THE CONSEQUENCES
What experts say Project 2025 means for democracy, public health, and American life.
Sources: Constitutional Scholars · Former Government Officials · Democracy Experts · Public Health Analysis
Project 2025 is a plan for an authoritarian takeover of the United States.— Ruth Ben-Ghiat — NYU scholar of fascism and authoritarian leaders, May 2024
Project 2025 is no longer a theoretical document. Fifty-three percent of its recommendations have been implemented or initiated within one year. The consequences are measurable and documented: 317,000 federal employees pushed out of government, vaccine policy reversed by an HHS Secretary whom 77 Nobel laureates warned was dangerous, over 700,000 projected excess deaths from the elimination of USAID, and the legal foundation for all federal climate regulation dismantled.
Constitutional scholars, democracy researchers, former government officials, and civil liberties organizations have reached a remarkably consistent assessment. The Brennan Center for Justice called it "a dangerous vision for the presidency." The ACLU warned it "promises to turn presidents into kings." Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NYU's leading scholar on fascism and authoritarianism, described it as "a plan for an authoritarian takeover of the United States."
The Expert
Consensus
Constitutional scholars, democracy researchers, civil liberties organizations, and former government officials have analyzed Project 2025's proposals and their implementation. Their assessments are remarkably consistent.
In Their
Own Words
What experts on democracy, authoritarianism, and constitutional law have concluded about Project 2025.
Project 2025 is a plan for an authoritarian takeover of the United States. The intent to abolish federal departments is to destroy the legal and governance cultures of liberal democracy and create new bureaucratic structures, staffed by new politically vetted cadres, to support autocratic rule.
If Project 2025 is implemented, what it means is a dramatic decrease in American citizens' ability to engage in public life based on the kind of principles of liberty, freedom and representation that are accorded in a democracy.
Project 2025 would destroy the U.S. system of checks and balances and create an imperial presidency. It is a 920-page road map for a future president to wield excessive power, trampling on Congress' constitutional role.
Project 2025 promises to harm our communities and turn presidents into kings.
The Democracy
Question
At its core, Project 2025 is built on the 'unitary executive theory' — the idea that the president should have near-total control over the entire executive branch, including agencies that have historically operated with independence.
• Placing all independent agencies (FCC, FTC, SEC, etc.) under direct presidential control
• Eliminating the independence of inspectors general — the government's internal watchdogs
• 'Sharply diminishing Congress' imperative role' as a check on executive power
• Making the DOJ an arm of the presidency
The Brennan Center for Justice described this as "a dangerous vision for the presidency" that would undermine the rule of law, separation of powers, separation of church and state, and civil liberties.
• Hungary (Orban): Systematic capture of independent institutions
• Turkey (Erdogan): Purging civil servants and replacing them with loyalists
• Russia: Eliminating media independence and press freedom
• Venezuela: Using democratic institutions to consolidate power
Scholars call this process 'executive aggrandizement' or 'democratic backsliding' — using democratic mechanisms to undermine democracy itself.
For 140 years, civil service protections ensured that government employees were hired and retained based on merit, not political loyalty. Schedule F reverses this for up to 50,000 positions — creating a system where career experts can be fired and replaced with political loyalists regardless of qualifications.
• Public broadcasting defunded — 1,500+ local stations affected
• FCC Chairman (P2025 author) investigating and threatening news networks
• DOJ authorized to force journalists to reveal sources
• NPR, PBS, CPB lost federal funding for the first time in history
A free press is a foundational check on government power. Defunding public media and pressuring private media simultaneously narrows the information environment.
"Project 2025 is a plan for an authoritarian takeover of the United States. The intent to abolish federal departments is to destroy the legal and governance cultures of liberal democracy and create new bureaucratic structures, staffed by new politically vetted cadres, to support autocratic rule.
— Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NYU Professor — Scholar of fascism and authoritarian leaders, May 2024
The Human
Cost
Project 2025's implementation has had measurable consequences for public health — from vaccine policy reversals to the elimination of foreign aid that sustained millions of lives.
• Fired the entire 17-member CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — the expert body that has guided U.S. vaccine policy for decades
• Installed vaccine skeptics as replacements
• New committee declined to recommend COVID-19 shots for anyone
• Reversed hepatitis B recommendation for newborns
• Directed CDC to abandon its position that vaccines don't cause autism — with no new scientific evidence
• Terminated $500M in mRNA vaccine development contracts
Nine former CDC directors — from both Republican and Democratic administrations — said Kennedy was 'endangering' the nation's health.
• An internal memo projected hundreds of thousands of excess deaths
• A Boston University model estimated over 700,000 excess deaths by January 2026
• Decades of HIV/AIDS treatment programs (PEPFAR) disrupted
• Malaria prevention, maternal health, and disaster response programs eliminated
• Global food assistance programs cut
These were not theoretical programs. They were active interventions keeping people alive.
• Healthcare policy changes affecting LGBTQ+ individuals
• Trans healthcare coverage restrictions
• Canceled $800M+ in LGBTQ+ health research grants
• Title X family planning restrictions underway
The Mandate also calls for revoking FDA approval of mifepristone and enforcing the 1873 Comstock Act to create a de facto national abortion ban — proposals that have not yet been fully enacted.
The Environmental
Consequences
Project 2025's climate and environmental proposals are among the most aggressively implemented — with the goal of dismantling the entire regulatory framework for addressing climate change.
In August 2025, the EPA published a formal proposal to repeal the endangerment finding and all greenhouse gas vehicle emission standards that rely on it.
If finalized, this would eliminate the legal foundation for virtually every federal climate regulation — air quality standards, vehicle emissions limits, power plant rules, and more.
• ~800 employees fired in a single day
• Nearly 400 climate scientists terminated
• NOAA's tracking of billion-dollar weather disasters ended
• Proposed budget would eliminate the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
NOAA provides the weather forecasts, hurricane tracking, and climate data that Americans rely on daily. Gutting it doesn't change the climate — it changes what we know about the climate.
This includes expanded fossil fuel leasing, reduced environmental protections, and rollbacks of conservation measures on federal lands.
The FEMA memo banning climate-related words — including 'changing climate,' 'climate resilience,' and 'net zero' — from official documents illustrates the approach: if you can't see the words, the problem doesn't exist.
What Hasn't
Happened Yet
53% of Project 2025's recommendations have been implemented or initiated. That means 47% remain — including some of the most consequential proposals.
The Guttmacher Institute notes this would affect medication abortion, which now accounts for the majority of abortions in the United States. This recommendation has not yet been fully enacted.
• Privatizing the National Weather Service
• Eliminating the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)
• Further gutting or restructuring EPA, NOAA, HHS
Congressional action is required for permanent agency elimination. Some restructuring is proceeding through executive action and budget cuts.
The Mandate envisions a DOJ that operates as a direct extension of presidential authority, with the FBI, the Civil Rights Division, and federal prosecutors answerable to the White House.
This is not a theoretical exercise. 317,000 federal workers lost their jobs. Vaccine policy was reversed. Foreign aid was eliminated. Climate science infrastructure was gutted. Press freedom was narrowed. And 47% of the blueprint's recommendations have not yet been implemented.