PROJECT 2028 FOR DEMOCRATS

[orangecrush]

Last edited Tue Aug 12, 2025, 08:12 PM - Edit history (1)

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[Fiendish Thingy]

1. None of that is possible without two tasks not included on the list:

The two most important tasks once Dems regain a trifecta:

1) Kill the filibuster dead, Dead, DEAD, so all the legislation on the list can pass without obstruction;

2) expand SCOTUS to 13 seats minimum, so that all those new laws won’t be overturned before the ink is dry.

If your senator doesn’t support both of these measures, support a primary opponent, and elect someone who will.

[Initech]

4. We need to get rid of two things: Fox News and the Heritage Foundation.

These two things are an absolute cancer on DC. Until we make a plan to expunge them from our nation's capitol for good, it will be same shit different year.

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. That's the fascist way out

I don’t support that kind of government censorship.

Instead, why not revive the fairness doctrine? Would love to see FOX grapple with that challenge.

Expose the Heritage foundation’s complicity in judicial ethics problems, among other misdeeds, and utilize civil suits and criminal prosecutions only if appropriate.

Otherwise, we are no better than the fascists we strive to resist.

[Jack Valentino]

6. I desperately hope that members of our party will feel superior in knowing

that "we were 'better' than the fascists"
while we ride the trains to the death camps.....

[FakeNoose]

15. It's a matter of education - specifically the high schools teaching civics classes

Many of us are BabyBoomers and we were taught civics in high school. Some even went on to study the same in our college years.

But it's a sad fact that today's high schoolers have very little grounding in this important subject. Their ideas on "civics" are fractured by whatever comes in on their cellphones. (By that I mean that there's no common message anymore, it's all tainted by politics now.)

Most kids are unable to determine what's best because they have no basis for comparison to what's happening right now.

[Fiendish Thingy]

17. So, your plan is to surrender and comply?

Sorry, I won’t be in the boxcar with you, so you won’t be able to say “I told you so”.

I encourage everyone to resist, starting with resisting accepting the myth that Trump is omnipotent, and the states and the people are powerless.

[BannonsLiver]

25. Does resisting include downplaying everything he does on a forum aimed at Democrats?

[Fiendish Thingy]

28. Downplaying?

Who’s downplaying?

There’s plenty of fascist shenanigans going on without the need to engage in Pearl-clutching doomsaying.

In order for us to survive this era, resist it and be capable of rebuilding, we must not accept the pervasive mythology that some try to spread.

The worst myth of all is that Trump is omnipotent, and the states and the people are powerless.

Time and time again, I see posts where people assume the worst, or even worse, predict the worst, saying things like “oh, he’ll just do X” or “SCOTUS will just do X”, and state it as if it were a fait accompli, as if there would be zero pushback from the states, the people…it would just…happen.

It is as if somebody can imagine something happening, type it out on the internet, and voila! It becomes fact, it becomes reality.

That kind of talk, that kind of thinking, is called catastrophizing , and does absolutely nothing to prepare or support people mentally or emotionally for actual catastrophes in the present or yet to come.

Catastrophizing, doomsaying, etc. do nothing but overwhelm and demoralize people, increase their stress level and leave them weaker when an actual crisis comes along.

We must stare steely-eyed at the stark reality we are facing, and slip into neither denial nor exaggeration.

Only then will we be best prepared to fight back.

To begin with, I encourage everyone to adopt this mantra:

Trump is not omnipotent, and the states and the people are not powerless

There are neighborhoods being terrorized by ICE, people in detention camps, millions about to lose their healthcare, food stamps, etc. and everybody is paying more for coffee! We don’t need melodramatic hyperbole about “riding in boxcars to death camps” when people are actually suffering, right now, and need our support, our voices, our pushback against all of it.

[Initech]

23. How do you deal with these thugs then?

There's no way we'd ever revive the Fairness Doctrine unless 2026 was an absolute blowout election. And you can't fight fascism with strongly worded letters. So what do we do?

