Project 2025, the plan produced by Trump allies at the Heritage Foundation that would radically expand the powers of the presidency under a second Trump term, has created great alarm among many progressive politicians and commentators.
However, historian Rick Perlstein recently read through the plan and found something else contained within alongside the alarming authoritarian plans: Sheer incompetence.
Writing in The American Prospect, Perlstein breaks down parts of Project 2025 that he's found are so incoherent that they will be impossible to implement.
"Consider the part on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in the chapter on the Department of Homeland Security, bylined by OG MAGA superfreak (and former Trump DHS official) Ken Cuccinelli," writes Perlstein. "I turned it over for review to an acquaintance with 16 years’ experience devising disaster management plans for states and municipalities. They immediately spotted that one budget recommendation contradicts another, such that the first (intended to defund humanitarian functions at the border, naturally) would be 'useless if both recommendations were to carry.' Also, they said this: 'The reorganization recommendations are 100% insane. CISA in DOT? FEMA in DOI? Shewwww!'"
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Perlstein also argues that the document is full of such contradictions that can be exploited by a clever political opponent.
"These are great, big, blinking red 'LOOK AT ME' advertisements of vulnerabilities within the conservative coalition," he argued. "Wedge issues. Opportunities to split Republicans at their most vulnerable joints... bottom line, this is a complicated document. 'Conservatives in Disarray' is precisely the opposite message from that conveyed by all the coverage of Project 2025. But it is an important component of this complexity, and why this text should be picked apart, not panicked over, and studied both for the catastrophes it portends and the potential it provides."
The historian then paraphrases a quote from George C. Scott's portrayal of General George Patton when he gloated over defeating the Nazis during a battle in World War II: "Heritage Foundation, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!"
