GOP scheme to overhaul federal government is a 'bullet in the gun' aimed at US democracy: authoritarian expert

Former President Donald Trump and his supporters have described Project 2025 as a plan to bring down the "Deep State" and make the U.S. government more efficient. But to Trump's critics, Project 2025 would be an authoritarian power grab designed to pack the federal government — including the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI — with unquestioning Trump loyalists and undermine the United States' system of checks and balances.

Associated Press (AP) reporter Lisa Mascaro, in an article published on August 29, stresses that MAGA Republicans plan to dismantle federal government agencies as soon as Trump is inaugurated if he becomes the 2024 GOP presidential nominee and wins the general election.

"Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump Administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president's second term — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024," Mascaro explains. "With a nearly 1000-page 'Project 2025' handbook and an 'army' of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the 'Deep State' bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers."

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Mascaro notes that Project 2025, if implemented, would reinstate Schedule F and be a departure from Republican administrations of the pre-MAGA era.

"The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending," Mascaro reports. "Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the 'administrative state' from within by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president's agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive's approach to governing."

Schedule F and Project 2025, according to Mascaro, would put "tens of thousands of career professional jobs" in the federal government "at risk." And Mary Guy, a University of Colorado professor, views the plan as a recipe for authoritarianism.

Guy told AP, "It frightens me…. We have a democracy that is at risk of suicide. Schedule F is just one more bullet in the gun."

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Find the Associated Press' full report at this link.