[Fiendish Thingy]

24. Start here:

Nationwide event happening tomorrow :

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220553250

And then keep it up.

Additional resources here:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10114426

[TnDem]

29. So how is that done?

[Wanderlust988]

2. A lot of pie in the sky foolishness that is not realistic or even constitutional n/t

[orangecrush]

9. Congrats on 666 posts!

Like MAGATs have given a fuck about constitutional?

[Raven123]

26. A lot of good ideas that appeal to different interests

[H2O Man]

3. Recommended.

I'd add outlaw insider trading for members of Congress and their families. AOC introduced a bill to do just that, but got very, very little support from members of both parties.

[FakeNoose]

16. That's a big one and it should be on the list

Sadly there are too many Dems (along with almost ALL the Repukes) in Congress who have been corrupted by this issue ...

[H2O Man]

22. And yet, they

have no shame in asking for campaign donations.

[Raven123]

27. Yes, and may be that is why we need new leaders

It will be cathartic and invigorating

[0rganism]

7. Sadly, that's not a plan, more of a wet-dream wish list, and very little of it is achievable until at least 2029

As long as F47 or his evil clown posse run the executive, and the SCOTUS stands 6-3 against us, it's going to be a tough sell. If things go our way in '26 and we get the house back, maybe pick up a couple senators, there's still a steep uphill climb for all of it. Some states could enact larger parts of it, but things like "Term Limits for SCOTUS" simply can't be done at the state level.

I see three things on the list that'd be barely possible at the federal level with a thick house majority:
1. Raising Minimum Wage to $20: F47 would deeply enjoy taking credit for signing such a thing. The tough part is getting through the senate, where not every Republican is a pseudo-populist attention whore.
2. Cap congressional salary: F47 loves to fuck with congress, he might just sign it for the memes. Again, getting it through the senate for the sharpie action is a struggle.
3. Cap CEO pay: similar to #2, F47 loves it when those mighty private-sector magnates come to DC or Maralago to kiss his ass. Two hazards here: the senate is tricky, as in #1 and #2, and some of the CEOs might have special ass-kissing talents or techniques that arouse him bigly.

The "plan" is not viable for many years, and events are so deeply chaotic now, we don't even have a feel for how the next 6 months well play out.

I think Democrats need to start from where Heritage started in 1975 with their project papers. Begin with realistic goals, plans to achieve them, and lists of people to tap both for scoring the goal and for maintaining the situation afterward. Here are a couple I'd like to see.
1. Rebuild a media-aware foundation to acquire radio stations and produce mixed entertainment and talk-radio programming that provides viewpoint alternatives to remote communities while supporting progressive viewpoints for urban ones. Like "Air America" but it has to be expected to weather long-term losses for the first decade or so, making money cannot be the goal of this foundation. Eventually it might, but that can't be the initial expectation.
2. Start and really support a volume of online streaming talk shows and podcasts capable of building audiences. The righties have been kicking our asses at this for decades and it has a discernable impact on elections, we need to turn the situation around pronto.
3. Hold public town-hall meetings in every Republican rep's district. No candidate yet? Oh well, send in some congresscritter from elsewhere, as nearby as possible, or at least media personality. Build brand, get the hype going, we're going to need every vote from every voter to survive and to recover democratically from the shitshow that will be the next decade

We need a "Project 2026" of our own. And a "Project 2027". And a "Project 2028". And so on for perpetuity.

[Celerity]

8. The only one that could realistically happen is the stock trading ban. Every other item is either not possible without a

Constitutional amendment or simply will not pass even if we have tripartite control (POTUS, Senate, House) or needs the SCOTUS composition to dramatically change.

[orangecrush]

10. But the horrors we are living through

Were entirely possible for them to plan during the 4 years the clown was out of office, and put into effect in 6 months.

