white house — “If I’m elected president, we are going to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.,” vowed Donald Trump – in 2016. Eight years later, in his quest for a second, non-consecutive term, “drain the swamp” – meaning to rid government of those who impose policy but are unaccountable to the president – is still a key Trump campaign slogan. If the Republican is victorious in November, he will have a detailed playbook for placing the entire federal bureaucracy under his direct control. What is essentially a manual for how to swing a wrecking ball at the administrative apparatus of government, which Trump has decried as the “deep state,” has been written with the cooperation of more than 100 conservative organizations. The 922-page handbook, known as Project 2025, was organized and published by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. “Project 2025 is a plan to execute what amounts to a comprehensive authoritarian takeover of American government,” wrote Thomas Zimmer, a Georgetown University visiting professor, in his Democracy Americana blog. “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless — if the left allows it to be,” said Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts in a recent appearance on a right-wing podcast, The War Room with Stephen K. Bannon. After Roberts’ incendiary comment, Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025, in a somewhat contradictory posting on his Truth Social platform. He asserted that while he knew “nothing” about Project 2025 and its authors, “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying.” Many of those who wrote Project 2025’s chapters, however, were key appointees in Trump’s administration. Some are reportedly assisting the Trump re-election effort behind the scenes. Several have also popped up in a recruitment video for Project 2025’s online “Presidential Administration Academy,” which is recruiting and training loyalists. The plan calls for restoring Schedule F, which briefly existed at the end of the Trump administration, a classification that made positions in the civil service more easily filled by loyalists to the president. Tens of thousands of appointees could then fan out across government agencies to implement far-right priorities, such as detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants, dismantling social safety nets, infusing Christian values and ethics into government policy, eliminating LGBTQ+ rights, directing the Justice Department to prosecute anti-white racism and banning pornography. On reproductive rights, including abortion, Project 2025 outlines far stricter restrictions than even Trump or … “Playbook for controlling government bureaucracy prepared for Trump” →