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The American Heritage Foundation has assembled a team of Republicans and other conservatives to prepare Project 2025 — a detailed action plan for the new US president upon his arrival in the White House in January 2025. Clearly, this refers to a Republican president. Moreover, the document carefully avoids mentioning Donald Trump’s name as the Republican hopeful for the upcoming presidential race. Apparently, the Foundation decided to demonstrate American voters that unlike the Democrats betting on Joe Biden, the Republicans are seriously discussing their candidate.

Notably, the road map is a fairly sizeable book, with almost nothing known about it except for what one of Trump's associates, Ken Cuccinelli, told the Daily Signal outlet. There are at least two guiding ideas in it. First of all, would Trump have such a plan before becoming president in 2016, his term would not have been a time of missed opportunities, Project 2025 authors believe. This is virtually a party document, optional but acting as both a collective instruction for the candidate and election promise.

The second thing is where to start, referring to a mass purge of the government staff, reduction of monster departments paying people for no good reason, and their division into smaller ones. Moreover, these depts are recommended to recruit people from the hinterland, "as far away from the capital as possible." And already now such people should start thinking that they can come to Washington with their own program of action, which will allow them and the public around them vote more actively, the document says. In a word, the Republicans' action plan implies a second campaign to "drain the Washington swamp", that is, to do what the 45th US President Donald Trump failed to.

It is the conservative Heritage Foundation that has been creating a kind of database of some 20 000 officials, of which the republican administrations were mainly staffed over the last decades, starting with President Ronald Reagan. By the way, the Foundation has signed a contract with Oracle corporation to establish a secure personnel database. Its creators are sure that by the end of 2024, it will feature proven, well-trained employees ready to start dismantling the country’s administrative staff from day one. And if a Republican president enters the Oval Office in 2025, he might turn, like his predecessors, to the Heritage Foundation's personal data base to staff both the White House and federal agencies.

This person may well be Donald Trump, again. By the way, conservatives consider criticizing him hair about the heels, but the elephant camp still apprehends that victory requires drawing lessons from his previous mistakes. It's no secret that Trump disappointed many Republicans during his presidency. Yes, he may be a good businessman and a good person, but this is clearly not enough for the president of a country like the United States, who has to be a competent politician, an excellent administrator and someone with perfect teamwork skills. It’s not about Donald Trump, as even his fellow Republicans admit, but he is still ready to fight for the White House again.

Unlike Joe Biden being the virtual Democratic Party primary winner to be nominated for the race, Donald Trump still has a dozen competitors. These are primarily Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, ex-UN envoy Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Their level of support varies significantly, however: Trump — 50%, DeSantis — 20%, Pence — 7%, Haley — 4%, Ramaswamy — 2%.

This is what the Republican power balance looks like 18 months before the election. A lot may change between now and then, especially given Donald Trump’s numerous lawsuits. Were the elections to be held today, Biden would once again defeat Trump with a 65% probability, analysts claim. One has to assume that his victory would be brought about by the same administrative resource known as "the deep state" or "the Washington swamp". If Joe Biden's opponent is Ron DeSantis, chances will be equal for triumph. Moreover, it is quite possible that the Oval Office will be occupied by "elephant" DeSantis rather than "donkey" Biden. Other Republican candidates, besides Trump and DeSantis, are unlikely capable to compete with the current US President.

In conclusion, let’s note that the 2024 presidential race promises to be one of the weirdest in American history, since both key candidates — Joe Biden and Donald Trump — are not really popular with the population. Polls show that American electorate would like to see younger candidates with new ideas instead. Nevertheless, the country is gradually approaching a return-match after Biden averted Trump’s reelection in 2020. And chances are high that down the final straight we will witness a battle of two mature giants — Biden, 82, and Trump, 78.