There are not too many of your pieces that anyone who values our Constitutional aspiration and decries the wanton desecration and destruction Trump & Company has wreaked on it, who will not wholeheartedly agree with this one! My question is, how do we get you the job of Executive Director for Project 2029?!
Yes! Exactly!!! Upon reading the published outline of Project 2029 the other day, I was despondent. Do Democrats not get it, STILL? Thank you for clearly articulating what we should be messaging!!
If I'm not mistaken, the ACTUAL Project 2025 was largely or wholly put together by people who weren't senators or congresspeople. It was a bunch of people on the sidelines (some former officials, some not) who had a deep understanding of reality and a deep desire to accomplish certain goals.
With that in mind, YOU'RE a good writer and someone with good ideas, a deep understanding of reality, and a desire to accomplish certain goals. See my leading clip from The Fifth Element - if you want something done, sometimes you just have to do it yourself. I'll bet you know other people with a similar point of view, some of whom have some influence. etc etc etc.
It is remarkably frustrating to go into a comment section and look at a few normal peoples' substacks and see better ideas, both granular and moonshot, than anything Democrats have come up with. And when we ask: what can we do? We're told to vote. Well, obviously I will this time, but we genuinely have a bug-out plan for when we enter a state of decay where democracy is theater and it's not like the party that can barely pick up a pen will pick up, say, a rifle.
(I am not advocating for violence or civil war. Rather, I am saying that of all the active items on the menu, we have democracy, and when that's a dead letter, unless there is some other method for resistance or fight, we're not going to stay here in a liminal space.)
I like the way you are organizing the the constructive moves we are going to need in 2029. One question, will there be someone capable of closing the the back doors dogie installed to keep 'them' from having access to all our information? Granted it's probably stored someplace we don't know about already. Thank you Brian. I am with Thomas, we need to be the Executive Director for Project 2029.
1. Drop abstractions like "affordability" unless it is backed up by concrete examples: "We will restore the medical insurance subsides Republicans stole to pay for a stupid war none of you wanted." Etc. Etc.
2. Better have a worked out plan any the post-election pre-inauguration period efforts Trump and his MAGA crew may employ to challenge/overthrow the election results. We may end up with a situation much worse than what led up to Jan. 6 the last time around. We better be prepared for anything.
PS
Can we call it something else besides Project 2029? It sounds merely reactive and weakly imitative.
Are we surprised that corporate centrist democrats and their consultant class have such a bland agenda? Did you think they would dare put up a fight that threatens any of their donors?
It’s past time to have an intra party revolt and overthrow these feckless cowards who are most responsible for Trump.
Think Josh Shapiro is going to be fighting to break up the oligarchy? He’d rather congratulate Trump than stand beside Mamdani.
Way too many in “Democratic circles” continue to be so completely blind to what is needed if, big IF, they are ever able to win a trifecta.
Yes, thinking through policies is important. Voters want to know what Dems stand for, what the can do for the American people. But, unless there are massive structural changes none of those policies matter.
So unless there is a secret Project 2029 that lays out how Dems can restore a functioning ‘for the people’ government including accountability for bad actors, ridding the entire government of right wing partisans, court reform, election reforms (fair maps, a real VRA, expanding the house…) etc., it will likely be the last Dem trifecta for the foreseeable future.
From the beginning the Srarchlight Institute has been a reactionary centrist shop. I would not expect anything better from them especially when they opened with saying the Democrats should try meeting Republicans half way on abortion. The biggest issues I've heard from them is don't say abolish ICE and the usual thing about identity politics are the problem not corruption or disenfranchising citizens.
All that would be fine but the Democrats seem to only listen to them on strategies that don't seem great and assume things are the same.
The democrats who disagree with this are on their own.
why do you suggest "maga republicans " and not just "republicans "? it makes it sound like there is an appreciable non -maga faction that has been resisting these changes. but small number who occasionally did wont be in office in 2027
The Project 2029 for America is also headed up (or at least co-founded) by Andrei Cherny, a big Dem donor based in Arizona who was the former CEO of Aspiration bank before the floor fell out.
