Center for American Progress

The Dangers of Project 2025: Global Lessons in Authoritarianism
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The Dangers of Project 2025: Global Lessons in Authoritarianism

Far-right policies such as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 threaten American democracy by mirroring authoritarian tactics seen in Hungary, Turkey, and beyond.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks to supporters and members of the Hungarian Fidesz and KDNP parties in Budapest on June 1, 2024. (Getty/Arpad Kurucz)

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 outlines a governing plan to dismantle America’s system of checks and balances to impose an extreme, far-right agenda, potentially paving the way for an authoritarian future. Unfortunately, Americans need not imagine the consequences of such an agenda: Its devastating effects are already evident in backsliding democracies worldwide. These examples starkly illustrate the electoral path taken by antidemocratic politicians, the dangerous and regressive far-right agendas they have implemented, and the profound impacts of these policies on the daily lives of those who live under them.

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Hungary: Dismantling the civil service abets corruption

Since Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party rose to power in 2010, the Hungarian government has systematically dismantled democracy and governance safeguards, aggressively replacing experienced civil servants with party loyalists to secure control over key institutions. This rapid centralization and politicization led to a significant loss of expertise within the public administration, as many new appointees lacked the qualifications and experience necessary for their roles. The process accelerated after the 2010 Civil Service Act, which paved the way for the dismissal of some 1,600 professionals without cause, marking the start of a broader strategy to ensure that key positions within the state bureaucracy were filled by individuals aligned with Fidesz. These new party cadres pressure state agencies to award lucrative contracts to Fidesz-affiliated businesses, fostering a culture of distrust and patronage. This has led to widespread procurement fraud, with public tenders often awarded to politically connected firms, undermining transparency and fair competition.

Nowhere has this spoils system been more apparent than in the distribution of EU funds, which Fidesz has wielded as a tool to consolidate power and reward loyalists. One notable example involves 4iG, a company led by Hungarian oligarch Gellért Jászai, who maintains close ties to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In 2021, 4iG expanded its presence in the Hungarian telecommunications sector through large government-backed acquisitions, raising concerns in Brussels over the lack of transparency in state procurement practices. Subsequent investigations revealed the use of undisclosed public funds and a band of head-scratching regulatory exemptions—including bypassing the Hungarian Competition Authority. The European Union has since flagged Hungary for irregularities, misuse of funds, and conflicts of interest, with the European Anti-Fraud Office citing Budapest for its generally opaque and compromised procurement processes.

Backsliding in Hungary echoes concerns surrounding Project 2025 and the proposed personnel changes to Schedule F, where similar efforts aim to politicize the U.S. civil and foreign service by replacing career officials with political appointees, jeopardizing governing oversight, competence, and the safety of the American public.

Turkey: Attacks on academic freedom and freedom of expression

Under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has faced systematic assaults on democracy, marked by media crackdowns, suppression of political opposition, and the erosion of judicial independence. Among these, the erosion of academic freedom stands out as a critical issue, with universities subjected to government interference, scholars targeted for dissenting views, and independent institutions dismantled, stifling intellectual discourse and silencing critical voices across the country. After the failed coup attempt in July 2016, the government launched a sweeping purge targeting academics, journalists, and civil society leaders, erroneously accusing them of helping to foment it. Using emergency decrees, Erdoğan’s government summarily dismissed thousands of professors and teachers from their posts, had their passports canceled, and placed severe restrictions on their ability to work and travel.

The government specifically targeted individuals who signed the 2016 “Peace Petition,” which criticized Turkey’s human rights violations in predominantly Kurdish regions. It weaponized legal tools such as the antidefamation law (Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code) to stifle dissent. This law, which criminalizes “insulting Turkishness,” serves as a powerful instrument of state control, undermining free speech and academic freedom while fostering a climate of mistrust and self-censorship. In this repressive environment, hundreds of academics, including those prosecuted for signing the Peace Petition, have faced mass arrests and show trials marred by procedural irregularities, harassment, and even death threats. Since the coup attempt, more than 5,800 academics have been dismissed from public universities under emergency decrees, often under the pretext of having ties to “terrorist organizations”—spurious accusations used by the government against petition signers.

