From Trump's Project 2025 to Canada's Radical Left

Can we create a murder board to connect the points between modern government's most extreme poles?

Today the New York Times’ top story reported links between Trump and Project 2025. Sure. That’s the easy part. But how did we get here? Can we understand the whole political spectrum from left to right in all its extremes with one unifying theory? Can we connect the dots and in doing so come to a new understanding of what the heck is happening here? And in doing that, can we all just relax a bit?

Project 2025 is an initiative spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation, aiming to significantly reshape the U.S. federal government if a Republican candidate, such as Donald Trump, wins the 2024 election. It’s also one of those things like Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, that roars in the public square, is super influential and much discussed, but few people have ever actually read, or even glossed over. And that’s a big hint as to where this story is going.

This article gets at the question of whether only experts are in a position to know and act, or if democracy and everyday citizens still have a place in deciding the issues of the day.

Project 2025

Project 2025 is a continuation of a longstanding series, Mandate for Leadership, published by conservative think tanks since 1981. It’s not a new thing. The central goal of Project 2025 is to consolidate executive power under the president, based on the controversial unitary executive theory. This would mainly involve reclassifying large numbers of federal civil service workers in the executive branch as political appointees, allowing them to be replaced by individuals loyal to the administration in power.

The policy proposals of Project 2025 are broad and impact several areas of governance, including tax policy, immigration, and social programs. It advocates for a simplified tax system, cutting corporate and capital gains taxes, and eliminating certain deductions. In terms of immigration, it calls for reinstating Trump-era, and in fairness most of US immigration history, policies, such as the Migrant Protection Protocols, and reducing the number of refugees and student visas from certain countries.

Socially, the project emphasizes conservative Christian values, seeks to reduce benefits from social welfare programs like Medicaid and SNAP, and advocates for significant reductions in government regulations, particularly in environmental and climate policy. There’s nothing new under the sun here and it would all be familiar to people in government history. However, critics view the plan as an authoritarian move toward Christian nationalism - which is a mean way to say conservative, fearing it would undermine the separation of powers, civil liberties, and the independence of agencies like the DOJ, FBI, and NIH.

Project 2025 can be seen as a form of reverse civil service reform, seeking to undo much of the professionalization and institutional independence that was established throughout the 20th century. The current civil service structure, designed to prevent political interference and ensure continuity between administrations, is viewed by proponents of Project 2025 as having become too large, powerful, and unaccountable to elected officials. The project envisions returning more direct control to the president over the executive branch, reshaping government agencies and bureaucracy to align with the political priorities of the ruling administration, a departure from the neutral, technocratic ideal that emerged from earlier reforms.

Historically, civil service reform in the 19th and 20th centuries aimed to curb the spoils system, where government jobs were handed out as political favors. These reforms emphasized merit-based hiring and job security, creating an entrenched civil service that could operate independently of political shifts. However, one of the unintended consequences of these reforms has been the development of a bureaucracy that is sometimes seen as resistant to change, even when new administrations come in with different mandates.

The Deep State

Conservatives like those behind Project 2025 argue that the civil service has become unresponsive to the will of the electorate, creating what some describe as the "deep state" — a government within a government that continues along a set trajectory regardless of which party is in power.

Though the conservatives talk about it and the media got to put the scary name on it, anyone can see this at any level of government in their own community. The notion that one government looks very much like the last is a common observation and it doesn’t seem to matter much to the average person’s prosperity which party is in power. People can see this easily and it is because the bureaucracy, which is the biggest, most powerful, wealthiest, most unaccountable, and unfirable it has ever been - all the way from the president’s executive branch to the littlest local government in Nova Scotia - is effectively permanent, with an established culture and way of doing things that even the strongest majority government can not change its direction over years.

As a result, the policy direction of different administrations, even between opposing parties, has appeared similar because the bureaucratic apparatus is too slow or unwilling to implement rapid changes. This leads to the phenomenon bitterly observed by voters of governments of all stripe appearing increasingly alike because they cannot overcome the inertia of the bureaucratic system. In my province of Nova Scotia an observer would be hard-pressed to distinguish the record of the last generation of governments even though the Liberals, NDP, and Progressive Conservatives under a variety of leadership and mandates have all had a turn at government.

