(A Mirroring of Project 2025’s Structure)

Editorial Note: This is a thought experiment. Just as Project 2025 represented the fringe right, not mainstream conservatism this document imagines what the equivalent fringe left would look like if organized with the same ambition, institutional backing, and ideological maximalism. It is not an endorsement of any of these positions; it is a mirror.

Overview

Project 2025 was built on four pillars: a comprehensive policy document (Mandate for Leadership), a personnel recruitment pipeline filtered by ideology, a training academy for “loyalists,” and a 180-day agency-by-agency playbook. A progressive equivalent, call it Project 2028: Mandate for the People, would mirror all four pillars, replacing Heritage Foundation conservatism with the maximalist left’s governing vision.[1]

Where Project 2025 sought to dismantle the administrative state and concentrate executive power in a ideologically loyal president, Project 2028 would seek to massively expand the state, redistribute wealth and power, and embed progressive ideological loyalty throughout the federal bureaucracy in the opposite direction.[2][3]

The organizing bodies would likely be a coalition of groups such as the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement, DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), and unions like the AFL-CIO and SEIU, analogous to Heritage Foundation’s 100+ partner organizations. AOC, who is currently at the center of the progressive wing’s 2028 energy, and figures like Bernie Sanders would serve as the ideological architects, just as Kevin Roberts and Paul Dans did for Heritage. [1][4][5][6]

The Four Pillars

Pillar 1: The Policy Document — Mandate for the People

A 900+ page document, organized around these core principles (directly mirroring Project 2025’s pillars):[7]

• Restore the working class as the centerpiece of American life (mirroring “restore the family”)
• Build and expand the administrative state (the direct opposite of “dismantle the administrative state”)
• Defend the nation’s resources and people against corporate and oligarchic power (mirroring “defend sovereignty”)
• Guarantee equality of outcomes, not just opportunity (mirroring “take our culture back”)

Pillar 2: Loyalty-Tested Personnel

Project 2025 built a database of pre-vetted conservative loyalists to replace 50,000 career civil servants with ideologically committed replacements. Project 2028’s equivalent would:[3][1]

• Recruit progressive organizers, union leaders, climate scientists, and social justice advocates for every agency
• Screen candidates for ideological alignment with progressive principles
• Use Justice Democrats’ and Our Revolution’s networks to build a parallel staffing pipeline, mirroring Heritage’s “Presidential Administration Academy”[1]

Pillar 3: The Progressive Administration Academy

An online training program (mirroring Heritage’s indoctrination academy) to prepare progressive appointees, covering:[1]

• Labor and workers’ rights law
• Environmental justice frameworks
• Anti-monopoly and antitrust theory
• Racial equity and reparations implementation

Pillar 4: The 180-Day Playbook

Agency-by-agency action items executable on Day One. The progressive answer to Project 2025’s 180-day transition plan.[1]

Policy Agenda by Chapter

The following mirrors Project 2025’s chapter structure, but with maximalist left-wing policy:[8]

Chapter 1: The Executive Office Centralizing Progressive Power

Just as Project 2025 sought to pack the White House with loyalists and expand presidential authority, Project 2028 would:[2][3]

• Eliminate the Office of Management and Budget’s budget-cutting function; replace it with a National Planning Council modeled on the Nordic administrative state
• Create a new White House Office of Inequality Reduction with cabinet-level authority
• Appoint progressive economists and union leaders to every economic advisory body
• Issue Day One executive orders restoring and vastly expanding all protections rolled back under Trump 2.0

Chapter 2: Central Personnel — Purging “Corporate Democrats”

Where Project 2025 sought to replace career bureaucrats with conservative loyalists, Project 2028’s Personnel chapter would:[1]

• Reverse all Schedule F executive orders and reinstate fired federal employees
• Mandate that all senior political appointees come from progressive advocacy backgrounds
• Eliminate the revolving door between federal agencies and Wall Street/corporate America
• Extend civil service protections to make it harder to fire progressive-aligned workers in the future

Chapter 3: Department of Justice — Prosecuting Oligarchs

Project 2025 sought to weaponize DOJ against political enemies. Project 2028’s DOJ vision would:[7]