I'm with you for making accountability a critical fulcrum for the next presidency. It needs to start with "who leads" and at the very least questioning why someone who was CEO of a bank that later had an executive convicted of fraud should be leading these conversations.
Big tents are great, not for fraudsters! You can't have an accountability message if the people who are heading up "here's what Democrats should focus on" co-founded a company with a now convicted felon. Shows really poor judgement. I've got no problem if he wants to continue voting for Democrats, but he should not be *leading* Democrats.
I told my wife that economists appreciate loggers not just because of their role in the carbon economy, but because without loggers we would be the most despised occupation in America.
She said "No. ICE agents. Nobody pays attention to economists."
Corruption and autocracy are two sides of the same coin.
I live in a Trumpy area, that is feeling a boom out of the Brown-Newsom carbon-economy forestry policy (on the foundation of Obama-Administration innovations in stewardship funding, accelerated with a bit of Federal funding under Biden).
This policy stack would fit mighty fine in a policy book. Alas, the economists who would insist on the right words can empty out a room faster than a Presidential fart. Given an audience that is free to flee, of course.
Better than turning the economists loose on text might be to instead recruit Bubba (High School class of 2023, yes his real name) to explain, in his words, how Green New Deal has put him to work in the woods, with his chainsaw-wielding classmates, executing cutting plans approved by the Tribe's experts for their 7-Generations horizons.
The California policy is the cutting edge in climate crisis forestry and carbon economics. There is the functional equivalent of a California Forests Carbon Bank, explanation of which clears rooms.
The policy was born in our logging communities, with most of the running by the environmentalist technocrats of the California Natural Resources Agency.
That's the better story. Through our elected local government, with no help from our Republican Cogressmen (LaMalfa, McClintock, Kiley), we asked Governor Brown for help...and California has responded.
We found Agency.
We also had to fight and overcome bullshit from Big Green. There is what feels to us simple rubes like corruption, on the Green Left. We kicked Boris's ass, and are laying the groundwork for a Seven Generations carbon economy which does not have room for people whose ignorance and arrogance are marched only by the size of their balance sheets.
We did this. We showed the California Democrats the power and hope of the California social democracy. It has not been easy. It is only now getting fun
Yes we need a plan to deliver economically but first and foremost we need to make electoral reform and strengthening democratic institutions our number one priority by far. The MAGA fever isn’t just magically gonna go away and due to structural electoral reasons (the two party system) and the senate setup (distorted in favor of rural interest(MAGA)), the electorate is only going to have that as a choice or Democrats. Where do they go when they are upset? We just saw that happen in 2024. We need to fix the clock itself so it isn’t Groundhog Day every 4-8 years.
Yes, we need to address voting rights and the terrible Supremes, but we need to simultaneously deliver on things that people will see and feel, without delay. Like Mamdani.
About scaling up or scaling down ambitions based on margin of victory: Obviously, Trump didn’t scale down his ambitions after a narrow win, but I also don’t want Democrats to emulate him (and his unique psychopathology makes him hard to imitate…thankfully). If I reach back a quarter century, though, I recall George W. Bush acting as if he’d received a mandate when commentators had said in December of 2000 that whoever emerged victorious would act with humility.
Maybe the wheels would have fallen off his presidency if not for the 9/11 attacks; and the attempt to privatize Social Security after his 2004 win was a big miss. But it was also a big swing. Assuming a Democratic trifecta in 2028, I’d hope for the biggest swings possible.
There are not too many of your pieces that anyone who values our Constitutional aspiration and decries the wanton desecration and destruction Trump & Company has wreaked on it, who will not wholeheartedly agree with this one! My question is, how do we get you the job of Executive Director for Project 2029?!
Yes! Exactly!!! Upon reading the published outline of Project 2029 the other day, I was despondent. Do Democrats not get it, STILL? Thank you for clearly articulating what we should be messaging!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMvYJsjwT3Y
If I'm not mistaken, the ACTUAL Project 2025 was largely or wholly put together by people who weren't senators or congresspeople. It was a bunch of people on the sidelines (some former officials, some not) who had a deep understanding of reality and a deep desire to accomplish certain goals.