The goals of Project 2025, such as reclassifying civil service workers into political appointees and reducing the independence of agencies like the Department of Justice, reflect a desire to make the federal government more directly responsive to the president's agenda. It is, in a way, a return to a system more akin to the spoils system of the 19th century, but this time with the specific goal of consolidating governance within the executive branch.

Conservative, as scary as it sounds in US politics, can mostly be explained as a call for smaller government and lower taxes

This pushback against the 20th-century reforms does mirror traditional conservative ideas of smaller, more accountable government, reduced bureaucracy, and a government that is more in sync with the party in power's platform. The criticism from conservative circles is that the government, as it stands now, has become bloated and insulated from the needs and desires of the electorate, making it harder for elected leaders to effect meaningful change within a short time frame, such as a four-year or even an eight-year presidential term​.

It’s not hard to see how many voters find a note of common sense truth in this regardless of who is saying it.

In essence, Project 2025's civil service reforms represent a fundamental shift back to a system where political control is paramount, reflecting a tension between the ideals of bureaucratic independence and political accountability. The trade-off, of course, would be the potential erosion of the long-standing neutral, professional civil service and the risk of increased politicization of government operations.

What’s a Technocrat?

A technocrat is a person who advocates or governs by emphasizing technical knowledge, expertise, and efficiency over political ideology or democratic processes. Technocrats are typically experts in their respective fields—whether in engineering, economics, science, or administration—and they tend to focus on data-driven, practical solutions rather than being influenced by populist demands or political pressures.

Historical Background of the Term:

The term "technocrat" emerged during the early 20th century, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, as part of a movement advocating for governance by engineers, scientists, and experts who could use technology and data to solve societal problems. The Technocracy Movement began in the U.S. during the Great Depression, as people became disillusioned with both capitalist and democratic systems for their perceived inefficiency and inability to address economic crises. Even from these early days it is closely in step with the Progressive Era. Technocrats proposed replacing politicians and businesspeople with experts who could manage the economy scientifically and ensure efficient production and fair distribution of resources.

The concept gained traction in moments of crisis, where it seemed that expert management could be more effective than the messiness of political maneuvering. While technocracy never fully materialized as a formal system of government, the idea persisted, especially in non-democratic regimes and highly bureaucratic systems, where the focus is on expertise and efficiency rather than democratic accountability.

Role of Technocracy in Modern Government:

In modern times, technocrats often emerge in various forms, particularly in regulatory agencies, central banks, and international institutions like the European Central Bank or the IMF. These institutions are often headed by individuals chosen for their technical expertise, and pointedly not their political affiliations. Technocrats play a central role in economic policy, public health, and environmental regulation. The European Union, for example, has been criticized as being "technocratic" because many of its key institutions and decision-makers prioritize technical expertise over direct democratic input.

Technocrats and Project 2025:

In the context of Project 2025 and civil service reform, technocrats represent a kind of professionalized bureaucracy that has, over time, become insulated from political shifts. The civil service reform movements of the 20th century sought to remove politics from bureaucratic decision-making, promoting the idea that technocrats—experts in law, economics, or science—would ensure stability, continuity, and efficiency in government operations.

However, this has led to tension with those who argue that unelected technocrats who now dominate the bureaucracy wield too much power. Critics like the proponents of Project 2025 view the rise of technocrats as creating a government that is no longer responsive to the electorate. The project seeks to dismantle this entrenched bureaucratic power by putting more political appointees—presumably more ideologically aligned with the elected government—into key positions, thus making the executive branch more politically accountable to the administration.

This is where the term technocrat becomes key: proponents of Project 2025 see the current civil service as dominated by technocrats who prioritize expertise and continuity over the will of the elected government. By reclassifying civil servants as political appointees, Project 2025 aims to replace technocrats with political loyalists who can more directly carry out the president's agenda.

