The Democratic Party -- and liberalism in general -- needs to take a stand. So far, they have mostly been reactive, fighting back against Donald Trump and his administration. Trump will do something outrageous, and Democrats then react to it. But there's no cohesive plan to any of it -- nothing that ties it all together into an actual political agenda. So it would behoove them to steal a page (actually a whole lot of pages) from the Republicans, and come up with a "Project 2029" document that lays out what their vision of the federal government would be, if they win the White House and Congress.

Obviously, a lot of this document would indeed be reactive, because a rather large list of "things Trump has done that need overturning" would certainly be a big part of a Project 2029 document. But it shouldn't stop with just "undo everything Trump did" -- it should also be aspirational, in terms of how parts of the federal government that Trump has destroyed should be reconstituted. Itemize what reforms would be necessary to not just strengthen the foundations of governmental departments, but also ensure that no future Republican president could get away with causing the sort of damage that Trump has.

Some agenda items would be almost impossible to implement quickly, since reining in presidential and executive branch powers will almost certainly require some proposed constitutional amendments -- which are almost impossible to pass. But that doesn't mean Democrats shouldn't lay out what changes to our foundational document they would like to see ratified, in order to put some guardrails around the presidency so a megalomaniac can never again abuse the office for his own personal gain (or just on a whim).

So far, Democrats are mostly focused on the upcoming midterm elections. Which is all fine and good, since retaking control of one (or both) of the houses of Congress would go a long way towards limiting Trump's powers right now. In the normal course of things, sweeping party-wide agendas would not be debated until after the midterms when a plethora of candidates is expected to jump into the 2028 presidential race. Each candidate will come up with their own vision for the party and for the federal government, and they will make their case to the voters as to why theirs is better than everyone else's.

But that shouldn't preclude some liberal think tank from getting ahead of the curve right now. We're less than a week away from the completion of Trump's first year in his second term, and already the damage he's done -- to the federal government, to the reputation of the United States on the world stage, and to constitutional protections that Americans had taken for granted up until now -- is breathtaking in its scope and in its depth. There's already a lot to work with, in other words, when Democrats sit down to ponder how they would do anything differently if they win the White House again.

As with the Republican Project 2025 book, this should cover a whole lot of things, both small and large. Some of it will be changes that roll back Trump's pettiness and petulance. There may be a whole chapter just on "renaming things back to what they were" -- the Gulf of Mexico, the Kennedy Center, the Department of Defense, military bases named for Confederate soldiers, etc., etc., etc. -- there's a very long list of things Trump has either slapped his own name on or otherwise changed for the stupidest of reasons. Also, Trump's face (indeed, any living president's face) needs to be permanently removed from things like the National Parks entry pass (and all those giant North-Korean-style banners in Washington as well). Most of these would be quite easy to do, since Trump so far hasn't bothered getting any of them enacted into law by Congress. What one president orders by executive order, a new president can overturn by the same stroke of a pen, in other words.

A large portion of a Project 2029 agenda would be to not just clean up Trump's messes, but prevent future presidents from doing the same things. One glaring example would be to make civil service employment protections iron-clad. This would likely require purging a whole lot of Trump's sycophants from executive branch jobs, to clean out the Augean stables of all the moosepoop-for-brains MAGA ideologues and replace them with qualified and competent professionals. But then any future purges should be banned (how about the "No DOGE Act" as a name for legislation?) and civil servants below the top-level political appointees should be completely insulated from politics. Civil servants should never be asked any political question -- either during the hiring process or after they are employed -- for any reason. Asking such questions should become illegal, period. Democrats will likely only get one chance to fight back against Trump returning the government to the 19th-century "spoils system," otherwise we're going to be in for a widespread political purge every time a new president is elected.

Democrats should also lay out how they would rebuild and reorganize federal departments that have been decimated by Trump (and Elon Musk) or have been reduced to meaninglessness by hiring patently unqualified people (this would include rehiring a lot of scientists at agencies such as the C.D.C., to cite the most obvious). How would Democrats reform departments and agencies like ICE or FEMA or the Education Department? They should agree on a plan to do so in advance.

