Far from being an anomaly or the brainchild of a single administration, Project 2025 is the latest manifestation of a decades-long legal campaign to expand executive power. Trump is more vessel than visionary—the current standard-bearer of a movement that began long before him and will likely persist long after.

In 2024, the deep state that defeats Donald Trump might be his own. That, after all, is what Project 2025 was actually meant to be. The 900-page tome that Democrats hoist in front of the cameras is a festival of policy options,