Trump 2.0 Is Project 2025
Despite Trump’s denialism, 36 of his 66 nominees are tied to Project 2025, we found. As we brace for a shock-and-awe “Day One” assault on our democracy, progressives plot resistance. A 2-pt report.
Trump 2.0 Is Project 2025
Note: This is part one of a two-part report on the nascent Trump 2.0 government and the early resistance. For details of the links to Project 2025 and capsule biographies of the nominees, go to Resisting Democracy 2025.
PART ONE.
The Arriving Crusaders
12.17.24. There are 33 days before Donald Trump takes power on January 20th and ushers in Project 2025 and its radical blueprint to remake our democracy and federal government system. In order to fight back, progressives need to know who and what we are up against.
Over the past two weeks, the speed of Trump 2.0 Cabinet and agency nominations has sped up – two, sometimes three a day. Media stories have captured the sense of progressive outrage and dismay at a list of nominees who defy the norms and criteria for Cabinet members who will occupy the highest offices in the land and serve as his advisors – but also as yes men and women to Trump. Christian crusader Pete Hegseth…billionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy…disgraced felon Charles Kushner…the MAGA stalwarts like unhinged Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene… the list is eye-popping. As many pundits have put it, the guardrails are off. Trump has a puppet Cabinet in place.
What many have failed to adequate capture is that Trump 2.0 IS Project 2025. More than half the nominees to date – not just a few – are linked to Project 2025, while the majority support its radical proposals. We did a deep dive and documented that 36 of 66 nominees have direct or close ties to Project 2025, many as leaders of its 100+ advisory groups (as of 12.15). As more nominees are picked, that list may grow.
It’s not just Russell Vought, who’s back at the Office of Management and Budget, where’s he’s primed to oversee the mass-firing of our federal civil service via Schedule F, with help from Mark Paoletta, who’s also back as General Counsel for OMB. There’s also Stephen Miller, set to turbocharge Trump’s unfinished mass deportation plan. But there are also many others and it takes a little digging to see how they are connected.
We’ve done that. Our research shows that Project 2025 is a common connection for these nominees, but more importantly, Christianity is the real glue. (For details, check out the Revisioning Democracy campaign and our unfolding coverage of nominees and their links to Project 2025 and earlier reports on authors and contributors to Project 2025).
What’s more alarming, if that’s possible, is the coming to power of a Christian nationalist army, as well as a white supremacist one. As many have noted, there are three common criteria for Trump 2.0 nominees to date: unstinting loyalty to Trump; being a Fox News or reality TV host; or being a conservative billionaire donor to Trump. The fourth is being a Christian true believer – a holy warrior.
A majority of Trump’s nominees to date identify as deeply religious Catholics or Christians – and some openly embrace being Christian nationalists, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Rep. Mike Huckabee. Vought and Paoletta are staunch Christian nationalists; so are staffers from Vought’s organization, Center for Renewing America, which lists Christian nationalism as a priority policy agenda for the new administration. (Two CRA staffers also helped write Project 2025, Senior Fellow for Immigration Ken Cucinelli (DHS chapter) and Senior Fellow Adam Candeub.) There are a few nominees who are not Christian, including Stephen Miller, who’s Jewish and viewed as a pro-Israel Zionist.
Some nominees, like former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, are also members of the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, a Pentecostalist movement led by Trump’s spiritual advisor, an NAR “living apostle, Paula Cain-White and NAR founder Lance Wallnau. Meanwhile, State Department nominee Rep. Marco Rubio and his wife attend a Christ Fellowship branch megachurch linked to the Southern Baptist Convention, led by Pastor Doug Wilson. So does self-identified Christian crusader nominee Pete Hegseth. What’s less reported is that Christ Church Pastor Wilson is co-author of a book that says slavery was good for the slaves, among controversies.
Then there’s Sebastian Gorka, Trump’s pick to lead US counter-terrorism. He’s a former aide to Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, who provided Project 2025’s architects (and the world) with a model and recipe-book for illiberalism. Gorka is also, like Rep. Mike Huckabee and Pam Bondi and a few others, a fervent Christian Zionist. Gorka is also linked to Hungarian neo-Nazi paramilitary groups. And now, he’s on the vetting team for the Trump 2.0 nominees.
That leaves members of an actual shadow cabinet, led by Catholic activist and judicial kingmaker Leo Leonard, who bankrolled Project 2025, as well as Charles Koch and other right-wing billionaire donors. Leo is current co-chair of the Federalist Society and handpicked several of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court for Trump. He’s directed millions in dark money since 2022 to a majority of Project 2025’s advisory groups. Now, Leo is back in puppet master role here too, helping Vought and Paoletta and other lawyers who make up a majority of Cabinet picks.
