Democrats Need a Project 2029

Why, and what it should look like.

Just over 100 days into the second Trump administration, the anti-Trump resistance finally has some room to breathe. In spite of all of the breathless wintertime declarations of a permanent Republican cultural revolution, his actual presidency has gone down surprisingly predictably. Like all recent presidents, he enjoyed a post-election approval bump that dissipated after he began implementing his agenda. This happened at a far quicker speed than usual, but the causes were nothing revolutionary. As with all other presidents, a decisive segment of voters chose him to solve a specific set of problems beyond ideology. In office, he has failed to live up to their expectations, and they have broken from him as a result. Far from devotees to a cohesive right-wing ideological project, these Americans have shown themselves to be transactional in nature, liable to abandon Trumpism as quickly as they chose to back it.

All of this gives Democrats reasons to feel relieved. Right after what some said was their permanent defeat in 2024, they are back in the game once again, fully in contention in purple America and beyond. Top-tier Republican Senate recruits have been bowing out of winnable 2026 races. High-profile elections in swing states have turned into liberal blowouts off of the party’s turnout advantage alone. On the streets, liberals are protesting in large numbers once again. The enthusiasm and anger is back, and it means that it is entirely possible for the party to succeed in 2026 and beyond on their current trajectory.

The following question is this: what then? What will Democrats do differently compared last time if they take power? Given the circumstances, one would expect a wide array of bold new ideas. After losing an election, party elites are supposed to use their time in the wilderness to make new proposals and ask uncomfortable questions that they wouldn’t consider while in power. 2024’s repudiation of Bidenism, however, has not sparked such an inquiry within the Democratic Party. Party leaders still defend his legacy at every opportunity. The more critical only go as far as to say his approach had a messaging problem. Even who have suggested concrete reforms, like the authors of Abundance, still think within a Bidenist political paradigm. For all of the attention the book has received, it is fundamentally only a list of ways to augment a Biden-style agenda of neo-military Keynesianism.

This approach is far too limited. After four years of failure, the anti-Trump movement needs nothing less than a complete reset in how it approaches governing. The Biden-era liberal consensus is simply not equipped for the current moment. It is based on a conception of American politics that had long ceased to match reality. Its ultimate objectives place the personal crusades and pet projects of its authors far above the good of both the country and the greater anti-Trump cause. The only thing it did well was keep all of the party’s factions happy, which is why it is still so dangerous. Seeped in the delusions of a Nixon-era relic and his lackeys, Bidenism has more than lived out its time, yet it still remains the implicit end goal of everyone from Chuck Schumer to Bernie Sanders.

This must change. Because of this, I look upon the right-wing effort in Project 2025 as a model and believe that the left should undertake a similar effort. While a controversial disaster in practice, those behind Project 2025 had the right idea. If nothing else, they at least attempted to discern what went wrong with their side’s failed presidency and chart a new path forward. Their diagnoses and suggestions were stupid, of course, but that need not be the fate of every retrospective analysis. Where they based their analysis in cope and denial, we can base ours in truth.

So: what in the world actually was Project 2025? Why is it worth imitating, what did it try to do, and where did it go so wrong? And what would an intelligent version of it applied to the post-Biden Democratic Party look like?

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