Florida Has Been A Testing State For Project 2025 Under DeSantis, Experts Say.

Much of The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the sweeping program that’s set to roll out nationally next year if Donald Trump assumes the presidency again, should be familiar to Floridians living under the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The 922-page policy document outlines a series of policy proposals that would fundamentally transform the nature of the federal government. But the document is driving fiery exchanges in the rebooted race for the White House.

For Floridians, the document's themes and policies may sound familiar. After all, Gov. Ron DeSantis advanced many of the same ideas, pushed along by hard-right think tanks in his first six years as governor.

Screening lawmakers, judges and civil servants for loyalty and obedience so they march in lockstep with a sovereign chief executive? Check.

Working toward a new social order built on fundamentalist Christian values, including purging diversity from public education and the legal system? Check.

Policy-making that demonizes “the other,” be they LGBTQ, non-white, ex-convict, homeless or immigrant? Check, check, check.

“You guys in Florida are living in the future,” said Nick Beauchamp, a political scientist at Northeastern University. He has written on Project 2025 and its proposals, powered by Heritage and a host of other conservative, billionaire-funded think tanks.

“The states are always the test cases for all these things. Maybe the billionaires behind these think tanks all talk to one another,” Beauchamp said.

Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried is among those warning of Project 2025, saying her home state has been divided by much of DeSantis' policy-making.

“We have been the lab rats for the Heritage Foundation here in the state of Florida, so we understand the threat that is coming with Project 2025,” Fried said.

Trump has disavowed any knowledge of Project 2025. But Democrats led by newly-minted presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris portray it as the dystopian America just down the road if Trump wins in November.

Anders Croy, spokesman for DeSantis Watch, a website backed by progressive nonprofit groups critical of the governor, said Project 2025 needs careful monitoring. Florida, he said, is an example of how conservative ideas become law.

“Under Gov. DeSantis we have seen what happens when extreme policies are put in place that only benefit the wealthy and connected corporate elites, while workers and seniors are left to pick up the bill,” Croy said.

Ron DeSantis.Photo byGetty Images