Although they are more extreme than Project 2025, these attempts to stifle academic inquiry and free expression share concerning similarities with the Heritage Foundation’s far-right agenda, which threatens to undermine academic freedom by granting politicians greater control over educational standards and curricula. At the collegiate level, Project 2025 advocates for purging “woke culture warriors” from higher education and overhauling the college accreditation system, posing risks to America’s long-term competitiveness. Certain state governments are exerting more influence on state universities by banning diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or instituting more direct control over university governance, faculty, and curricula. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, officially known as the Parental Rights in Education Act, has sparked nationwide controversy by prohibiting open discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms. This legislation, along with a wave of book bans targeting LGBTQ+ and racially diverse content, represents a broader effort to infuse Christian nationalist values into public education in the United States.

Poland: Erosion of reproductive rights

The regression of reproductive rights in Poland is tied to the country’s decadelong democratic backsliding and the influence of the religious far right on its politics and society. After gaining control of the government, the Law and Justice Party (PiS) launched a systematic assault on the judiciary, drawing inspiration from the American culture wars of the 1990s. By weaponizing issues such as abortion, PiS mobilized its predominantly rural and deeply Catholic base, further polarizing the Polish electorate. The party then manipulated the judicial system, sidelining previous Parliament appointments, installing its own slate of justices, and altering the composition of the Constitutional Tribunal—Poland’s court of last resort—grievously harming its institutional independence.

One of the most critical outcomes of this court capture was the 2020 ruling that banned abortions in cases of severe fetal defects, effectively instituting a near-total national ban on the procedure. With Poland’s existing abortion laws already extremely restrictive, the ruling eliminated the only meaningful option women had for reproductive care, leading to severe health complications and preventable deaths. In November 2023, Poland elected a new center-right coalition government committed to reversing the politicization of the Constitutional Tribunal. The new coalition has vowed to revisit the abortion ruling and partially restore women’s reproductive rights—a challenging task complicated by fragile coalition politics.

Poland’s erosion of reproductive rights parallels similar backsliding in the United States, where the direct infusion of religious doctrine into legal debates has led to attacks on judicial independence and reproductive freedoms. Earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are entitled to the same legal protection as children, with the chief justice citing verses from the Bible and Christian theologians in his concurring opinion. Anti-choice far-right groups and individuals such as Leondard Leo and the Federalist Society have spent decades stacking the federal judiciary with antiabortion judges, leading the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in a landmark 2022 opinion.

Beyond Roe, the anti-choice far right, through initiatives such as Project 2025, has explicitly called for the repeal of the Comstock Act to enable a de facto nationwide abortion ban without congressional approval. Project 2025 also includes “personhood” language that promotes the belief that life begins at conception, seemingly aiming to codify religious doctrine into law. This so-called personhood language not only seeks to ban abortion but also to reclassify various forms of birth control as abortion and to eliminate assisted fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization. If enacted, these measures would represent a significant rollback of reproductive rights that would put the United States on a path that mirrors Poland’s troubling history.

Italy: Attacks on LGBTQ+ rights

Under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the far-right Brothers of Italy—once a fringe group descended from Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist bloc—has become the country’s largest and ruling party. Since her election in 2022, Meloni has actively sought to roll back LGBTQ+ rights, framing these actions as a defense of the so-called “traditional family unit.” Although same-sex marriage remains illegal in Italy, civil unions introduced in 2016 offer limited marital rights that notably exclude joint adoption. Despite widespread public support for marriage equality, Meloni’s government remains opposed and has gone even further, tightening restrictions on surrogate parenthood. Surrogacy, already illegal in Italy and punishable by up to two years in prison, now faces even harsher penalties under a bill that criminalizes couples seeking services abroad, even in countries where it is legal, such as the United States.

