For transparency, this is the first of a test series of dual thread posts I’m experimenting with. The first section is a tad longer than a normal post. The second part is a deeper analysis and opinion section limited to paid subscribers. I’m happy to receive feedback and have left comments open to all subscribers, as I am trying to find the right balance in what is a new space for me.
Mandate for Leadership or Project 2025 as it became known, has been around since 1980, when the Heritage Foundation founded in 1973, was an upstart conservative think tank funded by beer magnate Joseph Coors. Back then, it was a manuscript called ‘Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration’. Not quite as catchy as Project 1981, I’m sure you will agree? It was authored by a small group of free-market intellectual anti-communists. At just over 1000 pages long when published, it was handed to the Reagan transition team. Born from the frustration of former treasury secretary William Simon, who had served in the former Nixon administration, he had long complained there was no formal strategy for a conservative agenda in government. The document itself was a collaboration between the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and the American Conservative Union.
The document was handed around the table at the first Reagan cabinet meeting. Subsequently, many of its contributors were given positions in the government. As a book, it also became a bestseller. What it demonstrates is since that date, conservatives have never been short of a formal plan to dismantle government and realise a true conservative. They’ve just never had the conditions in which to fully implement it until now.
In the first Trump term, the same plan was prepared, but went largely under the radar as far as wide public knowledge went. However, the Heritage Foundation has always been the tip of the spear, in terms of presenting the conservative agenda. In 2016, they had filtered through 334 policy recommendations and the Trump enacted 64% of them by the end of his first term. The list below is extracted from the Heritage Impact Site where they list their achievements in his first term.
Leaving the Paris Climate Accord: In August 2017, Trump announced the U.S. was ending its funding and membership in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Repealing Net Neutrality: In December 2017, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman proposed ending the 2015 network neutrality rules.
Reshaping National Monuments: Heritage’s recommendation to prohibit Land Acquisition (Cap and Reduce the Size of the Federal Estate) was adopted by Trump when he issued two executive orders effectively shrinking the size of national monuments in Utah.
Reinstating the Mexico City Policy: This executive order prevents taxpayer money from funding international groups involved in abortion and ending funding to the United Nations Population fund. On Jan. 23, 2017, in his first pro-life action, Trump signed an executive order today reinstating the Mexico City Policy.
Increasing Military Spending: Trump’s budget calls for a $54 billion increase in military spending to improve capacity, capability, and readiness of America’s armed forces.
Reforming Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF): The Trump administration adopted and is in favor of strengthening existing work requirements in order to receive benefits.
Allowing Development of Natural Resources:The Trump administration opened off-shore drilling and on federal lands. Executive Order 13783 directed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to commence federal land coal leasing activities.
Reforming Government Agencies: Trump tasked each of his Cabinet secretaries to prepare detailed plans on how they propose to reduce the scope and size of their respective departments while streamlining services and ensuring each department runs more efficiently and handles tax dollars appropriately.
Withdrawing from UNESCO: In October 2017, Trump announced he was putting an end to U.S. membership in the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
By the time Trump lost the election in 2020, Heritage had well and truly established itself as having a hugely successful policy implementation record. They now had a taste for what they could really achieve given the opportunity. It’s my firm belief that had COVID not spoiled the party, Trump would likely have got a second term. I know many Democrats would disagree, but I would ask you to look at the numbers. By any measure, 2020 should have been a Biden landslide given the number of dead Americans Trump left in his wake. That’s before we even talk about the collapse of the economy. On the contrary, it was a very close election, as usual won in the battleground states
It’s really hard for me to articulate the warning signs that the Democrats should have taken away from their victory, but they were so relieved to regain the White House, warnings were clearly missed. By 2020, Republican supporting Hispanic voters had grown by 10% since just 2018. Democrats for some strange reason take minority voters for granted. I’ve said it many times before, this is a HUGE error, yet they seem to make the same mistake over and over. In the five years prior to the pandemic, Hispanic median household income grew more than twice as much as whites and faster than Black and Asian Americans too. Aspiration was doing its job, 10% more Hispanics identified themselves now as conservative. For them, they felt Trump had done a good job and the numbers seem to stack up.
Moving back to Mandate for Leadership. From day one of the Biden Administration, The Heritage Foundation, in the words of HG Wells, ‘intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth administration with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. They set to work from day one, bringing together a vast coalition of hard right thinkers and advocates in order to produce Project 2025 as it came to be called. The new iteration did not really emerge until June of 2024. I think I first noticed it in around April and started talking about it on X. I might as well have been talking to myself. I had stumbled on a video clip of it being spoken of. I clipped it and posted it, but crickets. Take a look and then tell me who was asleep at the wheel? Rest assured it wasn’t me.
It was not until June it started to surface on mainstream media, but it was much later though before Democrats started talking about it ad nauseam. I am very proud that 'Truth Matters on X became the go to place for curated information on Project 2025. To be clear, I was NOT the only one talking about it at the time, there were others. However, they were largely on TikTok. The problem was, Dem activists were just using the information to talk about it among themselves. Elected members arrived to the party far too late. It was however quite amusing to those of us who had been shouting about it into the abyss for months, that they thought they were the ones who had just discovered it.
Despite the belief that voters were picking it up, it still remained under the radar for many, despite it being written down in black and white over 900 pages. It did finally gain traction closer to the election. As a result, Trump was forced to disavow it publicly. It was estimated, no more that 20-25% of voters were aware of it come election day. Indeed, Trump himself had raised it’s profile with his denials of having anything to do with it. The Heritage Foundation sensibly kept quiet, because they knew it was just a matter of getting Trump over the line.
Tomorrow we’ll be looking at how social media handled Project 2025.
