To the pleasure of all who hold dear the idea of U.S. democracy, Project 2025 has become a central topic in daily conversations about the “life or death” critical nature of the November 2024 presidential election.
Project 2025
Why? Because Project 2025 is an unashamed, in-your-face declaration of the insidious intentions of Republicans – to end democracy by castrating it, stabbing it, burning it alive, and riddling its carcass with bullet holes before chopping off pieces and passing them around as keepsakes.
Yes, the white nationalist party seeks to do to democracy what they did (and continue to do) to Black people – participate in a very public and very celebratory lynching, dressing in their Sunday best and gathering around the smoldering corpse for family photos.
There are now countless articles, studies and video breakdowns of Project 2025 and its intended impact on U.S. society as a whole and Black people in particular. And a word of warning for those still unfamiliar with the guts, nuts, and bolts of Project 2025, it’s X-rated, as in it’s all about X-ing out human rights.
But the question folk who respect humanity should be asking is, do Democrats or liberals or progressives, or whatever label you want to affix to folk who stand against fascism, have a plan for the future? Do they have a “Project 2024 and Beyond”?
Reasons behind Project 2025
Conservatives/Republicans have laid their cards on the table for all to see. They’ve made their plans known – they want a fascist, authoritarian dictatorship to replace the sliver of democracy that America has left. Individuals globally who have lived through the horrors of seeing their home countries devolve from democracies to dictatorships have been sounding the alarm for a few years now, and say America is already deep into that process. Project 2025 takes that process to its fascist mountaintop.
So, that’s reason number one why conservatives/Republicans seek a Project 2025 reality – they’re unabashed white nationalist racists who want to institutionalize white nationalist minority rule in a country where whites’ demographic minority status grows more “minority” every day.
Reason number two, why the GOP wants Project 2025, is not so insidious. They are tired of the DC gridlock that blocks those elected to govern from actually governing without hitting a brick wall. The problem with their approach is that they believe and know that the most efficient way to get things done politically is via a dictator who doesn’t have to concern himself or herself with rules of law, checks and balances, and the will of the people… you know, democracy-type stuff.
Dictators can do what they want, kill who they want, suppress whatever movement they choose, and silence whatever critics they disagree with. It’s all very efficient. It’s just not just or humane or democratic or for the people and by the people.
Democrats’ Dilemma
But Dems or liberals or progressives (folk who are anti-dictator and pro-democracy) are fed up with the DC gridlock too. They understand that the checks and balances and red tape are there so no one can actually become a dictator. But all that red tape and gridlock, coupled with Dems’ weak fighting spirit, makes it damn near impossible to deliver on their wide array of promises to their “big tent” constituency.
But what is crystal clear is that the fascist dictator group has been scheming, organizing, and working on a plan. It’s out there, ready to roll. But what’s the plan for folk who believe in pushing this American enterprise closer to its ideals of actually being “by the people and for the people”?
What’s the Dems’ Project 2024 and Beyond Plan (can’t call it Project 2025; that’s already taken)?
Vice President Kamala Harris. Credit: AP/John Raoux.
If the energy, excitement and fundraising explosion experienced recently with the announcement that current Vice President Kamala Harris will soon be the official Democratic nominee for president, then pushes her over the finish line and she becomes POTUS 47, after the celebrations and self-congratulatory rhetoric spewed about the history this country just made, a plan’s going to be needed bigtime.
First, the Project 2025 folk aren’t disappearing if and when they lose in November. They’ll keep scheming and working their plan.
Project 2024 and Beyond
But again, folk on the other side need to have a plan that addresses all the issues important to humans who care about humanity (voting rights, criminal justice reform, environmental justice, educational equality, healthcare access, women’s agency over their own bodies, gun reform, an end to American imperialism and end to supporting genocide globally, etc.).
And a big part of that plan has to be a playbook for how to govern in an ungovernable reality where bipartisanship is dead, killed by racist fascists. The “let’s work with the other side” approach has proven to be a failure, especially when the “other side” believes in the myth of white supremacy while living on a Black/Brown majority planet, and exists to serve only the top 1% of the 1% of the 1%.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Credit: AP/Mark Schiefelbein.
That progressive plan, Project 2024 and Beyond (a working title until a better one is created… maybe Outlook 2025), has to include executive orders whenever and wherever necessary. The people need to see movement immediately, or the fascists will simply be re-invigorated with more wind under their white nationalist wings.
Project 2024 and Beyond must include moves to salvage what has become the criminal enterprise known as the Supreme Court of the United States. If that means adding more seats, do it. If that means imposing term limits, so be it. If that means holding those current court jesters (and their spouses) accountable for crimes and indiscretions that would have gotten them disbarred and potentially jailed had they served on any other court in the country, let’s do it.
Project 2024 and Beyond must discontinue the “myth of white supremacy model” of international relations, i.e. supporting the genocidal acts of white-representing peoples and nations while criminalizing efforts to fight against such apartheid activities by members of the global majority.
Project 2024 and Beyond cannot stomach white cannabis billionaires while Black and Brown folk languish in prison for selling the same product but at the wrong moment in time.
And there are a gazillion other things this progressive plan needs. But please believe, a plan is needed… and it’s needed yesterday.
Step one, of course, is voting to keep the fascists out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But a plan better be in the works right now. Because as the greatest rapper to ever walk this earth (the Hard Rhymer, Public Enemy’s Chuck D), said, regardless of who wins in November, there’s going to be a serious reckoning we’ll all have to deal with.
Better to do so with a plan of action at the ready, for what this nation and world will be looking at for the rest of 2024… and beyond.