Against this backdrop, the term utero in affitto—”womb for rent”—has emerged as a potent rallying cry for Italian conservatives, who decry what they see as the erosion of the “natural Italian family.” Their rhetoric aligns with the broader anti-immigrant and racist “great replacement theory,” which fears the displacement of native populations and cultural values by nonwhite immigrants. By lumping surrogacy in with an amorphous “LGBTQ agenda,” the Italian government aims to position itself as the defender of the so-called natural order, leveraging cultural anxiety and social backlash to promote a far-right vision centered on “God, homeland, and family.” This strategy not only fuels discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals but also deepens societal divisions by framing these issues as existential threats to the nation’s identity and future. In March of last year, Meloni’s government ordered Milan’s Mayor Giuseppe Sala to stop registering birth certificates for same-sex couples. And in June 2023, a state prosecutor in northern Italy demanded the removal of the names of nonbiological mothers from the birth certificates of 33 children born to same-sex parents.

The attacks on LGBTQ+ rights in Italy serve as a warning for the United States, where a similar rollback could occur if Republicans regain control of the White House and Congress. Project 2025 promotes the concept of a traditional family that deliberately excludes LGBTQ+ individuals. This worldview, rooted in the far right’s long-standing hostility toward nonconforming gender identities and sexualities, has already influenced state-level actions. For example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has initiated investigations into families with transgender children. These are alarming developments that signal a growing trend of state-sanctioned discrimination that could gain further traction, posing a serious threat to LGBTQ+ rights in the United States.

Tunisia: Anti-Black racism and xenophobia

For decades, Tunisia has accepted immigrants from across the African continent who come to Tunisia to pursue higher education; to work in its private sector; or, more recently, to seek refuge in Tunisia after fleeing conflict, repression, or privation in their home countries. The country’s national population is also racially and ethnically diverse: Around 10 percent to 15 percent of Tunisians are Black, including both Black indigenous Amazigh and those with lineage originating outside of Tunisia. In 2018, Tunisia became the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to criminalize racial discrimination. The 2011 revolution sparked a transformation in Tunisian society and politics, opening up new avenues to strengthen rights protections and empower a vibrant civil society. Human rights organizations, anti-racism campaigns, and their allies in Parliament worked together to pass this landmark legislation.

But in 2019, Tunisians elected President Kais Saied after he ran on a conservative campaign promising law and order. From 2021 to 2022, Saied staged a constitutional coup, dismissed Parliament, and assumed control over the majority of state functions. This new political leadership has undone much of the progress on racial justice, mobilizing a politics of fear, xenophobia, and racism articulated in the terms of the Great Replacement theory—the same theory that has underpinned neo-fascist movements and anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States and Europe.

In March 2023, President Saied claimed that “hordes” of immigrants had brought violence and crime to Tunisia in efforts to make it a “purely African” country. His comments, which bear clear resemblance to those promulgated by the far right in the United States, sparked a wave of attacks against Black Tunisians and Black migrants in Tunisia. Since then, Tunisian security forces have carried out human rights abuses against migrants, expelling hundreds to the desert, where many have died.

Conclusion

Case studies from Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Italy, and Tunisia demonstrate how quickly far-right movements can exploit democratic processes to gain power, roll back rights, and undermine institutions. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 presents a similar threat to American democracy. These examples serve as urgent warnings, underscoring the need to counter far-right extremism, preserve hard-earned freedoms, and defend democracy.

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Authors

Allison McManus

Managing Director, National Security and International Policy

Robert Benson

Senior Policy Analyst

Sadhana Mandala

Research Assistant

Dan Herman

Senior Director, Democratic Accountability

Department

National Security and International Policy

Advancing progressive national security policies that are grounded in respect for democratic values: accountability, rule of law, and human rights.

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The far right’s new authoritarian playbook could usher in a sweeping array of dangerous policies.

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