The glimpse of a potential victory for Kamala Harris in the presidential election has cast a false sense of security about the storm brewing around an increasingly radical Republican party. It is naïve to think that Trump’s loss would magically erase the Republican underbelly that is planning for a complete restructuration and reduction of government responsibility and civil freedom. Whatever happens, the proponents of a new radical Republican government are clearly in it for the long run, and they have made their aggressive intentions clear regardless of the election outcome. Even though it started two years ago, Project 2025 – the unpleasant offspring of the Heritage Foundation think-tank – has only recently made greater news following the hopeless outlook of Biden’s desperate presidential campaign.

For those who are not familiar with it, Project 2025 is a 900-page manifesto detailing the plan for a quick government restructuring in the event of a Republican victory in the upcoming elections. Its propositions are almost a caricature of ‘new Republican’ dogmatism, but behind its absurdity lies a serious threat. The policy changes it presents focus on four central intentions: to actively restore the nuclear family as the central feature of the American identity; to promote US sovereignty over all else; to prioritise a theologically driven idea of individual liberty; and (perhaps most concerning) to absolve the administrative State, in other words to reduce State funding and responsibility to a minimum (echoing Argentina’s extreme cuts to educational, health, environmental, cultural, and welfare support following the election of right-wing anarcho-capitalism Javier Milei).

This last point would, in practice, grant the president an unprecedented level of executive power, bypassing current constitutional, Congressional, and judicial restrictions on presidential autocracy and threatening a new presidential form of a Louis XIV-style absolute monarchy.

After Biden dropped out of the presidential run and campaign funding returned for the Harris-led Democrats, opinion polls showed a decrease in Trump’s likelihood of winning the election. Naturally, the fears of Project 2025 associated with a Trump victory began to subside. If Trump loses, the Republican plan, drafted (amongst other right-wingers) by major Republican figures and broadly supported in Republican circles, won’t go through, right? Unfortunately, this is reaction reveals an ignorance of the real threat that the Project constitutes.

Project 2025 represents a serious tension in the US body politic, and its orchestrators have likely prepared for either outcome of the election. The Project’s leader, Kevin Roberts, delayed the publication of his book – which criticizes childless women, suggests removing abortion and LGBT rights, and even NY dog parks for being ‘anti-child’ – until after the election. With an introduction by JD Vance that recognises the need for a ‘second American revolution’, this postponement reveals the long-term outlook of the new Republicans. Even if Trump loses, the book (and all of its overt ideological paranoia concentrated in Project 2025) can be published with a sense of security that its effects and legacy will not be diminished.

It is clear that the Republican party has been subject to profound changes since Trump entered the game. Traditionalist values of upholding conventions, valuing tradition, and submitting to the ‘highest power’ (the Divine), have been abandoned. The new Republican party instead stands for aggressive corporate funding, tailoring policy to financial interests, and using ‘God’ only as a convenient campaign strategy. In other words, the intention behind Project 2025 is adaptable, and its mutability is in its service.

Trump has taken a clear distance from Project 2025, and this is likely one of the reasons that Kevin Roberts’ book has been postponed: the Project is intended to live on after Trump. It would continue, and possibly even be strengthened without his opposition, if Trump were to lose and eventually stand down. In other words, Project 2025 sets the stage for a qualitatively new form of right-wing US politics. It is clear that if Trump wins, the dangers posed by Project 2025 are immanent, with major Republican figures having directly contributed to it.

But its danger is by no means reduced if Trump loses. In fact, this eventuality has seemingly been prepared for. Trump’s distance from the Project signals that he may not be the right bearer of its legacy. Many of the Project 2025 contributors are in fact ex-Trump officials. JD Vance, who wrote the introduction for the book, supports even more radical action in the name of reactionary right-wing politics than the policies proposed by Trump. With Trump facing the possibility of a loss after the renewed Democratic campaign, the minds behind Project 2025 seem ready for an all the more direct attack: “to circle the wagons and load the muskets” as Robert’s wrote in an overt reverence to violent means of establishing their new vision of US government.

Ultimately, we should not be naïve enough to assume that a victory by Kamala Harris would equate with the end of Project 2025, as some commentators have suggested. As is clear both according to the manifesto and the utterances of its supporters, Harris’ victory would only be the first step. The manifesto of the new Republicans constitutes an aggressive long-term plan, which certainly does not end with Trump.

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