Democrats Copy and Pasted Their Platform

The Republican Party has Project 2025. The Democrats, not to be outdone, came up with their own ambitious proposal—a policy buffet cooked up by consultants, warmed over by think tanks, and served cold to a nation already halfway out the door—and what is it called? Project 2029.

For years, they ranted and raved about how terrifying Project 2025 was going to be—and then all of a sudden, they thought a Temu version of it would sit well with exhausted Democrats.

It’s like they opened a Google Doc, typed Project 2029, and figured, “We’ll circle back in four years."

Republicans gave theirs a name that hits like a marching order. Democrats gave theirs something that sounds like a PowerPoint folder lost on a DNC intern’s laptop.

If they were trying to inspire, they failed at the title. If they were trying to match energy, they missed the assignment entirely.

Project 2029 is being organized by Andrei Cherny, a man who once worked for Al Gore and has spent the last few decades polishing moderate credentials no one asked for. The idea is simple enough: build a ready-made platform for the 2028 Democratic nominee, just in case they show up unprepared. Think of it as a syllabus for a class no one wants to take, taught by people who are still trying to win the 2024 presidential election.

They’re not building momentum. They’re formatting bullet points.

Project 2029 isn’t about vision—it’s about insurance. It’s the backup plan to a campaign that hasn’t started, at least not on the right foot.

Unlike Project 2025, which screams confidence and cruelty in equal measure, Project 2029 purrs like a newborn kitten. It’s cautious, procedural, and allergic to audacity. Policy papers trickle out quarterly like quarterly earnings reports. One is about national security. Another tackles the economy. A third covers governance reform. Each one reads like it was written by a committee of people who wear flag pins drinking out of Starbucks cups.

The contributors are predictable. Jake Sullivan. Neera Tanden. Anne-Marie Slaughter. Names that would make cable news panels nod approvingly and voters flip the channel. Their combined strategy seems to involve resurrecting the Obama playbook, sanding down anything too progressive, and calling it bold.

The project wants to reclaim the word “freedom,” which Republicans already tattooed onto every available surface in America. Democrats want to define it as access to education, healthcare, and good jobs. They believe if they just explain it clearly enough, voters will stop thinking of freedom as the right to own twenty guns and drive drunk on federal land.

Project 2029 proves one thing: Democrats have learned nothing.

Not because planning is bad, but because this kind of planning has never helped Democrats win elections. Voters don’t remember policy packets. They remember feelings—hope, anger, fear. Republicans understand this. Democrats still think a downloadable PDF is the path to victory.

To its credit, Project 2029 isn’t completely out of touch. It recognizes that America is exhausted. It knows that Trump broke something in the system and that Biden’s quiet competence hasn’t repaired it. But its response to that reality is to form a subcommittee.

Progressives aren’t thrilled. The plan makes room for corporate-friendly centrism and suggests Democrats can govern by consensus in a country built on conflict. The left wants urgency. The center wants stability. Project 2029 wants to synthesize both without upsetting the balance. It ends up pleasing no one.

The country is lurching toward 2028 with climate disasters, economic inequality, and extremist politics on the ballot. In that landscape, Project 2029 feels like a networking event held during a house fire. Its tone is managerial. Its timing is timid. Its ambition is to be ready—eventually.

Democrats say they don’t want to be caught flat-footed. But they’re already behind. Project 2029 hopes to counter Project 2025 with polite ideas and bipartisan dreams. It might as well bring a tote bag to a gunfight.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2025 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.