Earlier this year we learned that the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank in Washington, is spearheading a project to staff a future Trump administration with tens of thousands of pre-vetted appointees, who would be tasked with “dismantling the administrative state from day one.” On Monday, Axios published details about what the vetting process looks like, and it appears custom-tailored to generate an army of mindless Trump loyalists.
Heritage’s initiative, called Project 2025, has a reported budget of over $20 million, and it is designed to help Trump transform the federal government overnight if he wins the 2024 election. During his first term, Trump was routinely hamstrung in executing policies and abusing power because he either failed to fill key bureaucratic positions or he was foiled by resistant appointees. This time Trump allies are focused on gutting the federal government’s existing bureaucracy and replacing it with sycophants.
To ensure loyalty, Project 2025 has opted for hammers rather than scalpels.
Heritage helped Trump with staff members hired during his first term; Johnny McEntee, who was director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump, is a senior adviser to the project. Heritage’s president told Axios that the project is “orders of magnitude” larger than any other such project for a party out of power. If Trump were to win, it could cause a major rupture in the way the federal government operates.
To ensure loyalty, Project 2025 has opted for hammers rather than scalpels. Heritage has contracted out Oracle to use artificial intelligence to screen loyalists, and the social media feeds of potential hires are being surveilled as part of the vetting process. There aren’t many details about how AI is being used to screen applicants, but Axios reports that social media feeds are being given “intense attention” and that applicants “queasy about testing the limits of Trump’s power will get flagged and rejected.” It also seems possible that Trump-affirming commentary could result in an algorithmic boost.
With this knowledge, one can imagine how applicants might contort themselves to appeal to the administration. If I were an applicant to serve in Trump’s administration, I would scrub anything in my timeline that could be construed as remotely anti-Trump out of fear that it could eject me from the process. I might also be inspired to repeatedly share praise for Trump to stand out in the algorithm.
Now, the reality is that many people who would serve in a second Trump administration may not have to change much about their social media presences, given the cultish proclivities of his long-term followers. But it’s worth observing how the application process is effectively asking people to behave as Trump-obsessed automatons prior to serving in a possible future administration.
The 2025 Project personnel application is also designed to screen for MAGA devotees. The application includes many blunt questions about applicants’ political orientations, asking about their beliefs on issues like abortion, trade, immigration, racism and labor unions. It even requires applicants to select what kind of conservative they identify as through a drop-down menu of answers (traditional, fiscal, social, etc.). Many people who want to serve in a future Trump administration are likely to have a lot of conservative beliefs that align with Trump’s. But this application cues applicants to at least outwardly conform to specific worldviews that align most neatly with Trump’s, and it incentivizes intellectual homogeneity and deference to leadership. On a number of occasions, applicants are asked to list living political figures they admire. One can’t help but wonder whether applicants who list Trump in at least some of these responses could be more likely to be rewarded in the hiring process.
The application does include a prompt for applicants to attach their résumés. But by and large the bulk of the questionaire is an ideological screening project, not a tool for understanding the experience and expertise of applicants.
It’s not surprising that Trump would value loyalty over expertise. But it is alarming that seasoned and well-financed conservatives are helping him bring his vision to fruition. A cadre of slavish acolytes can potentially turbo-charge his capacity to wreak havoc in office.