No. of Recommendations: 3
Given Trump’s already documented proclivity to try and weaponize government for his own purposes, I think Project 2025 will resonate with more than the Democrat base (to which I add, there isn’t much downside to firing up your base).
Seems unlikely.
Again, Project 2025 isn't a Trump joint. Heritage undertook it as an effort to make themselves relevant again after Trump upended the party platform in his first term, and didn't end up going away. So they took a whole bunch of stuff that Trump was already in favor of (draconian immigration restrictions, lower taxes, general anti-regulatory stuff), and fused that in with a whole bunch of stuff they</b wanted even if Trump opposed it (a nationwide abortion ban, criminalizing pornography, cutting Social Security and Medicare), and published it as their organization's new creed.
It's not anything Trump signed off on, and I intensely doubt he was ever even aware it existed before it was done and Heritage started to try to drum up publicity about it so they could seem both: i) sufficiently Trump-y now; and ii) relevant again after their prior positions became apostasy.
So yes, there's stuff in Project 2025 that Trump supports - because the people who wrote Project 2025 wanted it to line up with stuff that Trump already supported. None of that is new or surprising or anything that Trump believes because he's following Project 2025 - it's completely the reverse, with Project 2025 cribbing from Trump's longstanding positions. The stuff that's in Project 2025 that's not stuff that Trump already believed and wanted to do on his own anyway has no real chance of changing Trump's thinking at all. Again, this isn't anything Trump was involved with or particularly wants, and he's not going to spend one iota of his political capital to help out Heritage (or anyone else not named Trump).
I mean, he literally just this week savaged the GOP party platform to move away from Project 2025 on a host of issues. He took out the nationwide abortion ban language. He put in a renewed commitment to social security and Medicare.
So, no - I don't think that there's much chance that the Democrats can use "Project 2025" as a useful political weapon, outside of enraging and alarming their base. Yes, that can be worthwhile as a tactic for winning elections - but it's not the issue that you want to center in your general election campaign outreach to the persuadable voters.