One key goal: to find and place more conservatives in federal courts where the battle to come over the legality of Trump’s actions may end up. Leo’s ready. The present moment is another important step is Leo’s long game of wresting control of America’s judiciary and reshaping America law to reflect conservative Christian values.
Image: ShutterStock
The Cabinet and agency picks are also a piece of the plan to reshape the Executive Branch and give Trump unprecedented power to push through his agenda. There, the plan is fast unfolding to use Executive Orders and other directives to remove obstacles to placing loyalists in key offices and remove others. To do that, Trump plans to weaponize a resurrected Executive Order, Schedule F, and take other actions to put his picks in temporary “acting” positions so they can begin changing rules and firing people before Congress can stop them.
That battle is expected to start on “Day One” — January 20, 2025. So are a number of other Day One moves. For starters, Trump says he’ll pardon the January 6 insurrectionists, making it clear to all that, if anyone is worried about breaking the law, they shouldn’t be, because he’ll pardon them.
Already, then, Trump has made it clear: he’ll be a Day One dictator -- and that’s just the start.
For more, see Part Two: Day One and the 180-Day Resistance: Readying for Battle on what to expect on Day One of Trump 2.0 and the resistance moves of groups fighting back.
🆘 DAILY DEMOCRACY DISTRESS SIGNAL
Russell Vought and Trump’s Radical MAGA Agenda: A Christian Nationalist Coup in the Making
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Donald Trump isn’t assembling a cabinet—he’s unleashing a democracy demolition crew, with Russell Vought handed the wrecking ball as Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Don’t let the bureaucratic title lull you into complacency—the OMB is the nerve center of federal power, overseeing budgets, federal agencies, and the machinery of government itself. Under Vought, however, the OMB won’t run the government—it will dismantle it, advancing Trump’s radical MAGA agenda and a Christian nationalist crusade designed to bulldoze democracy and reshape America into their authoritarian image.
What is the OMB and Why Should You Care?
The OMB coordinates federal spending and ensures agencies execute their missions effectively and legally. It touches everything: healthcare, education, environmental protections, workplace safety—the services and safeguards most Americans depend on.
Now imagine that power in the hands of a man who doesn’t believe in governing but in waging ideological war. Under Vought, the OMB will become a political cudgel, gutting vital programs, warping federal agencies, and enforcing radicalism over reason.
Russell Vought: MAGA’s Mad Architect
Vought isn’t some mid-level technocrat—he’s the chief architect of Project 2025, Trump’s dystopian manifesto for consolidating presidential power. His “180-Day Playbook” is a how-to guide for dismantling democracy, featuring:
Hundreds of pre-written executive orders to bypass Congress entirely.
Plans to gut regulatory agencies, purge civil servants, and transform the government into a MAGA echo chamber.
A vision for imposing a Christian nationalist agenda that crushes pluralism and constitutional protections under its weight.
A Record of Radicalism—and Incompetence
Vought’s previous stint at the OMB is a cautionary tale of incompetence wrapped in extremism:
He diverted billions to fund Trump’s border wall boondoggle, a project that squandered taxpayer dollars on a half-finished vanity monument to MAGA xenophobia.
He withheld military aid to Ukraine, turning national security into a pawn for Trump’s personal vendettas.
He pushed Schedule F, a cynical plan to purge apolitical civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists, undermining federal agencies’ ability to function.
He advocated invoking the Insurrection Act, fantasizing about deploying military force against protesting Americans.
Radical Christian Nationalism: A Holy War on Democracy
At the core of Vought’s agenda lies an unholy marriage of MAGA authoritarianism and Christian nationalism:
He envisions Christianity as the dominant force in policymaking, relegating all other beliefs to second-class status.
He casts immigration and diversity as existential threats to what he calls “Christian civilization.”
He seeks to weaponize federal agencies to impose his exclusionary worldview, erasing decades of progress toward pluralism.
This isn’t governance—it’s a crusade against democracy, waged with the tools of government itself.
Why This Matters
The OMB impacts every aspect of your life. It funds programs, enforces laws, and ensures government functions. Under Vought, that office will become an authoritarian command center, siphoning taxpayer dollars into failed ideological projects like the border wall and stripping away protections Americans rely on daily.
Russell Vought’s return to the OMB is not just another Trump appointment—it’s a direct assault on democracy, governance, and inclusion. This isn’t about budgeting; it’s about reshaping America into a theocratic autocracy, where dissent is crushed, diversity is erased, and accountability is an afterthought.
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