Project 2029:

A Call to Action

They had a nine-hundred-page blueprint ready before the election even happened. Nine hundred pages of exactly what they would do with power, who would do it, how it would happen, which regulations would fall first. The conservative movement spent years on this. They paid people. They organized working groups. They built something comprehensive and ruthless and ready.

We have nothing.

No Project 2029. No liberal want list prepared and ready for implementation the moment power shifts. We have good intentions and scattered policy papers and the vague sense that someone, somewhere, is probably working on this. They are not.

This is not a problem that will solve itself.

What I am proposing,what I am saying we need,is simple in concept and staggering in execution. We need to create Project 2029: a grassroots movement to build a comprehensive progressive policy agenda for the next administration that might welcome it. We need writers who can translate policy into language that sings. We need designers who can make ideas visible and shareable. We need organizers who understand that a Google Doc is not a movement but might become one. We need poets, because policy without narrative is just paperwork that dies in a drawer.

We need you.

The work is this: to gather together, virtually and otherwise, and to ask ourselves what we actually want. Not what we think we can get, not what seems politically feasible in this moment or that moment, but what we want.

If I were starting this project,if I were the one asking,here’s what I’d want us to answer:

What does universal healthcare actually mean? Not the slogan, the system. Single-payer? Public option? What does the transition look like? Who gets covered first? How do we handle the insurance industry workforce? What’s the ten-year implementation plan?

What would a real climate response require? Not goals, not pledges,actual policy. What gets built, what gets shut down, who pays for it, how do we make it economically viable for the workers in dying industries, what does a just transition actually look like in Appalachia, in Louisiana, in every place where the economy is fossil fuels?

How do we rebuild labor power? What would collective bargaining look like if we wrote the rules from scratch? How do we handle gig workers, contractors, the whole modern economy that was designed to circumvent unions?

What’s the plan for housing? Not “affordable housing” as a vague aspiration, but actual numbers. How many units, where, funded how, built by whom? What do we do about corporate ownership of single-family homes? About zoning? About NIMBYism in progressive cities?

How do we remake education without assuming more money alone fixes it? What would schools look like if we designed them for actual learning instead of standardized tests? How do we pay teachers what they’re worth and mean it as policy, not rhetoric?

What does criminal justice reform mean beyond releasing people from prison? How do we actually reduce crime while reducing incarceration? What replaces cash bail? What does accountability look like without armed police officers handling mental health crises?

What’s the immigration policy when we’re being honest? Not the political compromise version, the version we actually believe would be right. What’s the path to citizenship? How many people? How fast? What does border security mean when it’s not a euphemism for cruelty?

How do we fix the tax code so it actually redistributes wealth? What are the rates? Where are the thresholds? What do we do about capital gains, about carried interest, about the thousand loopholes that exist because someone was paid to write them?

These are not rhetorical questions. They require answers, specific and detailed answers, the kind that fill binders and survive transitions of power. They require us to move past what sounds good in a tweet and into what actually works in a congressional office at 11 p.m. when someone has to decide what goes in the bill.

The conservative movement understood something we forgot: that governing requires a plan, that power unused is power wasted, that the distance between a good idea and an implemented policy is filled with ten thousand tedious details that someone has to get right. They hired people to get those details right. They paid them. They gave them time and resources and the institutional support to think beyond the next news cycle.

We have relied instead on the assumption that the right people, once elected, will figure it out. They will not. They cannot. There isn’t time. An administration begins and immediately the work of the next campaign begins and the policy becomes whatever can be grabbed in the moments between crises.

Unless there is a plan. Unless someone has done the thinking.

That someone could be us. Should be us. Must be us, if we are serious about any of this.

I am talking about a genuine grassroots effort, which means I am talking about people working without the certainty of payment or credit or even success. I am talking about writers who will spend evenings translating healthcare policy into clear English. Designers who will create infographics explaining tax reform. Organizers who will build the platforms where this work can happen. Researchers who will chase down citations. Editors who will make it readable. Poets who will make it memorable.

I am talking about building something that doesn’t yet exist: a comprehensive, detailed, ready-to-implement progressive agenda, written in language people can understand, designed to be shared, organized to be used.

The model exists. The infrastructure for this kind of collaboration exists. What we lack is not capability but will, not resources but commitment. What we lack is the belief that this work matters enough to do it now, before there is an election to win, before there is a candidate to support, before there is any guarantee that anyone will use what we create.

We do it anyway. We do it because the alternative is to arrive at the moment of possibility with nothing but hopes and the belief that someone else has handled the details. They have not.

Here’s what I need to tell you though: I don’t know how to build a platform. I can’t code a website or manage a database or set up the infrastructure that would let thousands of people collaborate on something this massive. I can write. I can research. I can imagine what this might look like. But the essential work of actually putting it together,the technical architecture, the organizational systems, the coordination,I can’t do that alone.

Neither can you, probably. And that’s the point.

This isn’t a project for one person with all the skills. It’s a project that requires what none of us have individually: the complete range of expertise to build something this comprehensive. Which means it starts with finding each other.

So here’s what might actually work.

We start by finding one person who can build a simple platform,not something elaborate, just a place where people can gather and self-organize. A Discord server. A Slack workspace. A basic website with forums. Someone reading this can do that. That person becomes the first collaborator.

Then we need one person who’s good at organizing people, who can take the chaos of interested strangers and turn it into working groups. Someone who’s done this before, maybe in community organizing or in their professional life. Someone who knows how to run meetings, set agendas, keep projects moving. That person becomes the second collaborator.

