Project 2025’s Authoritarian Playbook Finds Support Among Select Allies

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a chilling roadmap for authoritarian governance, is not just a domestic threat. According to a recent analysis published by RealClearDefense, key U.S. allies are beginning to embrace elements of this blueprint, which calls for politicizing federal agencies, gutting the civil service, and rolling back civil liberties.

Project 2025 emerged as a core policy framework under the Trump administration’s shadow, advocating for sweeping changes that would dismantle democratic checks and balances. It promotes an aggressive restructuring of government designed to consolidate power in the executive branch, weaken independent oversight, and weaponize the federal workforce for partisan ends.

The RealClearDefense piece highlights how the January 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) reflect this authoritarian tilt, signaling a broader shift in policy architecture that aligns with Project 2025’s goals. More alarmingly, these strategies are resonating with certain U.S. allies who “get it” — meaning they share or support these illiberal governance tactics.

This international endorsement of Project 2025’s authoritarian model is a direct threat to democratic norms. It risks exporting the corrosion of transparency, accountability, and civil rights that we have witnessed domestically under Trump-era policies. The embrace of such strategies by allies raises the stakes for global democratic resilience, as it undermines the very alliances built on shared democratic values.

For Americans fighting to hold the Trump administration and its enablers accountable, this development underscores the urgency of resisting Project 2025’s agenda. It is not just about protecting U.S. democracy but also about preventing the normalization of authoritarian governance worldwide.

We will continue to track how Project 2025’s authoritarian blueprint spreads and who is complicit in this dangerous embrace. Democracy must be defended on all fronts — at home and abroad.