Democrats should also agree on a comprehensive immigration plan, that covers all aspects of how people come to this country and eventually become citizens. Rules should be laid out which include both what immigrants will have to do as well as how federal officers enforce the regulations. "Federal agents cannot wear masks to hide their identities" would be a big step forward, on this issue.

There are really too many issues to adequately list here in a single column which will require not just a Democratic presidential candidate, but a concerted effort from the whole party in order to get enacted. Some of these will be "shoot for the moon" efforts, and others will be incredibly mundane. But the party should lay out the ones that most Democrats can agree to in a document that is as long as it needs to be (Project 2025 ran to almost a thousand pages, after all).

There should be proposals to rewrite and clarify previous laws (that are prone to presidential abuse), such as the Insurrection Act. That's just one -- there are others that are equally as vague about the sweeping powers presidents can claim.

Some of these will of necessity have to be proposals for constitutional amendments. Reining in the power of a rogue president has never been all that necessary until now, because presidents have been limited to traditional "unwritten rules" and have respected both them and the rule of law. But we've now seen the damage that can be done by a president who respects neither. Since the strongest restraints on the president and the executive branch are laid out in the Constitution, amendments will almost certainly be necessary. Some will be very basic ideas (such as: "Corporations are not considered "people" or "persons" under the Constitution, and they have no constitutional rights"). Some will be revisions of previous amendments (such as removing all doubt that a president can only serve in office twice). And some will be very specific to Trump's abuses (such as setting down iron rules that prevent a president or his or her immediate family from profiting off the office in any way) or rulings from the current Supreme Court (such as: "Presidents are not above the law and may be held accountable by the judicial system after they leave office for any lawbreaking").

There are plenty of other ideas that could be included. Term limits on the Supreme Court. Requirements for presidential candidates to release medical histories and tax returns and financial histories. Banning gerrymandering. In fact, there is no real shortage of good ideas out there for Democrats to support.

But the Democratic Party shouldn't be the ones to put together a Project 2029 document. The Project 2025 book wasn't put together by the Republican Party, but by a conservative think tank. A liberal think tank or other unaffiliated group should be the creators of a Democratic grand agenda. This will bypass any and all infighting within the Democratic Party establishment, and it would avoid individual Democratic politicians fighting each other over this agenda item or that one.

Again, Democrats should take their cue from the success of the Project 2025 effort. Because it wasn't an official Republican Party document, it freed up every Republican politician to say: "Well, I agree with some things in it, but not all of it" -- which Trump himself did to avoid being pinned down by any part of it that proved to be too contentious for the voters. Then he got into office, and the effort went into overdrive. Because unlike his first term, this time the team behind him -- all his top advisors and his cabinet -- already had a blueprint to work from. This is why they were able to do so much so quickly.

As I mentioned, this all won't really come into focus until the 2028 presidential primary season starts right after the midterms. Then each individual candidate can lay out their own plans for rebuilding things post-Trump. They'll each be searching for things to promise that will be wildly popular with their base (my suggestion would be: "I promise to go back to the same companies that paid for it and shame them into donating the money needed to tear down Donald Trump's ballroom and restore the East Wing of the White House to its historical footprint"). But if they all had a huge list of ideas to choose from at the start, it could coalesce the party around the biggest and most important items a lot easier than with each presidential contender claiming credit for certain ideas and trying to block all the others from getting any credit for them. If the ideas had already been proposed, then they could just state whether they agreed with them or not without the big struggle over who got credit for thinking it up.

We have all seen how effective the Project 2025 effort has been. Having a blueprint on Day One meant not having to figure it all out before beginning to implement large portions of it. Instead, Team Trump hit the ground running. Democrats should take this lesson to heart. There are a lot of things that pretty much every Democrat would be able to agree on (all of the "clean up Trump's messes and rebuild what he broke" items, for starters), and having all of them written down for the voters to see would benefit whomever eventually becomes the nominee. Again, they can always pick and choose -- "I don't support this one idea" -- but they'll have a cohesive plan for reforming the government in the post-Trump era that they could get behind in a general sort of way.

So consider this an open invitation to any liberal think tank or other political advocacy group out there. Please feel free to take this idea and run with it. Look at how effective Project 2025 has been, and then ask yourselves: "What would we do differently? How could we not just fix the damage that has been done, but strengthen the system so it never happens again?" And then write it all down for all to see.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant