Powerful, well-funded allies of Donald Trump are testing followers on the depths of their far right ideology in order to determine their loyalty to the former president — and build an ideological army to help carry out Trump and his team’s authoritarian agenda, new reporting finds.
Officials familiar with the plan told Axios that Trump allies are screening ideologies of thousands of people in hopes of recruiting a legion of up to 54,000 followers who could work in a future Trump administration and potentially serve the cause in other ways. This includes 20,000 people to serve in the administration, and replacing as many as 50,000 federal workers in “policy-adjacent” roles.
These followers would be instrumental in Trump and his allies’ conspiracy to orchestrate a complete takeover of the federal government, concentrating more power in the executive branch than ever before seen, as part of the far right’s Heritage Foundation-backed Project 2025. The power concentrated under the president — and his administration of ideological sycophants — would be unprecedented.
The group is fielding applications from those wishing to serve in the next administration and says that it has already added over 4,000 people to its “Presidential Personnel Database.” The project has contracted tech giant Oracle in order to use artificial intelligence to aid in screening.
The screening process is focused intensely on applicants’ ideological beliefs and less interested in their professional qualifications, despite the goal of having them serve in high-powered positions. This test is rigorous and essentially requires total fealty to Trump.
“Those queasy about testing the limits of Trump’s power will get flagged and rejected,” Axios reporters wrote.
Applicants will have their social media history thoroughly vetted, and also have to pass an ideological test quizzing their views on various conservative priorities, like the power afforded to the United Nations, whether or not the U.S. should reject immigrants based on their nationality, or whether private school vouchers should be expanded. Other questions include asking applicants to name a person and book that have most affected their political philosophy, as well as name “one living public policy figure whom you greatly admire and why.”
Project 2025, hatched up by the Heritage Foundation, is well-funded and has the backing of over 80 right-wing organizations, including prominent extremist ones like the Alliance Defending Freedom, ALEC, and Turning Point USA. The plot has been described as “an authoritarian roadmap to dismantling a thriving, inclusive democracy for all” by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, and indeed resembles a plot to install a totalitarian dictatorship led by Trump, historians and commentators have said.
This fealty for Trump wouldn’t stop within the governments’ ranks, if Trump’s recent comments are any indication. In a Truth Social post and in a speech on Veteran’s Day over the weekend, Trump vowed to “root out” the “Communists, Marxists, Fascist and Radical Left Thugs” — who he described as “vermin” — out of the country. Many experts pointed out that his extremist rhetoric resembles rhetoric used by dictators like Adolf Hitler.
If Trump has his way and the Project 2025 head-hunting scheme is successful, the government would be full of tens of thousands of people who agree that left-wing Americans should be purged and who would help carry out a new repressive wave of McCarthyism in the 21st century.
Urgent! We have a limited amount of time
Truthout has launched a crucial fundraising campaign to support our work. We have 7 days to raise $42,000.
Every single day, our team is reporting deeply on complex political issues: revealing wrongdoing in our so-called justice system, tracking global attacks on human rights, unmasking the money behind right-wing movements, and more. Your donation at this moment is critical, allowing us to do this core journalistic work.
Help safeguard what’s left of our democracy. Please make a tax-deductible gift before time runs out.