I refuse to accept that my party is that inept and weak.

And I truly believe we can show them that their nutcase donors are not the real seat of power in this country.

The real power is the people, and the people are going to reach critical mass of how much of this shit they will put up with soon.

[Celerity]

18. The Rethugs have been working towards this since late 1964, after they got smashed by LBJ.

You had the beginning of the rise of the RW Christians as a political force, and the rise of The Southern Strategy sprung to the fore, obsessed with using white grievance culture to pull the old racist, hate-filled Dixiecrat types (and not limited to only those in the deep South, eventually) into the Republican tent. Nixon started in, Reagan really took it to a new national level, and Trump has weaponised them and further radicalised them.

You said:

I refuse to accept that my party is that inept and weak.

That list is mostly blocked by legal/constitutional issues. I do, however, agree that some of the things will likely be stopped by moderate to conservative and/or institutionalist Democrats.

They will likely block (and this is even if we control POTUS, the Senate, and the House):

1. They will likely block SCOTUS expansion (and that thus stops the overturning of Citizens United, plus it means codification of abortion rights will be ruled as unconstitutional, as will a ban on gerrymandering, and The Fairness Doctrine if its extended to cable, satellite, and the internet.

2. Some conservadems will likely not support truly universal healthcare, will not support a 20 USD per hour minimum wage, taxing churches capping CEO pay to 35X lowest paid worker, likely will not support doing away with the filibuster, will not support ranked choice voting, and will not support taxing unrealised gains in many cases.

Multiple other things on the list would require constitutional amendments that will not occur:

Ending the Electoral College

Abortion rights

Term limits for SCOTUS

Mandatory universal Ranked Choice voting

Outlawing gerrymandering

[themaguffin]

11. This is not a plan and I don't think that we should look to what is a meme like meant to be viral list as such.

Yes there are roots of good goals here (and a few simply solid and achievable ones), but communication, marketing, branding and substance all matter.

[orangecrush]

12. "Oh no, we can't!"

[themaguffin]

19. Correct. We should do better. A lot better.

[orangecrush]

21. Christ I hope so

[CNYHarris]

13. Should add

As done in Australia, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany and most of Europe - hand counting on election night. No more machines.

Free voter id provided by the US government so Republicans cannot purge voters from the rolls.

A federal crime of 10 million dollars to be paid by the state to the voter for purging one person with a voter id from the rolls.

Democrats gerrymander as much as Republicans, if not more.

DC Statehood. Puerto Rico statehood.

[FakeNoose]

20. Gerrymandering is currently being done by Repukes in order to freeze out opposition

... however it was probably invented by Democrats over 100 years ago and it was used to keep "bosses" such as Democratic mayors and local legislators in office for way longer than their due. It's the corruption of the winners, trying to stay in power and control future elections. The other bad effect is that with gerrymandered districts, voters tune out when they realize that it doesn't matter how they vote, it's already a done deal.

For this reason alone, Districts must be drawn up by Bipartisan Commissions only and no other way. We go through this every 10 years, after each census, and it usually takes 7 or 8 years to undo the damage. In some states and counties they never bother to try.

[Nanjeanne]

14. I think aspirational platforms are an indication of the moral fiber of a party. I want aspirational goals

They tell me what you are willing to fight for. Much more winning than

Try to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2030

Expand access to healthcare and give you a few bucks to help you buy exorbitant premiums for policies that have $10,000 deductible

Keep taking lobbying money and say one thing to voters and another to big donors - but hope you dont notice

Ask CEOs not to keep giving themselves millions of dollar raises - ask really nicely

Keep telling workers you support them but taxing the rich would mean they will leave the country and where would we be without them

Try really really hard to ban stock trade in Congress

…

[republianmushroom]

30. Hopefully, but, I'll wait and see.

[CousinIT]

31. Pass the Social Security 2100 Act & raise the cap to $400K. Pass the John R. Lewis VRA. n/t