In very different language, and coming from his own vantage point, Jamelle Bouie has a piece up in the New York Times today which points in the same direction as I’ve been arguing here in various posts. The gist version is this. The current Project 2029 efforts are a mix of messaging/positioning efforts and policy proposals. Those may be solid or promising on their own terms. But they are inadequate. Trump broke the old system, which has existed in an evolving form since the 1930s and 1940s. You need to build a new system, a new vision and mechanism of public power in its place. As Bouie puts it, “A Project 2029 that has nothing to say about either the Senate filibuster, or an ideologically captured Supreme Court, or extreme partisan gerrymandering — among other concerns — is not a Project 2029 worth the time or effort.”
I’m flagging this because Bouie is one of the best and I want to highlight this article. But this is a position that is clearly enough distinct — structural reformers, reconstructionists — that it really needs to be seen as such in the world of Democratic politics, at least through 2029. When that happens, public arguments become more coherent. It provides clarity to voters.