Technocracy vs. Democracy:

At the heart of the technocrat debate is the tension between efficiency and democracy. In previous essays I’ve argued that efficiency has never been nor should it be an important feature of democracy. In fact, like the road of life, it’s a system where the journey is more important than the destination.

Technocrats, by their nature, tend to emphasize evidence-based decision-making and often operate in areas like fiscal policy, climate science, and health care, where specialized knowledge is crucial. However, their role can also undermine democratic processes if it leads to a concentration of power in the hands of unelected experts. This becomes problematic when these experts are viewed as making decisions without sufficient accountability to the people or elected representatives. It’s worth noting that the most technocratic areas of government are the most costly, the most dysfunctional, the least productive, and the most voter rage-inducing.

Thus, Project 2025 can be seen as a direct response to technocratic governance, advocating for a return to more overt political control over areas that have traditionally been governed by technical expertise.

Meet the Parents

The swings in voter sentiments over any cycle of elections can be seen as an electorate careening between wanting to hang out with the cool kids or wanting their mom.

In Canada, we elected Justin Trudeau with a spirited majority when we wanted a new cool kid who looked more like tomorrow than yesterday. Someone with a good story and a nice family to light the way to an optimistic, and sunny future. Then after a couple years of hard knocks and a nasty fall we wanted Mom to nurture us, we needed Dad to make everything feel steady, basically, we wanted to speak with the manager and we’re contemplating writing a bad Yelp review.

Technocrats represent a broader shift toward governance by experts rather than elected officials, with roots in early 20th-century movements that sought to replace political decision-making with scientific management. And the good news is, when going from a spoils system of political lackies and buffoons to have some experts around it really works. Things got A LOT better in those early reform days.

But it’s possible to get too much of anything. And at some point, government crosses a line in terms of how much we can take.

In the context of Project 2025, this technocratic model of governance is being challenged, as the project seeks to reverse the reforms that allowed technocrats to gain significant power within the civil service. The tension between political control and expert management continues to shape debates about the future of governance, particularly when it comes to balancing efficiency with democratic accountability.

There’s some right amount of technocracy just like Laffer famously showed in his curve that there is some right amount of taxes.

Technocracy and the Rise of Expert Governance

Technocracy as an idea promotes the notion that complex modern societies can only be governed by those with specialized knowledge. While this system might increase efficiency in certain domains, it inherently sidelines the average citizen from the decision-making process. The premise is that experts know best, and because governance increasingly deals with highly specialized and technical issues (like economics, climate science, and public health), only trained professionals can understand, evaluate, and respond to these challenges.

However, this reliance on expertise has fostered a dangerous divide between the so-called "elites" and regular citizens.

Many people now feel alienated from the process of governance because the language of expertise often makes political decisions seem opaque and inaccessible. This can contribute to voter apathy, low engagement in political movements, and a growing sense that democratic participation is pointless. Technocratic governance, in this way, risks reinforcing hierarchies that privilege specialized knowledge over broad-based participation.

Power Politics: Ludwig von Mises and the Critique of Technocracy

Ludwig von Mises, in his work Bureaucracy (1944), offers a sharp critique of the expansion of government bureaucracies, which he saw as inherently inefficient and prone to overreach. Mises was particularly concerned with the idea that technocratic governance would inevitably lead to the erosion of individual freedom. He argued that technocracy tends to centralize decision-making in the hands of a few experts, leaving citizens with little agency or say in the direction of society.

In Mises’ view, this expert-driven governance turns the state into a paternalistic entity, much like a "parent," that takes on increasing responsibilities, from regulating the economy to managing welfare programs. For Mises, this undermines the core principles of liberal democracy, where citizens should be active participants in shaping government policy. Instead, technocracy promotes passivity among the public and breeds resentment toward the governing elite.

Mises emphasized that free markets and voting through participatory democracy, rather than centralized expert governance, were the best way to manage complex modern economies. He believed that bureaucracies, with their rigid hierarchies and layers of administrative control, were actually inherently inefficient compared to the self-regulating mechanisms of the market in terms of translating citizens’ ideas into policy and ultimately action. His work stands as a philosophical defense of the individual’s ability to make economic decisions and a critique of the technocratic assumption that experts know best.

