Conservative political strategy as we now know it was born with the Reagan victory in 1980, emboldened by the Tea Party Movement

The Heritage Foundation

Then a small conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation disseminated to the Reagan transition team, and later published, “Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration.” The text was characterized as “a blueprint for reducing the size and scope of government, for reforming government operations, and for restoring American leadership in the world.” ¹

By the end of its first term, the Reagan Administration had implemented, or attempted to implement, 60% of the foundation’s recommendations. It also played a vital role in staffing the administration with ideologically aligned individuals — about 150 of them coming from the foundation itself.²

The foundation produced 3,000 policy papers and briefings during the Reagan era for the White House and Congress in primarily economic, foreign, and social policies. During the same period its budget doubled and staff tripled.

The foundation continued to flourish throughout the Bush and, surprisingly, the Clinton years, continuing to shape policy — whether in support or opposition — on multiple fronts.

Roughly commensurate with the emergence of the Team Party Movement in 2009, the foundation launched its political advocacy arm as a means to push for more conservative policies, and in a more direct manner. By 2013, the foundation was engaging in political activism in very close alignment with Team Party ideals, and moving further away from policy research. By the following year, the foundation’s annual budget topped $100MM USD, reflecting its value to wealthy donors. ³

The foundation’s influence on the Trump Administration and transition was unprecedented — even in working with the Federalist Society to draft Trump’s list of Supreme Court nominees. By the mid-term elections, Heritage could say it had formulated over 300 policy recommendations, with an adoption rate of nearly 65%. In addition to placing 70 former employees in the Trump Administration and transition teams, it also worked to place current and former employees within Congressional staffs.

State Policy Network (SPN)

The Heritage Foundation advises a network of other conservative think tanks who form and promote ultraconservative position papers at the state level. Together, they work to influence policy at multiple levels of government, with the Heritage Foundation passing national-level policy concepts down to the SPN to adapt them to state-specific contexts.

Like the Heritage Foundation, the SPN is well-funded by donors, and the SPN’s positions collectively reflect the interests of those donors. Examples Woodward offered included de-funding and privatizing education, blocking affordable healthcare, restricting workers’ rights, opposing renewable energy, rolling back environmental protections, opposition to tobacco taxes and health regulations, disenfranchising voters through restrictive Voter ID laws, and creation of a tax system favoring the wealthy. These policy goals obviously favor the wealthy and disproportionately affects lower- and middle- working class families. Because these are goals shared across the network, they are coordinated across states. ⁴

SPN has also spread to the court system, standing up litigation centers designed to promote SPN positions through state judiciaries. SPN provides amicus briefs support cases aligned with policy goals.

SPN Major Funders

Major corporations, including Microsoft, AT&T, GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft Foods and Phillip Morris are among the heavy-hitters advancing their interests through the SPN.

Project 2025

The foundation created its most ambitious “Mandate for Leadership” document for an incoming Republican administration in 2024 — meaning Trump was not necessarily in mind when it was under construction. The document, which planned policy implementations within the first 180 days of the administration, quickly became a liability for the Trump Administration when word got out about its far-right propositions. It was so unpopular with the public that President Trump worked to distance himself from it.

Unitary Executive Theory

Project 2025 proposes a dramatic expansion to Reagan-era legal theory used to argue for the Executive’s favor in questions of the separation of powers. Its interpretation places virtually all Executive Branch agencies under “complete and unilateral” presidential control. Proponents of Unitary Executive Theory argue that it ensures consistent execution of laws and maintains clear lines of accountability.⁶

Through Unitary Executive Theory, Project 2025 advocates for restructuring government with political appointees and ideologically aligned private entities charged with implementing policies reflecting its policy goals. This was the primary goal of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” which orchestrated the layoffs of 300,000 federal employees. One of the most controversial policy goals was the implementation of Schedule F, which would reclassify career government employees as federal appointees, making them vulnerable to replacement by loyalists. ⁷, ⁸

Other goals Project 2025 argues is permissible:

• Expanded use of the Insurrection Act of 1807 (empowering the president to deploy U.S. military and federalized National Guard troops to suppress civil disorder)
  
• Manipulation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to install loyalists in key positions without Senate confirmation
  
• Drastically limiting congressional oversight
  
• Advancing conservative policy objectives by politicizing existing relationships with contractors
  
• Overhauling the Department of Justice to allow the president to use it for political purposes
  
• Strengthening Immigration and Customs Enforcement policies and expanding removal authority
  
• Reviving the president’s ability withhold congressionally-appropriated funds

I would argue that all of these goals were achieved to varying satisfaction through 2025. There seems no shortage of news articles involving the Trump Administration that relate to these concepts. Some were formalized via executive order; others, like congressional oversight, were achieved by ignoring law or political custom. ⁹

The Project included a series of some 350 “blueprints” designed for immediate implementation. These included:

• Mass deportations aimed at ending multiculturalism in the United States
  
• Further restrictions on abortion rights, with an ultimate goal of a national ban
  
• Politicizing and weaponizing the DOJ and FBI
  
• Justification of use of military force against civilian protesters
  
• End marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights
  
• Circumvention of transparency laws by avoiding use of government systems/preventing the public from learning information through FOIA requests.

Each of these has also, infamously, been attempted or is in progress. Importantly, significant efforts were apparently made to keep these goals out of public reach until after the election. ¹⁰

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1. Woodward, B. (2025). Project 2025 explained chapter-by-chapter: Understanding the Conservative Promise : a Comprehensive Fully-vetted Analysis of The Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership. ↩︎
2. Ibid., 4. ↩︎
3. Ibid., 5. ↩︎
4. Ibid., 7. ↩︎
5. Ibid., 8-9. ↩︎
6. Ibid., 30-31. ↩︎
7. Wikipedia contributors. (2026, January 1). Department of Government Efficiency. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Government_Efficiency
   ↩︎
8. (Woodward, 2025, p. 31) ↩︎
9. Ibid. ↩︎
10. Ibid., 33. ↩︎