaled a retreat by the proponents of Project 2025.

But Project 2025—as a possibility, as a policy document, as a plan of action, and as a blueprint for a radical realignment of various aspects of American society—is not going anywhere as long as the prospects of a second Trump presidency remain alive.

That’s because Project 2025 is much more than a document: it is a machine, with many components, which remains very much operational. For example, in addition to outlining a radically conservative policy agenda and a plan for rapid implementation, the project also includes a personnel database of more than 20,000 applicants—vetted for their allegiance to the project’s agenda—for political appointments should Trump be reelected. Project 2025 also represents significant resources, a reported $22 million, already invested by the project’s supporters, who include current and former Trump backers, allies, and staffers.

“Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country,” said Kamala Harris’s campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez in a statement. “Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real.”

Experts agree that Trump’s attempts to distance himself politically from Project 2025 do not mean he and his administration won’t embrace the plan should Trump take office again.

“Project 2025 is not going away,” said Colin Seeberger, senior advisor for communications at the progressive Center for American Progress’s Action Fund.

Read the full article about Project 2025's possibility by Isaiah Thompson at Nonprofit Quarterly.