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Towards the end of President Trump’s term, he announced he would be withdrawing American troops from the Kurdish portion of northeast Syria. It was a controversial decision that was criticized by both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. But as Commander in Chief of the American military, it was his decision, and his alone, to make.

Yet, the withdraw never happened. A year later, the U.S. envoy to Syria, James Jeffries, brazenly admitted to the media that he and others intentionally lied to the President about the real number of troops in Syria to force him to change his mind. “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey told the outlet Defense One.

This is an outrageous and unfortunately common occurrence within our federal government’s bureaucracy: unaccountable bureaucrats deciding for themselves how the Executive Branch will carry out policy, often at odds with the president’s own policy goals.

For decades, conservatives have accepted that is as just the way things will be during a Republican administration. An analysis of political appointees from Clinton through Trump shows a massive disparity in the number of members of the opposite party who work for Democrat and Republican administrations. During Democrat administrations, only about 10% of those in political appointee positions are Republicans. During Republican administrations, roughly 30% of them are Democrats.

The conservative movement has finally decided to address this problem. Led by the Heritage Foundation, a coalition of more than 70 conservative groups (and growing) have joined Project 2025. Its primary goals are twofold: dismantle the administrative state that acts as an unelected, unaccountable Fourth Branch of government, and encourage conservatives from across the country to get involved in federal service.

Project 2025 is building a database of vetted individuals interested in working in all departments and all levels of the Executive Branch, including the White House. The idea is to hand that database over to the next conservative president so he or she is ready to go on Day One making trusted appointments to carry out their agenda.

This may seem counterintuitive for conservatives. We revere the private sector and the productive parts of society and typically want to see less people in government, not more. Not to mention Washington, D.C. in a generally awful place to live and raise a family.

But unless we want to continue to see all the hard work of electing a conservative president be undermined by the administrative state delaying, denying, and damaging conservative policy reforms, we must get off the bench.

For anyone interested, I encourage you to go to www.Project2025.org and fill out a profile, as well as promote it to friends and family.