Trump’s Project 2025 agenda caps decades-long resistance to 20th century progressive reform

There has long been a tug-of-war over White House plans to make government more liberal or more conservative. Douglas Rissing/iStock / Getty Images Plus

For much of the 20th century, efforts to remake government were driven by a progressive desire to make the government work for regular Americans, including the New Deal and the Great Society reforms.

But they also met a conservative backlash seeking to rein back government as a source of security for working Americans and realign it with the interests of private business. That backlash is the central thread of the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” blueprint for a second Trump Administration.