I read the full 900-page Project 2025 manifesto - here’s why it matters

I printed out all 900-plus pages of Project 2025 in February on my home printer, stacking the unwieldy chapters on my desk. Bit by bit, each evening, I read my way through the plans that seek to dramatically alter each federal agency.

Most Americans who know about Project 2025 consume it in bite-size pieces, like Instagram infographics, or see the name on billboards. They hear politicians, like Vice-President Kamala Harris, mention it on stage - or former president Donald Trump disavow it in TV interviews. These attempt to neatly distill all the ways the document could upend the US government. For Democrats, Project 2025 has become a buzzword for the 2024 election, a shorthand way to warn voters what could be ahead if Trump wins again in November.

My own consumption of the project was not as piecemeal - I read the full conservative manifesto by the Heritage Foundation and its many rightwing allies. Here's what I learned from the document and all the controversy surrounding it.

Project 2025's policy guidebook, Mandate for Leadership, describes an America poisoned by "wokeness" and overtaken by lawlessness and chaos, where conservatives need to seize power immediately - and for as long as possible - to right a sinking ship.

The guide is just one part of the broader plan Project 2025 and Heritage had in mind to dismantle the government, recruit thousands of politically aligned people to staff an incoming Trump administration, and quickly guide the next president into the steps needed to accomplish their preferred policy changes.

Trump has claimed he does not know what it is or who is involved, though he does indeed know many of the people involved. Perhaps more importantly, his policy plans often align with what's in the project.

By seeking to influence Trump, the project - which counts more than 100 conservative groups as supporters and contributors - probably poisoned Heritage and its allies' chances of forming part of Trump's inner circle and potential next administration by claiming it could influence a man who hates to see himself as influenced by others. Other thinktanks that kept their hands clean of the power struggle could instead become more influential, though it would be difficult, or impossible, to staff thousands of political jobs with people who have no ties to Heritage or Project 2025.