Leaked documents reveal deep, dangerous far-right ideological undercurrents among the applicants to Project 2025. This project, begun by the Heritage Foundation, is designed to bring a conservative-leaning cohort of candidates together for key posts in a new administration. Since the beginning of 2024, the project faced several high-impact cybersecurity breaches. These events have raised profound questions about its internal security and vetting process for applicants.
Joe Amato, a member of Project 2025’s advisory board, is one of those to have played a role in that effort. Other applicants have had a pointed fascination with controversial characters, as per the leaked documents. This alarming trend can be expected to have an outsized influence on our future political landscape.
Cybersecurity Incidents and Their Implications
Since the middle of 2024, Project 2025 has been overwhelmed with potential cybersecurity breaches, calling into question the security of its system. In light of these breaches, serious concerns have been raised. They ask for greater protection of sensitive information and improved security procedures at the Heritage Foundation.
Those incidents in sum threaten the privacy of all applicant information. It’s troubling because it highlights what these vulnerabilities could mean for the selection process for future administrations to come. Critics have claimed that such lapses leave the door open for extremist ideologies to take hold in places of power and authority within government.
Project 2025 is working hard to meet all of these daunting challenges. Stakeholders fret about the impact on both their project and on the broader political atmosphere. The prospect of far-right influences in a new administration is frightening. Those who advocate for democratic principles and greater inclusivity in government should be particularly alarmed.
Far-Right Ideologies Among Applicants
The leaked Project 2025 documents show that this dangerous trend is going in the wrong direction. Other applicants are unabashed fans of such luminaries as Jared Taylor, a leader of the white nationalist movement. A few candidates, such as Paul Ingrassia, a former White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, alluded to the concepts of Carl Schmitt. Schmitt was a controversial political theorist known for his authoritarian, antidemocratic theories.
Ingrassia’s application was filled with incendiary quotes that displayed an all out hostile agenda against the political Left.
“Given that the Left is waging an all out war against the Right, we must remember this distinction in all our actions. No Leftist or Democrat is our friend, nor any Republicans who oppose the America First agenda.” – Paul Ingrassia
It wasn’t just Winner who expressed admiration for authoritarian strongmen such as El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele—the other applicants did as well. This was the take of House administration committee GOP staffer Justin Henle, who has similarly praised Bukele’s autocratic style of governance.
“Bukele has shown the world that morality is objective, that societies which understand this prosper.” – Jackson Kitchin
Hundreds at the very least admire these aspirational figures, raising deeply critical questions about the ideological trajectory of Project 2025. This adulation has the power to shake American politics to its core.
Cultural and Political Philosophies Shaping Applicants’ Views
So far, most of the applicants have cited this political philosophy from history to support their ideology and the policies they want to propose. Some expressed admiration for antebellum writers over modern thinkers, reinforcing a desire to return to what they consider foundational values in American governance.
Their testimony focused on criticisms of more contemporary constitutional amendments and statutes that the applicants feel have eroded these core values. For example, one applicant remarked on the Fourteenth Amendment, stating:
“I gravitate towards antebellum writers more than modern ones.” – An applicant
Other applicants have more divergent aims of shaking up American political discourse. They ground their activism in their deeply held beliefs about their heritage and collective identity, a testament to cultural unity at the heart of conservatism.
“Nearly all of our modern problems are descended from this verbose and destructive inversion of sovereignty signed under duress.” – An applicant
These perspectives reflect an underlying desire among some applicants to reshape American political discourse based on their interpretation of heritage and identity, emphasizing a need for cultural cohesion within conservatism.