By Luca Gutzwiller

On Tuesday, Nov. 5, Donald J. Trump was elected by the electoral and popular vote to be the President of the United States. The question the election has raised is what is going to happen to our country under Trump? While Trump’s official policy plan according to him is Agenda 47, many people also have concerns about another conservative policy plan, Project 2025 by the Heritage Foundation. 

Trump has said that he has no ties with the project, but with multiple former cabinet members of the Trump administration working on it, people are dubious about such a statement. 

For this reason, it’s important to analyze both documents, compare and contrast them to be as prepared as possible for a second Trump presidency.

One such goal of both plans is to prevent illegal immigration through a border wall and carry out mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. Trump claims that deporting illegal immigrants will solve problems such as the housing and drug crises and inflation. A common counterargument to Trump is that he actually did little to increase border security and ended up deporting immigrants who were in the United States legally.

Another promise made by both sources is to ban biological men (transgender women) from competing in women’s sports. A prominent criticism faced by transgender women hoping to compete in ways that validate their gender identity is that while a lot of transgender women look the part, they have unfair genetic advantages. These could include being bigger, stronger, having testosterone, having a higher lung capacity, and higher bone density. Most people agree with that stance, but a common criticism of cracking down on transgender athletes in women’s sports is that this isn’t actually a problem and Trump should focus more on real political issues.

One of Trump’s most controversial plans involves optimizing government spending. Agenda 47 claims it will cut federal funding for schools with liberal agendas, teaching “critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content…” Trump has also proposed a new government agency called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that will be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Republicans want to cut federal spending because they believe the government as of now is wasting a lot of money.

Project 2025 concurs with Trump, with their plan hoping to “make federal bureaucrats more accountable to the democratically elected President and Congress.” Pages 78 and 79 of the 2025 Mandate for Leadership argues for “a freeze on all top career-position hiring to prevent ‘burrowing-in’ by outgoing political appointees… increase the weight given to performance over time-of-service… A determined President should insist that performance be first and be wary of costly types of reductions-in-force.” What both Trump and Project 2025 are advocating for is cutting federal spending by firing a large portion of federal employees and/or restructuring agencies based on performance to save money and optimize the bureaucracy. What many Americans are most concerned about is the potential for corruption if Trump sees “performance” as “loyalty” when picking employees to replace the ones laid off. Trump may use his newfound power with his loyal bureaucracy and try to implement policies such as banning abortion and shutting down important government agencies like the Department of Education, along with federal student aid that help finance higher education to students today, leading to fewer students growing into educated adults.

Trump may very well have nothing to do with Project 2025, but the way it looks is that they have the same goals either way. Americans should be fully prepared for conservative policies that were proposed in Project 2025 as being on the table of consideration for the future. Donald Trump also holds a Republican Congress in his hand for at least two years, and Democrats, or any American who strongly opposes him should be focusing on not only shooting down Trump policies in the present, but gaining support for the Midterm elections two years in the future.