With that in mind, YOU'RE a good writer and someone with good ideas, a deep understanding of reality, and a desire to accomplish certain goals. See my leading clip from The Fifth Element - if you want something done, sometimes you just have to do it yourself. I'll bet you know other people with a similar point of view, some of whom have some influence. etc etc etc.
Sooooo.....
Their Project 2029 reads like a “strongly worded letter” from our current favorite Senate minority leader (I wonder who that is?) 😂
Possible country music song?
"Your strongly worded letter, came in the mail today.
Your strongly worded letter had nothing new to say,
I tore your stupid letter, and threw it out the door.
Your strongly worded letters, ain't working any more.
Go write another letter. Make sure the ink's blood red.
Put something in that letter fills the MAGA boys with dread.
And if you write such letters, send them to my door.
But "strongly worded letters" ain't working any more."
Im sure you are aware, but just in case you are not this may be worth paying attention too!
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/editors-notes/
It is remarkably frustrating to go into a comment section and look at a few normal peoples' substacks and see better ideas, both granular and moonshot, than anything Democrats have come up with. And when we ask: what can we do? We're told to vote. Well, obviously I will this time, but we genuinely have a bug-out plan for when we enter a state of decay where democracy is theater and it's not like the party that can barely pick up a pen will pick up, say, a rifle.
(I am not advocating for violence or civil war. Rather, I am saying that of all the active items on the menu, we have democracy, and when that's a dead letter, unless there is some other method for resistance or fight, we're not going to stay here in a liminal space.)
I like the way you are organizing the the constructive moves we are going to need in 2029. One question, will there be someone capable of closing the the back doors dogie installed to keep 'them' from having access to all our information? Granted it's probably stored someplace we don't know about already. Thank you Brian. I am with Thomas, we need to be the Executive Director for Project 2029.
Two thoughts and one comment:
1. Drop abstractions like "affordability" unless it is backed up by concrete examples: "We will restore the medical insurance subsides Republicans stole to pay for a stupid war none of you wanted." Etc. Etc.
2. Better have a worked out plan any the post-election pre-inauguration period efforts Trump and his MAGA crew may employ to challenge/overthrow the election results. We may end up with a situation much worse than what led up to Jan. 6 the last time around. We better be prepared for anything.
PS
Can we call it something else besides Project 2029? It sounds merely reactive and weakly imitative.
Screw subsidies. It’s time for universal coverage. Otherwise true and true.
Excellent perspective- thanks!
Are we surprised that corporate centrist democrats and their consultant class have such a bland agenda? Did you think they would dare put up a fight that threatens any of their donors?
It’s past time to have an intra party revolt and overthrow these feckless cowards who are most responsible for Trump.
Think Josh Shapiro is going to be fighting to break up the oligarchy? He’d rather congratulate Trump than stand beside Mamdani.
Way too many in “Democratic circles” continue to be so completely blind to what is needed if, big IF, they are ever able to win a trifecta.
Yes, thinking through policies is important. Voters want to know what Dems stand for, what the can do for the American people. But, unless there are massive structural changes none of those policies matter.
So unless there is a secret Project 2029 that lays out how Dems can restore a functioning ‘for the people’ government including accountability for bad actors, ridding the entire government of right wing partisans, court reform, election reforms (fair maps, a real VRA, expanding the house…) etc., it will likely be the last Dem trifecta for the foreseeable future.
From the beginning the Srarchlight Institute has been a reactionary centrist shop. I would not expect anything better from them especially when they opened with saying the Democrats should try meeting Republicans half way on abortion. The biggest issues I've heard from them is don't say abolish ICE and the usual thing about identity politics are the problem not corruption or disenfranchising citizens.
All that would be fine but the Democrats seem to only listen to them on strategies that don't seem great and assume things are the same.
