To the editor: The 2025 Project has been recruiting and evaluating potential government employees for an anticipated Republican presidency. Fine, that's their prerogative. But the idea that current federal employees could be vetted and evaluated, the results posted on a list based on their personal ideas and beliefs, and then the employees subsequently reclassified or fired, is a page straight out of Joseph McCarthy's playbook. The consensus then was that McCarthy's practices were “un-American.” The Heritage Foundation should be ashamed of itself for backing this effort.
The Heritage Foundation president also said his foundation was proud to help remove “bad actors” from government. Who decides what a bad actor is?
Many federal employees have opinions and beliefs contrary to current government policies, but they do their jobs as they were sworn to do, respect the Constitution, and support the current president. That is what makes a democracy strong: ideas, debate, compromise, and freedom of expression.
If everyone lives up to a certain standard, set by the ruling party, I think there's a word for that: totalitarianism.
Julia Springer, Santa Barbara
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To the editor: Wow. It seems the House Un-American Activities Committee is back, and Roy Cohn has been resurrected. As part of the Heritage Foundation-backed Project 2025, government employees will be investigated using well-respected tools such as the “gut test” or “instinct” (in the words of one activist). Will they discover my sympathy for democracy and loyalty to our Constitution? To paraphrase the famous lawyer Joseph Welch, from almost exactly 70 years ago: have we no sense of decency?
Jon Merritt, Los Angeles
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To the editor: The media should start publishing more articles about what a second Trump term would look like. We have been so inundated with his judgments that we are missing a glimpse into our possible future.
Former President Trump has laid out his plans very clearly, both publicly and in writing. The Project 2025 documents, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, lay out plans to reform the federal government and consolidate power in the executive branch. By including only loyalists, he will create a “yes, Mr. President” government to eliminate any resistance to his policies.
This plan would include taking over the Justice Department, to go after anyone who stood in his way. Imagine also partisan control of the FBI, the Commerce Department, and the Federal Communications Commission; dismantling the departments of Homeland Security, Education, and Environmental Protection; and cutting funding for climate research while reforming the National Institutes of Health along conservative lines.
Terry Priesont, Altadena
