When most of us first heard about Project 2025 before the presidential election, it seemed too outlandish to bother with. After all, even Donald Trump claimed he would have nothing to do with it. It was easy to dismiss it as just another conspiracy theory.

Unfortunately, we don't have that comfort anymore. The first months of Trump's presidency have made it clear that Project 2025 is his real agenda. So if we want to better understand what is coming, it is worth reading this book. The author, an expert in this topic, not only summarizes the main thesis of Project 2025, but also puts it into a broader context.

Thanks to the publisher, Random House, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Before the latest run of Donald Trump for a second term I stumbled on the perplexing tome of the Heritage Foundation: Project 2025. This is a blueprint for the future of which Trump said he had no knowledge, had not read and was not tied to in any way. I found it troubling, as many individuals from his inner circle were authors or contributors to various sections.

As it turns out after the election most of the executive orders signed by Trump are drawn nearly verbatim from this document. How DJT is playing the hit man for the Heritage Foundation’s aim to dismantle the federal government from within is the overall topic of David A. Graham's book, The Project.

Graham is an award winning journalist for The Atlantic magazine. He’s given us an expose of The Heritage Foundation which operates as a conservative think tank. It’s been with us since the early 70’s and has had a finger in backroom American politics since then. Reagan embraced their Mandate for Leadership in the implementation of his trickle-down theory. Its goal is to pack every aspect of our government with their own ideologues. This includes politicians, jurists, and educators, in fact there is not any aspect of American life they’re not prepared to infiltrate with their 4-pronged plan.

They want to restore family values which seems like a thinly veiled way to embrace Christianity for all, to dismantle the administrative state, to close borders, and to secure our “God-given individual rights” and the “blessings of liberty”. Project 2025 attacks the “administrative state” which is the term they use for most of the federal bureaucracy.

Graham covers the what, who, when, why and where of the current template of Project 2025. He breaks down the nearly 1,000 page document into digestible segments that the lay person can understand. The book gives you the ammunition you need to debate with your friends and neighbors who have been bamboozled with the Trump/Musk veil of lies. Knowledge is power. This may be the most important book you can read this year.

On a personal note – I’ve lived through many administrations starting with FDR. Some good, some bad, but none have been ugly until this grab at authoritarianism by Trump and his band of marauders, hell bent on destroying our Madisonian Democracy - where each branch of government should be in sync and balanced by each other. Graham’s The Project leaves me numb.