‘The left should be very afraid of what a second Trump term might bring’

A Trump victory in November will not only pose a serious threat to a newly-elected Labour government’s ambitions on foreign policy, trade and climate change. It will also embolden the populist right internationally, not least in the UK itself.

It’s certainly not inconceivable that Keir Starmer as Prime Minister could find himself in the difficult position of having to maintain diplomatic relations with Donald Trump in Washington at the same time as being challenged by a Conservative Party opposition at home led by the Republican President’s friend and ally, Nigel Farage.

US conservatives are intensely preparing for a second Trump term

So, how bad will a Trump Presidency be? After all, for all the noise and drama, America survived his first administration, and while the institutions of government came under threat, not least from the storming of the Capitol building on January 6th, they just about held up. Perhaps a more telling answer is that provided by many of Trump’s allies and political supporters.

For most of America’s leading conservatives, the first Trump term was a missed opportunity to reshape their country. For them, the lack of preparation, administrative chaos and policy incoherence blunted its impact and allowed the federal government machine – the famed “deep state” – to resist and repel radical change. It’s a mistake they are determined to avoid a second time around.

So, for more than two years, The Heritage Foundation, an influential right-wing think tank established in the 1970s, has been leading work to unite the conservative movement behind a programme of action for a future Trump administration to implement from the moment he is inaugurated at 12 noon on January 20th next year.

Led by aides of the former President when last in office, the Foundation’s ‘Project 2025‘ has brought together hundreds of right-wing academics, policy specialists and political strategists to work on a plan for a Republican White House covering every area of policy and operations.

And it is backed by more than 100 organisations – from Christian nationalists to economic liberals, anti-immigration groups to pro-life campaigners – who have come together to support, in the words of Heritage’s founder, Edwin J Feulner, “a mandate to significantly advance conservative principles”.

The result is an extraordinary document called Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. Running to almost 900 pages, this is not a vague manifesto or statement of general principles. Nor is it a secret effort to obscure the true intentions of what we can expect if Trump wins in November.

‘Project 2025’ outlines radical change to the way the US is governed

Published last year and freely available to those with the stomach to digest it, it is a detailed blueprint for power with a clear and stated aim to reverse “the long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions” and to “restore our Republic to its original moorings”.

It promises sweeping change of the federal government “behemoth”, which it says has been “weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before”. In doing so, it takes aim at a range of threats it claims threaten America’s future and constitution – from transgender rights to action against climate change, from woke education to globalisation, from Big Tech and large corporations to illegal immigration.

Two clear and defined enemies – China and the American elites “who have betrayed the American people” – lurk behind these growing threats, according to Project 2025, and the coming election is the last chance to change fundamentally the way the US is governed to defeat them.

“The solution to all of the above problems,” it says, “is not to tinker with this or that government program, to replace this or that bureaucrat. These are problems not of technocratic efficiency but of national sovereignty and constitutional governance. We solve them not by trimming and reshaping the leaves but by ripping out the trees – root and branch.”

To do so needs more than radical policies though, and Project 2025 are embarked on a deliberate effort to recruit sufficient numbers of conservative activists willing and able to take up positions in the Trump administration to drive through this cultural revolution. You can even submit your CV via its website, and the best applicants will be trained and vetted for the vital task ahead.

Presidents normally get to make up to 4,000 political appointments to government positions on entering office. But Trump, if elected, appears determined to go much further to ensure the federal system bends to his will.

By restoring an executive order known as Schedule F, signed two weeks before the 2020 election and subsequently rescinded by President Biden, tens of thousands of career civil servants across a range of departments and agencies could be purged and replaced with “America First” loyalists.

Labour will be praying the election goes Biden’s way

America’s conservatives are intent on breaking the system for good, and they are organising to do so. They are not willing to countenance another Republican failure, as they see it, and are unapologetic that a second Trump Presidency will undoubtedly have far-reaching consequences for America and the world.

Democrats are, of course, hoping that such a radical threat to the system posed by Trump and his MAGA movement will scare floating voters to back the incumbent when the election comes in November, and it’s true that many moderate Republicans will either stay at home or hold their nose and support Biden.

Yet with Trump still ahead in key swing states and public confidence in federal government at an all-time low – only one in six Americans trust it to do the right thing – this is a high-risk electoral strategy.

A lot can and will happen over the next seven months, and while keeping schtum publicly, Labour will be praying the election goes Biden’s way in November. Politics is certainly not going to be pretty in the US before November. But that may be nothing compared to what might follow.

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