What comes next after Trump's Project 2025-bashing tour

Donald Trump has a message for conservative foot soldiers: I define the movement, not you.

Donald Trump has a message for conservative foot soldiers: I define the movement, not you.

It is not a new edict after the GOP convention featured a condensed, Trump-centric platform that softened the party’s long-standing positions on abortion and broke with its orthodoxy on trade and entitlements. But it was reinforced loudly this week when Trump’s campaign delighted in the Heritage Foundation’s announcement that the head of its controversial Project 2025 was stepping down, delivering a warning to others looking to link themselves to Trump: This “should serve as notice ... it will not end well for you.”

A campaign obsessed with owning its own message is driving home the point: This is not a coalition campaign, and anything that deviates from Trump will be swiftly neutralized. Now, the broader conservative movement is trying to figure out what it means for a potential second Trump administration.

Some expressed dismay that after strong displays of loyalty, Trump would so easily cast aside the people toiling to ensure that he would not again face one of his main laments about the presidency: that he was continually disappointed that people he had hired chose to thwart his instructions. Others saw a necessary, if ham-fisted, effort to put to bed a group seen as repeatedly speaking out of turn, to the point of becoming an issue in the election.

And then there is the fact that Project 2025’s work product still stands ready for use, if it and other political inconveniences for Trump do not get in the way of his return to office. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/comes-trumps-project-2025-bashing-tour-rcna164417

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