From there, we build outward. We put out a call,maybe it starts with this piece, maybe it spreads on social media, maybe someone with a platform sees it and amplifies it,and we ask people to self-identify. Not just “I want to help” but “I can do this specific thing.” I can write policy briefs. I can design infographics. I can research comparative healthcare systems. I can manage a database. I can edit for clarity. I can translate documents into Spanish. I can build a website that handles collaborative editing.

We start with what people offer, not what we wish we had.

We organize into working groups. Healthcare. Climate. Labor. Education. Criminal justice reform. Immigration. Housing. Civil rights. Tax policy. Each group operates semi-autonomously but feeds into a central organizing structure. Someone has to coordinate this,probably several someones, rotating leadership to prevent burnout and centralized control.

We recruit writers who can take dense policy and make it sing. Not simplify it into uselessness, but translate it. Every section needs to exist in multiple forms: the detailed policy document, the one-page summary, the social media explainer, the op-ed version. We need designers who can visualize data, create infographics that don’t condescend, build templates that make complex information accessible.

We need researchers, the kind who know how to find comparative international policy, who can dig up what worked in Minneapolis or what failed in California, who understand that good policy is built on evidence, not wishes. We need lawyers who can translate aspirations into legislative language. We need economists who can run the numbers and show the work.

We need poets and storytellers because policy without narrative is just paperwork. Someone has to write the version that moves people, that reminds us why we’re doing this, that connects the spreadsheet to the human life it affects.

And we need organizers who understand that this entire effort means nothing if it lives only on our platform. The work has to move outward,into town halls, into state legislatures, into congressional offices. We need people building relationships with electeds now, saying: we’re doing this work, we’ll have something for you, what do you need?

The methodology matters. We work in public where possible. We cite our sources. We invite criticism and revision. We acknowledge when we don’t have consensus and present the competing approaches honestly. We build in mechanisms for updating as new information emerges. This is a living document, not a sealed decree.

We set deadlines. First draft of each policy section by a certain date. Review period. Revision. Public comment. Final draft. We work backward from 2029, from that first day when a new administration takes power, and we make sure something comprehensive exists before then.

We fund this grassroots-style. Small donations. Maybe crowdfunding for specific sections or infrastructure needs. We keep overhead low. We don’t wait for institutional backing. We don’t wait for permission.

We build coalitions as we go. We reach out to existing organizations working on these issues and we ask them to contribute. We don’t reinvent what already exists; we synthesize, we organize, we make it comprehensive and accessible and ready.

And we accept that this might fail. That we might build something thorough and comprehensive and it might sit unused. We do it anyway, because the alternative is to arrive at the moment of possibility with nothing but scattered hopes.

But here’s what I think happens if we start: someone with organizational skills sees this and knows how to structure it. Someone who built a platform for their startup’s internal collaboration realizes they can adapt it. Someone who works in policy sees what we’re missing and fills in the gaps. Someone who’s been waiting for exactly this kind of project finds us.

The work begins not when one person has all the answers, but when enough people with different skills decide the work matters enough to figure it out together.

So let me be direct about what needs to happen next.

If you’re reading this and you want to be part of this, say so publicly. Use the tag #Project2029 on whatever platform you use. Say what you can contribute. Be specific: “I can build a collaborative platform.” “I can write healthcare policy.” “I can design infographics.” “I can organize working groups.” “I can research international models.” Not vague interest,actual skills.

Search that tag. Find the people with skills that complement yours. If you can organize but can’t build, find the builder. If you can write but need researchers, find them. Start forming teams around the policy areas: healthcare, climate, labor, criminal justice, education, housing, immigration, tax policy.

Someone needs to set up a central organizing space in the next two weeks. A Discord server, a subreddit, a bare-bones website with forums. Somewhere people can gather and start coordinating. If you have the technical skills to do this and you’re reading this right now,just do it. Post the link with #Project2029. That becomes our commons.

Every working group gets until ninety days from now to produce a first draft. Not perfect, not complete, but something concrete. A framework. The questions that need answering. The research that exists. The gaps we need to fill.

Everything gets posted as it’s developed. We invite criticism. We cite sources. We show our work. We build this as a living document that improves through scrutiny.

Share this piece. Send it to the writer you know who cares about healthcare. Send it to your friend who works in policy. Send it to the organizer in your community. Send it to anyone who’s ever said “someone should do something.” We are someone. This is something.

The conservative movement spent years building their blueprint because they understood that power without a plan is just noise. We’ve been making noise. It’s time to make a plan.

I’m writing this because I can write, and this is what I can contribute. Someone reading this can build what I’m describing. Someone else can organize it. Someone else knows exactly how to make this work.

We don’t need permission. We don’t need to wait for the right moment. The right moment is November 2028, and we’re already behind.

Find each other. Build this. Start now.

A note about this work: I’m going to keep writing about Project 2029 as it develops,if it develops. I’ll be tracking who responds, what gets built, where the obstacles are, what we’re learning about trying to organize something like this from scratch. I’ll be writing about the policy questions themselves, diving into what a real progressive agenda might look like when we’re being honest about the details.

If you want to follow this work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. I’m not doing this through an institution or a think tank. There’s no grant funding, no organizational backing. It’s just this: writing, researching, and trying to help coordinate something that probably should have started years ago. Paid subscriptions make it possible for me to spend time on this instead of only on work that pays immediately.

And if Project 2029 actually starts to happen, if people actually start building this, there will be a lot to cover. I want to be able to do that work well. Your support makes that possible.