Technocracy, the Left, and the Welfare State

Paradoxically, while Mises and other classical liberals opposed technocracy, many on the political left embraced it, especially in the mid-20th century. The radical left, in particular, came to view the state as a kind of caretaker that could manage social and economic problems more effectively than the market. This is where the idea of the government as a “parent” took root—protecting citizens by providing welfare, regulating industries, and managing economic policies.

Social welfare programs, public healthcare, and government intervention in markets were all seen as necessary to protect individuals from the hardships of capitalism.

Capitalism is often criticized for fostering inequality, exploitation, and environmental harm, but these critiques often misunderstand the system. While capitalism does lead to unequal outcomes, it has been the most effective model for generating wealth, innovation, and improving living standards. Many critiques assume there is a viable alternative, such as socialism, but history shows that alternatives like central planning fail to deliver prosperity and freedom. Instead of eliminating capitalism, most advanced economies have adopted mixed models, where market forces are regulated to address its excesses, suggesting that reform, not replacement, is the most practical path forward.

However, the Left’s critique of capitalism aligned with technocratic principles because it required experts to manage and run these programs. Over time, the state became more paternalistic, with the bureaucratic apparatus growing larger to accommodate these new responsibilities.

The relationship between citizens and the government became more transactional, with individuals looking to the state for SUPPORT rather than as a SPACE for active political engagement.

The Decline of Participatory Democracy

As technocracy expanded, it contributed to the slow decline of participatory democracy. Political movements and parties, which had once been the vehicles for grassroots organizing and citizen involvement, began to shrink in influence. When governance is seen as something too complex or unseemly for ordinary people to understand, fewer citizens feel compelled to engage in political life beyond voting. And as governments increasingly relied on experts to craft policy, the traditional mechanisms of democracy—public debate, voting, and activism—were replaced by specialized committees, regulatory bodies, and agencies that made decisions out of the public’s view.

The rise of the technocratic welfare state, therefore, coincided with a drop in voter turnout and party membership in many Western democracies. As fewer people felt that they had a real stake in political decision-making, the health of democratic participation weakened.

Left-Wing Embrace of Technocracy: A Paradox

This embrace of technocracy by the left represents a paradox. While left-wing ideology traditionally emphasized empowerment of the working class and broad social participation, the adoption of technocratic models of governance undercut these values. The shift toward state-managed welfare and regulation, while intended to protect citizens, also concentrated decision-making power within a technocratic elite.

Many on the left viewed this as a necessary evil to achieve progressive aims like economic equality and social justice. However, this reliance on expert governance left much of the public feeling disempowered, creating the conditions for the rise of populist movements on both the left and right, as voters reacted against the perceived remoteness of technocratic elites.

A Democratic Dilemma

The rise of technocracy presents a fundamental dilemma for modern democracies. On the one hand, complex modern societies require expertise in areas like economics, public health, and technology. But on the other hand, the concentration of power in the hands of experts risks undermining the participatory nature of democracy.

Writers like Mises and others remind us that, while expertise has its place, governance must ultimately remain accountable to the people. If we allow experts to entirely control policymaking, we risk creating a system in which citizens are seen as passive subjects rather than active participants in democracy. Restoring a balance between technocratic expertise and democratic engagement is essential for preserving the vitality of democratic systems.

The rise of technocracy does explain many things: Why one government looks very much like the last. Why voters of all stripes feel a hopeless malaise. Why conservatives paradoxically want more change, and why the left wants things to stay the same. Why we all feel politics is a scam. Why few feel connected to governance in any meaningful way. And why many feel suspicious about what’s going on.

Ultimately, the critique of technocracy, the form of actual governance in place today that explains and connects much of the divide between right and left, is a call to reinvigorate citizen participation in all aspects of governance—not just in voting but in shaping the policies and values that guide society.

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