The democrats who disagree with this are on their own.
why do you suggest "maga republicans " and not just "republicans "? it makes it sound like there is an appreciable non -maga faction that has been resisting these changes. but small number who occasionally did wont be in office in 2027
1. Because a LOT of Republicans find MAGA distasteful, but hang on to the idea that there's a "regular" Republican lane.
2. It's good politics to have a moniker for the opposition that you can spit out. Like how Rs refer to the the Democrat Party.
The Project 2029 for America is also headed up (or at least co-founded) by Andrei Cherny, a big Dem donor based in Arizona who was the former CEO of Aspiration bank before the floor fell out.
I'm with you for making accountability a critical fulcrum for the next presidency. It needs to start with "who leads" and at the very least questioning why someone who was CEO of a bank that later had an executive convicted of fraud should be leading these conversations.
Stop shrinking the big tent!
Big tents are great, not for fraudsters! You can't have an accountability message if the people who are heading up "here's what Democrats should focus on" co-founded a company with a now convicted felon. Shows really poor judgement. I've got no problem if he wants to continue voting for Democrats, but he should not be *leading* Democrats.
That's the interface telling me to stop.
I told my wife that economists appreciate loggers not just because of their role in the carbon economy, but because without loggers we would be the most despised occupation in America.
She said "No. ICE agents. Nobody pays attention to economists."
I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay.
Corruption and autocracy are two sides of the same coin.
I live in a Trumpy area, that is feeling a boom out of the Brown-Newsom carbon-economy forestry policy (on the foundation of Obama-Administration innovations in stewardship funding, accelerated with a bit of Federal funding under Biden).
This policy stack would fit mighty fine in a policy book. Alas, the economists who would insist on the right words can empty out a room faster than a Presidential fart. Given an audience that is free to flee, of course.
Better than turning the economists loose on text might be to instead recruit Bubba (High School class of 2023, yes his real name) to explain, in his words, how Green New Deal has put him to work in the woods, with his chainsaw-wielding classmates, executing cutting plans approved by the Tribe's experts for their 7-Generations horizons.
The California policy is the cutting edge in climate crisis forestry and carbon economics. There is the functional equivalent of a California Forests Carbon Bank, explanation of which clears rooms.
The policy was born in our logging communities, with most of the running by the environmentalist technocrats of the California Natural Resources Agency.
That's the better story. Through our elected local government, with no help from our Republican Cogressmen (LaMalfa, McClintock, Kiley), we asked Governor Brown for help...and California has responded.
We found Agency.
We also had to fight and overcome bullshit from Big Green. There is what feels to us simple rubes like corruption, on the Green Left. We kicked Boris's ass, and are laying the groundwork for a Seven Generations carbon economy which does not have room for people whose ignorance and arrogance are marched only by the size of their balance sheets.
We did this. We showed the California Democrats the power and hope of the California social democracy. It has not been easy. It is only now getting fun
fun. And that is a story, as well as a
Yes we need a plan to deliver economically but first and foremost we need to make electoral reform and strengthening democratic institutions our number one priority by far. The MAGA fever isn’t just magically gonna go away and due to structural electoral reasons (the two party system) and the senate setup (distorted in favor of rural interest(MAGA)), the electorate is only going to have that as a choice or Democrats. Where do they go when they are upset? We just saw that happen in 2024. We need to fix the clock itself so it isn’t Groundhog Day every 4-8 years.
Yes, we need to address voting rights and the terrible Supremes, but we need to simultaneously deliver on things that people will see and feel, without delay. Like Mamdani.
About scaling up or scaling down ambitions based on margin of victory: Obviously, Trump didn’t scale down his ambitions after a narrow win, but I also don’t want Democrats to emulate him (and his unique psychopathology makes him hard to imitate…thankfully). If I reach back a quarter century, though, I recall George W. Bush acting as if he’d received a mandate when commentators had said in December of 2000 that whoever emerged victorious would act with humility.
Maybe the wheels would have fallen off his presidency if not for the 9/11 attacks; and the attempt to privatize Social Security after his 2004 win was a big miss. But it was also a big swing. Assuming a Democratic trifecta in 2028, I’d hope for the biggest swings possible.