The Best Counter to Project 2025 Is a Progressive Project 2025
If President Biden—or any Democratic replacement—wants to get back in the race, they need a positive moral vision to run on, not just dire warnings.
Adam Johnson
It’s convenient that what is good for Democrats’ November electoral prospects would also happen to align with my personal ideological preferences. But as I’ll explain, this belief is not just motivated reasoning: There are empirical and fairly obvious reasons why if the Democratic candidate, whoever that happens to be, wants to make up ground in the polls, they need to offer voters more than just status-quo, disparate, one-off policy prescriptions and wall-to-wall anti-Trump rhetoric. Instead, they need to offer something richer, more positive, and more uplifting and coherent: a politics of care, health, life and education to contrast with the politics of fear, xenophobia, book-banning and white nationalism emanating from presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. They need, in other words, a Progressive Project 2025.
To be clear: Anti-Trump rhetoric is important, as is highlighting the real dangers that the actual Project 2025 — a far-right wishlist courtesy of the Heritage Foundation — poses to the climate, academia, abortion rights, the working class, people of color, and what’s left of the liberal, regulatory state. But simply warning and fending off overtly fascist encroachment is not sufficient. And we know this because poll after poll continues to show a Democratic voting base that is demoralized, listless and increasingly cynical. That cynicism is only increasing in the face of an incumbent president who’s refusing to step aside and let another Democrat run even as he’s dropping in the polls following a disastrous debate performance and concerns about his age and ability to serve, with the majority of Democratic voters and an increasing number of his fellow party elected officials saying they want a different candidate to lead the ticket in November.
And we have somewhat of an A/B test to show this. In 2020, the Biden campaign, wisely — if disingenuously — embraced much of the rhetoric and activist energy of an assortment of movements that were peaking at the time. Anti-“kids in cages” immigrant rights activism, George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests, anti-war (in this case, specifically U.S.-Saudi bombing of Yemen) voices, and climate change activism were all thrown some red meat by the Biden campaign, if not put center stage. This, in concert with a more expansive vision of a progressive “FDR”-style government, gave voters more than just anti-Trump scare stories. It gave them a vision to embrace, not just one to guard against. And, for the most part, it worked: It increased youth turn out 11 points compared to 2016, excited the base while bringing in anti-Trump moderates, and handed a clear victory to Democrats.
This version of Democratic Party rhetoric is now little more than a passing memory, and much of it ended up as pure messaging rather than policy. While the current administration made genuine progress in codifying labor protections, combating anti-trust, capping insulin prices, investing in green energy (albeit a very capital-friendly version) – – its broad strokes, big ticket policies and focus continue to appeal to the public’s darker side: doubling down on Republican-style anti-immigration policies and rhetoric, giving up on faking like they cared about police reform, and — most conspicuously — embracing Israel’s exterminationist military campaign in Gaza despite widespread disapproval from Democrats along with the extreme anger this has elicited from Arab and Muslim voters, Black voters and young voters.
To build a progressive project 2025, whether it’s Biden or not, whoever the 2024 nominee winds up being ought to do the following:
Demand an end to the genocide in Gaza on Day 1
The first and most important intervention would be to leverage whatever power is inherent in being the Democratic nominee to end the U.S.-backed destruction, bombing, siege and occupation of Gaza. It is vital to push for a real ceasefire, not simply rebrand a temporary pause as a “ceasefire,” as the White House has sought to do since last February.
As I recently wrote, the Biden administration has done a clever PR job washing their hands of their role in genocide by successfully redefining the term “ceasefire.” But the basic fact of the United States backing genocide remains, as does the cynicism-driving effects of seeing non-stop images of dead children on voters’ social media feeds, nine months into the assault. For many voters, the damage is almost certainly already done. But a new nominee explicitly breaking from Biden’s embrace of Israel’s nihilistic killing campaign would no doubt help bolster historically low support from youth voters and people of color.
While many self-styled savvy pundits insist Gaza isn’t driving youth discontent, this is self-serving cope that involves misreading how priorities work. Gaza is a factor that continues showing up in polls, and political insiders themselves understand this fact. Recently, CNN reported on a leaked document written by “senior operatives within Democratic political institutions” detailing the upsides to a Kamala Harris candidacy. The memo acknowledged that she is “broadly considered to be to Biden’s left on Israel-Palestine, an issue where he has major vulnerabilities.” Behind closed doors, Democrats know Biden being associated with a non-stop torrent of horrific images coming out of Gaza has demoralized and depressed voters — for very good reason.
A Biden replacement (or even Biden himself, if he dramatically changes course) could turn the page on this shameful chapter, try to claw back some trust among these demographics lost over the president’s pro-genocide position, and launch a campaign on a message of peace — demanding Israel wind down its assault on Gaza. This is almost certainly wishcasting — Harris, for example, has been supportive of genocide, albeit less so. But assuming a replacement campaign seeks to actually win, an important place to start would be removing the albatross of an overwhelmingly unpopular war on whoever faces Trump this fall.
Remember Build Back Better? Where are the bold demands? The vision?
