Donald Trump’s ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.         

This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election. 

Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace existing federal civil servants.

Under Project 2025:

• Republicans consider federal employees to be subversives who comprise the “deep state.”
• Replacing tenured civil servants with thousands of political hacks will arm Republicans with the power to establish an absolute dictatorship under the next Republican president.
• Republicans believe the Department of Justice has “forfeited the trust” of the American people by investigating Donald Trump’s proven collaboration with Russia to win the 2016 Presidential election.
• As a result, the DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
• The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.   

Seal of the Justice Department

• Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
• The Department of Homeland Security would be abolished.
• The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
• States would be prevented from adopting stricter regulations on vehicular emissions, like California has done. 
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” would be abolished.
• Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished. 
• Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
• Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
• The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
• Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
• Abortion would be outlawed.
• Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.
• Christianity would be designated as the official religion of the United States—the way Islam is designated as the official religion of Saudi Arabia.
• The use of capital punishment would be revived and expanded—and the right of appeals sharply restricted.  

Trump has prospered by slandering Democrats as “Marxists,” “Socialists” and “Communists.” And other Republicans have also deployed the terms. Yet he has repeatedly expressed admiration for such brutal Communist dictators as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un and China’s Xi Jinping.

In a closed-door speech to Republican donors on March 3, 2018, then-President Trump had revealed his ultimate intention: To overthrow America’s constitutional government. 

He praised China’s President, Xi Jinping, for recently assuming full dictatorial powers: “He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.” 

The statement was greeted with cheers and laughter by Republican donors. 

He has lavishly praised Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, such as during his appearance on the December 18, 2015 edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: 

“He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country”—-a reference to then-President Barack Obama. 

During a February, 2017 interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, Trump defended Putin’s killing of political opponents.  

O’Reilly: “But he’s a killer.”

Trump: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”    

Another Communist dictator he has lavishly praised is North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. Asked by a Fox News reporter why he did so, he replied:  

“He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father…If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that.” 

in short: Kim must be doing something right, because he’s in power. And it doesn’t matter how he came to power—or the price his country is paying for it. 

Asked about his relationship with Kim, Trump infamously said: “[Kim] wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”

Upon taking office as the Nation’s 45th President, Donald Trump attacked or undermined one public or private institution after another.

Among these:

• American law enforcement agencies: Trump repeatedly attacked his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for not “protecting” him from agents pursuing the Russia investigation.
• On November 8, 2018, Trump abruptly fired him, following Democrats’ winning control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.
• He intended to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election during the summer of 2017, but was talked out of it by aides fearful that it would set off calls for his impeachment.
• When FBI Director James Comey dared to pursue a probe into “the Russia thing,” Trump fired him without warning. 

“I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
—Tony Montana, “Scarface”   

“Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore.”    

On July 26, former President and Presidential candidate Donald Trump confirmed—intentionally or unintentionally—that the fears of his enemies were correct. If he won office for a second time, he would act as the all-powerful dictator he has long lusted to be.

And which he nearly became in 2020, after refusing to accept the outcome of a legitimate Presidential election where former Vice President Joe Biden got more votes than he did.

The site of his confession was the Turning Point Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida. To his audience of evangelical Christians, Trump announced: 

“You gotta get out and vote. Just this time. In four years you don’t have to vote, OK? In four years don’t vote, I don’t care. But we’ll have it all straightened out, so it’ll be much different.  

“Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more years. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine! You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians! I’m a Christian.

“I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

Why would they not have to vote again? Because Trump would be President until he died.

Donald Trump at Turning Point Believers’ Summit

From the moment Trump declared his candidacy for the Presidency on June 15, 2015, throughout his four years in office and the Presidential campaign of 2024, much of the mainstream media repeatedly ignored the threats he posed.

But Trump’s comments at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit grabbed attention from the nation’s most important news media. Among these:

• MSN Metro
• Reuters
• CBS News
• The New York Times
• Mother Jones
• News Nation
• USA Today
• Newsweek
• The Hill
• CNN
• National Public Radio
• The Washington Post 

Democrats pounced on Trump’s statements. Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement of her own: “When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it.” 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who had presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial, wrote: “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.” 

Naturally Trump’s campaign disagreed: “President Trump was talking about the importance of faith, uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American, as opposed to the divisive political environment that has sowed so much division and even resulted in an assassination attempt.” 

In fact, it was Donald Trump who had created “the divisive political environment.” On July 31 he appeared at the National Association of Black Journalists—to falsely accuse Kamala Harris of misleading voters about her race:

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” 

As for the motives for Thomas Matthew Crooks’ July 13 assassination attempt on Trump: A vigorous FBI investigation has revealed him as an intelligent loner with few friends, a thin social media presence and no strong political beliefs offering a motive for his action.

Officially, now that Trump has won a second term in the White House, he can—by law—serve only four years. But Trump has spent his entire life defying the law—including when he was President.

His most egregious offense came after he lost the 2020 Presidential election: He refused to accept his defeat, refused to leave office, tried to pressure states to “find” non-existent Electoral College votes for him, and finally incited a violent riot against Congress to stop the Electoral Vote count.

Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building

Tyler Merbler from USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

In May, 2024, speaking at a National Rifle Association gathering, Trump “joked” about serving more than two terms as president.

He referred to the four-term, 12-year Presidency of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the only president to serve more than two terms. The two-term limit was added after Roosevelt’s death.

“You know, FDR, 16 years—almost 16 years—he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” 

By raising the question of “three terms,” Trump was resurrecting The Big Lie: That he won the 2020 Presidential campaign but was cheated of victory by massive voter fraud. 

In fact, Trump’s  ambition to become absolute dictator fits brilliantly into the goals of Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project.

This is a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 Presidential election.

Established in 2022 by the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers to the District of Columbia to replace heretofore protected federal civil servants.