As Republicans approved their policy platform at the party's national convention, a more radical shadow manifesto led by figures close to Donald Trump has raised fears for the future of American democracy.
Project 2025 -- a sweeping blueprint from the hard-right Heritage Foundation to remake the federal government in Trump's image -- has been characterized by opponents as an authoritarian, right-wing wish list.
Its 887-page "Mandate for Leadership" sets out how to replace thousands of federal workers with ultra-conservative loyalists should Trump prevail against Democratic President Joe Biden in November.
It calls for a makeover of almost every function of the federal government, reshaping its numerous agencies to centralize power in the White House and push policy to the right on everything from abortion to immigration.
"We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the Left allows it to be," Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said in early July, adding: "We're in the process of taking this country back."
He gave his comments after a bombshell Supreme Court ruling that the president can break any and every law in the course of their official duties without fear of prosecution.
In spite of this, Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025, claiming to "know nothing" about the project or the figures behind it, as Roberts' remarks provoked a firestorm of outrage.
"I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it," he posted on Truth Social.
The official platform ratified at the Milwaukee convention is less conservative than Project 2025 in several areas, including abortion and entitlements.
But many of the more extreme proposals in the Heritage Foundation handbook are indistinguishable from Trump's remarks at his rallies and his own video statements on his Agenda 47 website.
Like Project 2025, Trump makes dark claims about retaliating on a federal government he baselessly says is "weaponized" against conservatives.
The plan also envisages the mass arrest and deportation of undocumented migrants -- a pledge Trump makes at almost every rally -- restricting asylum claims and completing the Mexico border wall.
The former president lauded the effort at a Heritage Foundation dinner in April 2022, previewing that it would be laying the groundwork "for exactly what our movement will do" in a second term.
Biden has made the roadmap a centerpiece of his campaign, accusing Trump of trying to hide his connections to the project and claiming it should "scare" every voter.
His Democrats point to numerous members of Trump's inner circle who have been linked to the handbook or helped craft it, from long-time senior aide Stephen Miller to former cabinet figures Ben Carson and Christopher Miller.
Meanwhile, Project 2025 has been vetting thousands of potential applicants to replace current government employees when the next Republican president takes office.
Many of the proposals that have alarmed liberals the most center around reproductive rights, including calls for ramped up "abortion surveillance" by state governments, a ban on abortion pill mifepristone and limits to emergency contraception.
On the environment, Project 2025 would reverse much of Biden's actions on man-made climate change, ending clean energy progams, dialing back emissions regulations and pushing for more aggressive exploitation of fossil fuels.
Control of policy would be centralized in the White House, after the abolition of the departments of Education and Homeland Security.
The Heritage Foundation countered Democratic criticism of Project 2025 at its day-long "Policy Fest" in Milwaukee, with speakers calling the liberal characterization "misinformation" and a "hoax" and accusing progressives of seeking to prop up the anti-conservative "deep state."
"This fourth illicit (government) branch, this administrative state, is really what we're going after," executive director Paul Dans told the audience at Monday's event.
"This idea of checks and balances on the president within his own branch of government is completely antithetical to the structure of the presidency."
But the Democratic National Committee pushed back with more than a dozen billboards across Milwaukee targeting Trump and his just-announced running mate J.D. Vance for "their terrifying Project 2025 agenda."
The party held a press conference in the city on Tuesday with America's largest union federation, the AFL-CIO, which said the project demonstrated Trump's intention to "pick up right where he left off: dissolving unions, gutting worker protections and defunding whole parts of the government people rely on."
