Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Remember that moniccker – Project 2025?

It was a long summary outlining how right-wing activists would take over the federal government.

At the time the report was published during the last presidential campaign, Donald Trump disavowed any connection to it.

Of course, now as president, he is implementing it…in spades, fluent with his vision of himself as an autocrat in charge of everything.

Here is how Atlantic Magazine writer David Graham wrote about Project 2025 this week:

“A year ago, no one knew for sure whether Project 2025 would prove to be influential or if it would fall by the wayside, like so many plans in Trump’s first term.  Today, it stands as the single most successful policy initiative of the entire Trump era.

“Project 2025, which was convened by the Heritage Foundation during the Trump interregnum, was not just one thing:  It was a policy white paper, an implementation plan, a recruitment database, and a worldview, all rolled into one.

“The authors sought to create an agenda for the next right-wing president that would allow him to empower the Executive Branch, sideline Congress, and attack the civil service.  The resulting politicized, quasi-monarchical government would enact policies that would move the United States toward a traditionalist christian society (and note that I did not capitalize the word Christian because, in Trump world, that word does not apply in any real sense).”

In the 11 months since he took office, Graham reports that Trump has closely followed many parts of Project 2025, finally embracing it by name in October.

From Graham:

“Both Trump and the plan’s architects have benefited:  His second administration has been far more effective at achieving its goals than his first, and the thinkers behind Project 2025 have achieved what Paul Dans, one of its leaders, described as ‘way beyond his ‘wildest dreams.’

“Project 2025’s biggest victory has been an extraordinary presidential power grab, which has allowed Trump to act in ways that previous presidents have only fantasized about, and to act with fewer restraints.  He has laid off tens of thousands of federal employees, sometimes in defiance of laws.

“Elsewhere, the administration has slashed environmental regulations, withdrawn from a major international climate agreement, undermined renewable energy, and worked to encourage oil and gas drilling on public land.

“It has discarded key civil-rights-enforcement methods, dismantled anything that might be construed as DEI, and set the agenda for aggressive immigration policies, not just closing the border to many foreign nationals and deporting unauthorized immigrants, but also cracking down on valid-visa holders and seeking to denaturalize citizens.”

So, in all this, where is Congress?

The answer?  Nowhere.

Those in Congress have ceded almost all power to Trump and the Supreme Court has done the same.

More from Graham:

“The administration has dabbled in impounding funds appropriated by Congress, despite a law barring this.  It has also mounted a major assault on the independence of regulatory agencies, as established by Congress; Trump has fired multiple appointees, sometimes in apparent violation of law, but the Supreme Court has allowed him to proceed.”

For Graham – and, by extension, for me – two questions remain.

1. How far will right-wingers who support Project 2025 go to implement more of its agenda?  One problem is that some of the proposed changes will not be popular with voters and that could impose realities in the mid-term elections.
2. Will right-wingers worry that, if a Democrat wins the 2028 election, he or she will inherit Project 2025 White House powers, under, of course, a different label?

I’ll be interested in the answers to both questions.