Right-wing group recruiting for Trump's plan to tear down the federal government

Former President Donald Trump has been broadly reported to have a far-reaching plan to dismantle the merit-based organization of the federal government and replace it with an army of loyalists who will reshape everything in his image, should he win in 2024.

But he didn't come up with this plan alone. One of the GOP's most prominent longtime think tanks has helped craft the plan — and is actively recruiting people to join it, reported The Daily Beast on Tuesday.

"The coalition led by the Heritage Foundation think tank has already signed up hundreds of people as part of the effort dubbed 'Project 2025' — an unprecedented attempt to avoid the setbacks Donald Trump faced during his first term in office by having civic infrastructure immediately in place to allow a conservative president to begin implementing his or her political vision," reported Dan Ladden-Hall. "The Associated Press reports that the plan to eradicate what the GOP calls the 'deep state' would involve, in part, the firing of up to 50,000 current federal employees."

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Project 2025's director, Paul Dans, said, “We need to flood the zone with conservatives ... People need to lay down their tools and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.’”

Trump and the Heritage Foundation's plan to reshape federal government involves several steps. They propose eliminating the independence of agences like the Federal Communications Commission, giving the president direct control over leadership; doing away with post-Nixon bans on "impounding" funds appropriated by Congress, letting the president unilaterally defund disfavored agencies at will; and reclassifing thousands of federal employees to eliminate merit protections and let the president fire anyone who doesn't swear loyalty to them.

Trump had already been implementing a broad reclassification of federal workers in his final days of office, before the Biden administration reversed it.