In very recent memory, the fall of 2021 to be precise, there was a “progressive wishlist” (generically called “the Build Back Better bill”) proposed by leading Democrats that sought, among other items, $75 billion for Housing Choice Vouchers to help alleviate America’s homelessness crisis; $450 billion in universal pre-K for three and four year olds; $85 billion to repair run-down schools; $35 billion in child nutrition programs to allow an additional nine million kids to receive free school lunch; $111 billion for two years of tuition-free community college; expanded eligibility for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients; the expansion of Medicare to include dental, hearing, and vision benefits; the lowering of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 60, guaranteeing healthcare to millions more seniors; and $150 billion in clean energy incentives to combat climate chaos.
Biden and congressional Democratic leadership’s heart was never really in trying to sell this progressive omnibus to the American people, and having two recalcitrant conservative Democrats, Kyrsten Sinema (then-D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (then-D-W. Va.) bashing it the whole time it was up for debate didn’t help. Ultimately, these policies did not make it into the final “bipartisan” infrastructure bill, but Build Back Better did excite the liberal and progressive base while providing a vision of government that wasn’t just more cops and border security with some decent, sound liberal economic management thrown in. It would have fed, clothed, provided healthcare to and educated people — all while expanding the best parts of Covid pandemic aid. Put simply: it provided a clear contrast with the grim, dog-eat-dog vision of a Project 2025.
Campaigns and, in turn, administrations, can be vehicles not just for fending off Trumpism, but something that inspires, seeks a broad vision of justice and democracy, and presents government as something that doesn’t just “create jobs” and stabilizes inflation — but actively and aggressively improves public welfare. While voter support was back and forth for Build Back Better in fall 2021, there was one major problem: The White House and Congressional leaders almost never lobbied Congress or the American public for these progressive programs. While they nominally supported them, almost all the advocacy was done by a handful of progressive lawmakers. Indeed, every time then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi or President Biden mentioned the centerpieces of Build Back Better, it was typically to preemptively downplay expectations and talk about how much they were willing to compromise.
Much of this “progressive wishlist,” when polled, was fairly popular, however. And a new, fresh candidate campaigning on these popular programs could reinvigorate party support and bring in moderates and even some conservatives who are checked out or indifferent to the election, but could be drawn to big-ticket items like free college, expanded Medicare, dental care for seniors and housing vouchers.
In key ways, Trump’s downsides are baked into his numbers: He has been president before and his vulgarity, cruelty and anti-Democratic pathologies can’t drive up his negatives higher than they already are. There’s not much left to drive home when it comes to the Trump Is Bad strategy. So any 2024 candidate would have to pick up traction elsewhere. Providing a coherent, larger moral vision is one way of doing this. Rather than co-opting Republican policies on immigration and policing, Democrats could offer a positive vision of government that can build on some of Democrats’ legitimately economic populist accomplishments in recent years and shape them into a more intelligible narrative of welfare and fairness.
Obviously, there’s a touch of naivety in this framing. Ideological and financial forces within the party won’t magically turn the Democrats into a social democratic party overnight — even if it would guarantee a 2024 victory. But given how desperate the situation is, how grim the polling is today, and the urgent need to jump start whatever campaign potentially replaces Biden, a contrasting Project 2025 could be the perfect narrative foil. If the Heritage Foundation’s long-term plan represents fear, nativism, anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-Black backwardness and an erosion of democracy, its counter should be more than just opposition to these dark forces. It should be a bright light of liberalism’s greatest aspirations, a true counter to the cynicism of Trump, a vision that expands healthcare, democratic rights, racial justice and basic economic security. For one recent point of evidence of how this could work, how an unabashedly progressive and positive platform can succeed in winning voters over in a race against a fascist threat, just look to France where a coalition led by the Left recently won out against the far-right National Rally party by running on policies such as raising the minimum wage, freezing food and energy prices, lowering the retirement age and taxing the rich.
Rhetorically, Biden has always gestured towards a generic optimism, but it’s mostly been in the form of “America can do anything” patriotic bromides, not reflected in a genuine policy vision for greater equality and rising standards of living. Combined with the White House’s backing of genocide in Gaza and concerns over Biden’s apparent cognitive decline, party messaging is stuck in a malaise of narrative confusion: (correctly) highlighting policy wins on the topic of unemployment and slowed inflation, while doubling down on grim, right-wing rhetoric around immigration. Nothing seems to relate to anything else, no one seems to be working towards any grand objective other than simply defeating Trump in November.
The moment Project 2025 began to make its way into popular discourse, many Democrats’ first reaction was, “This is scary stuff.” And their second was some version of, “Wait, why don’t we have a version of this?” And it’s a fair question: People need narratives, goals, visions for the future. Most voters naturally see themselves as protagonists in a political struggle, but to what moral end? Immediate survival is important, but it can’t be everything. To stand any chance of turning the ship around in 2024, whoever ends up with the Democratic nomination will need to provide this type of forward-looking vision. Or they can limp along as is, and hope there’s just enough meat remaining on the Trump Is Bad bone. But so far, all signals indicate there isn’t.
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Adam H. Johnson is a media analyst and co-host of the Citations Needed podcast.
