Photo provided by Kris Beutler.

On Thursday, Mar. 19, Reeves Library hosted New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist David A. Graham for a discussion about his recent book “The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America.” 

Graham joined via Zoom alongside Jeffrey Dickens, systems and digital resources librarian at Reeves, as moderator. Melba Tollivar, journalist, author, and former news anchor, and Andrew Laites, author and co-founder of the Easton Book Festival, joined in person as panelists. 

Since 2015, Graham has been a staff writer for The Atlantic, where he covers politics and authors the daily newsletter. “The Project” is his first book; it’s a thorough guide to the more than 900-page initiative published in 2022 by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. 

As an “intellectual blueprint for the new administration,” said Graham, Project 2025 lays out a conservative agenda and issue positions, including on immigration, education, the family, abortion, and political power, all meant to usher America into a “golden age.” 

After reading the 920-page document cover-to-cover, Graham wrote “The Project” to make such dense reading more accessible to the American public. He wanted to help Americans understand the foundation and worldview behind Project 2025, without having to read it all themselves. 

His highest priority, however, was to warn Americans about the Project’s goals and instill a sense of urgency about their effects. The authors of Project 2025 and, subsequently, the current administration are using the blueprint to reshape the nation, he believes. 

“The animating force behind Project 2025 is an apocalyptic vision,” Graham said on Thursday. Its authors and proponents believe “America is being taken over, and they need to fight back.”

Graham discussed how those same proponents believe that the 2020 election was stolen and that the criminal conviction of President Donald Trump in 2024 was purely political, which furthers the belief that a “deep state” exists and that it’s severely corrupt. When conspiracy theories run rampant, he commented, they become part of policy.

For Graham, one of the most prevalent goals of Project 2025 is to dismantle the authority of the federal government. In the first section, titled “Taking the Reins of Government,” the authors carefully lay out the methods and ways in which judicial, executive, and legislative power can be taken over. 

In addition, according to Graham, because they believed the first Trump administration had “bad personnel,” the authors detailed a plan to recruit and train people who would be loyal to the president, which included an exhaustive list of potential good fits. 

Now, many of Project 2025’s contributors are working within the Trump administration, most notably Russell Vought, one of the Project’s main authors and Trump’s current director of the Office of Management and Budget.

In the realm of immigration, Graham believes that what is currently happening is consistent with what was laid out in Project 2025. The authors shifted focus away from direct security at the borders to internal operations that aimed at forcing immigrants out—and keeping them out. What’s happening in Minnesota, California, and all across the country, Graham maintained, was systematically planned out. 

He discussed how Project 2025 long ago advocated for the militarization of I.C.E., warehouse detention centers, contracts with South and Central American countries to efficiently remove undocumented immigrants, denying Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for asylum seekers, and reevaluating student and work visas. 

And nobody was really paying attention. The Democratic Party, especially, Graham said, has failed: Project 2025 continues to surprise them, even though all its recommendations have been visible online since 2022. 

However, Trump has proven to be unpredictable. Project 2025 was written for his second administration, but Trump has not strictly adhered to it. 

Certainly, there are areas in which it has been successfully implemented, such as in dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts (DEI), but not in others. 

For example, military action against Iran was not recommended in Project 2025, which actually advocated for diplomacy and Iranian self-determination. In this regard, Graham characterized Trump as a man “daring someone to stop him and tell him no,” which, he imagined, won’t go well.

But Graham’s most urgent concern is America’s voting system itself. He discussed how the nation has already witnessed interference with elections and attempts to keep people at home on election day. 

With the upcoming midterm elections this year, a topic that Graham is fervently focusing on in his current writing, ordinary Americans need to keep an eye on their voting rights. “We can’t have a democratic system without a functioning voting [system],” he said.

The discussion ended with recommendations on how ordinary Americans, especially young people, can cope and move forward. Graham encouraged the audience to try to understand Project 2025 and its direction. “Examine the original documents and what people are saying directly,” he said. “Keep your eye on the ball.” 

For Graham, being in such a high-stress job and immersed in a heavy topic like this comes with its challenges, but he has figured out ways to manage. 

“In a crisis, it is helpful to know what to do. My job is to report and write on it, [which gives me] a sense of purpose,” Graham concluded. “No matter what your role is, it’s difficult to live in a society with these kinds of tensions.”