They put out a whole playbook called Project 2025, developed by a bunch of insane people at the Heritage Foundation. Trump lied and said he didn't know anything about it. Now they're doing it.
> “I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said in the ABC News Presidential Debate. “I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
To fill out the quote (from ABC's transcript) "Number one, I have nothing to do, as you know and as she knows better than anyone, I have nothing to do with Project 2025. That's out there. I haven't read it. I don't want to read it, purposely. I'm not going to read it. This was a group of people that got together, they came up with some ideas. I guess some good, some bad."
Not only did they put out a playbook, they actively recruited and screened people to take government positions. I read a post on Reddit from someone who went through the training. The whole idea was to find ideological supporters. Trump's problem in 2016 was that he wasn't prepared and relied a lot on existing government supporters and established GOP figures, who weren't completely loyal. This time, they were prepared. That's the reason why he's been able to move so quickly in the first month.
This is also why I'm flabbergasted that a lot of people seem to be dismissing all of this with words like "we survived his first term, the second will be no different". It is different! Incredibly different!
It seemed like Trump was genuinely surprised he won the first time. They were completely unprepared. But now they are very, very prepared, and they know exactly who to put in various positions in government, people who will never balk at what Trump wants to do.
Do they all originate by the President saying "I want X" in reaction to something, and lawyers figuring out how to do X?
Do some of them originate with a wishlist of some extremist think tank or powerful people, and they finally found a President who'll rubberstamp them?
Other?