Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s latest vision for a potential second Donald Trump presidency, has been under the microscope since the Republican National Convention commenced this week in Milwaukee.

The 922-page policy document outlines a series of policy proposals that would fundamentally transform the nature of the federal government, Northeastern experts say. Such objectives call for dismantling the “administrative state” through, among other things, the elimination of whole departments; the reclassification of civil servants into political appointees (known as the Schedule F plan), thus stripping them of protections; and a “mass deportation” plan that the Heritage Foundation proposes as the largest in the nation’s history, the document reads.

Is Project 2025 really a “government in waiting”? Many of the ideas contained in the blueprint reflect the Republican Party platform as it stands, from immigration to government and regulatory overhaul and education reform.

But the sprawling ideological document could contain the means with which to execute on many of those party objectives, testing the viability of a whole host of radical policies at a moment when Republicans control the judiciary, experts say.

“I think there’s a high probability that a big chunk of it gets promulgated, especially if the Republicans control both chambers of Congress,” says Christopher Bosso, professor of public policy and political science at Northeastern University.

The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 in Context

Nick Beauchamp, associate professor of political science at Northeastern, says think tanks, as organs of political, economic and policy expertise, influence the political process in several ways. They shape “people and personnel” when it comes to presidential administrations; and, secondly, they facilitate funding for both causes and candidates.

“The money that comes in is spent in two ways: on bringing people under their umbrella to write these documents, who then become schooled in the organization’s viewpoints and eventually go out into administrations” to directly influence policy, Beauchamp says.

“The other way the money works is that it’s coming into the think tank operating through the same class of donors who are donating both to these think tanks and the candidates themselves,” he says.

Read the full article about Project 2025's feasibility by Tanner Stening at Northeastern Global News.