Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Neither is the condition of the conservative movement.
If a Republican enters the Oval Office in 2025, whether it’s Donald J. Trump or someone else, there is a good chance that president will turn to the same electronic database to staff the White House and federal agencies.
Think of it as a right-wing LinkedIn. This so-called Project 2025 — part of a $22 million presidential transition operation at a scale never attempted before in conservative politics — is being led by the Heritage Foundation, a group that has been staffing Republican administrations since the Reagan era.
Heritage usually compiles its own personnel lists, and spends far less doing so. But for this election, after conservatives and Mr. Trump himself decried what they viewed as terrible staffing decisions made during his administration, more than 50 conservative groups have temporarily set aside rivalries to team up with Heritage on the project, set to start Friday.
They have already identified several thousand potential recruits and have set a goal of having up to 20,000 potential administration officials in their database by the end of 2024, according to Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage. Heritage has contracted the technology company Oracle to build a secure personnel database, Dr. Roberts said.
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Mr. Trump wants to demolish that career civil service — or what he pejoratively calls “the deep state.” He has privately told allies that if he gets back into power he plans to fire far more than the 4,000 government officials that presidents are typically allowed to replace. Mr. Trump’s lawyers already have the legal instrument in hand.
In late 2020, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that would establish a new employment category for federal workers, called “Schedule F.” Barely anyone noticed because the order was developed in strict secrecy over more than a year and issued only two weeks before the 2020 election.
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Mr. Trump’s staff estimated that Schedule F would give the president the power to terminate and replace as many as 50,000 career government officials who served in roles that influenced federal policy.