• Create a dedicated Corporate Crimes Division with a $10B budget to prosecute CEO fraud, wage theft, and environmental crimes
• End mass incarceration through wholesale drug decriminalization[9]
• Abolish mandatory minimum sentencing
• Investigate and potentially prosecute billionaires for alleged market manipulation and tax evasion
• End cash bail nationwide via DOJ funding conditions to states

Chapter 4: Defense — Massive Cuts and Reorientation

Project 2025 called for an expanded, ideologically realigned military. Project 2028 calls for the opposite:[10][11][7]

• Cut the defense budget by 30–50%, redirecting funds to domestic programs
• Close overseas military bases and withdraw from “offensive” NATO commitments
• Redirect Pentagon R&D spending to green energy and climate infrastructure
• Repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and require congressional approval for all military action
• Eliminate nuclear weapons production programs

Chapter 5: Department of Homeland Security — Abolish ICE, Restructure DHS

Project 2025 wanted to expand DHS and dramatically accelerate deportations. Project 2028 would go in the opposite direction:[9][2]

• Abolish ICE and transfer immigration enforcement functions to a civilian-led bureau under the State Department
• Decriminalize unauthorized border crossings, making them civil rather than criminal violations[9]
• End all immigration detention without violent criminal conviction
• Grant immediate legal status and a path to citizenship for all undocumented residents
• Break up DHS itself, distributing its functions across civilian agencies[9]

Chapter 6: Department of State — Anti-Imperialism and Global Justice

Project 2025 pushed for aggressive American unilateralism. Project 2028 would:[7]

• Return the U.S. to the Paris Agreement and ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Make U.S. foreign aid conditional on recipient countries’ labor rights and environmental records
• Cease arms sales to governments committing human rights abuses
• Establish a Department of Global Democracy Promotion free of CIA influence
• Cancel bilateral trade deals that lack labor and environmental standards

Chapter 7: Department of Health and Human Services — Medicare for All

Project 2025 called for cutting Medicare and Medicaid. Project 2028’s centerpiece would be:[2][7]

• Medicare for All: A single-payer system eliminating private health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office and CRFB have estimated this costs $32 trillion over 10 years, requiring either a 32% payroll tax, a 25% income surtax, or doubling all income tax rates[12][13][10]
• Nationalize pharmaceutical manufacturing for essential drugs; set prices by congressional mandate
• Expand Medicaid to undocumented immigrants
• Fund abortion services federally in all states
• Mandate free mental health care as a Medicare benefit

Chapter 8: Labor — Maximum Unionization

Project 2025 sought to make union organizing harder and ban public-sector unions. Project 2028’s Labor chapter is the polar opposite:[14][15]

• Pass the Workplace Democracy Act: allow unions to organize via majority sign-up, eliminate “right to work” laws, extend union rights to gig and independent workers[15]
• Mandate worker representation on corporate boards of all companies with 100+ employees (the German Mitbestimmung model)
• Raise the federal minimum wage to $25/hour
• Establish a Federal Jobs Guarantee: the federal government as employer of last resort, guaranteeing a $25/hour job to any American who wants one
• Reduce the standard workweek to 32 hours with no reduction in pay

Chapter 9: Education — Free College and Abolish Student Debt

Project 2025 sought to abolish the Department of Education entirely. Project 2028 would massively expand it:[2]

• Cancel all $1.7 trillion in outstanding student debt[12]
• Make public college and university tuition-free
• Expand public school budgets by 50% via a federal wealth-tax-funded education endowment
• Mandate comprehensive sex education, climate science, and ethnic studies in all public schools
• Eliminate private school tax deductions and voucher programs

Chapter 10: Environment — Green New Deal

Project 2025 called for rolling back environmental regulations and withdrawing from international climate agreements. Project 2028’s environmental chapter would cost as much as $16 trillion:[3][12][2]

• Implement the full Green New Deal: 100% clean energy by 2035
• Create a Civilian Climate Corps of 1 million workers
• Ban all new fossil fuel extraction on federal lands
• Nationalize the fossil fuel industry’s infrastructure and wind it down under a managed transition
• Make the EPA an independent constitutional agency impossible to gut via executive order

Chapter 11: Treasury and Tax — Soak the Rich

Project 2025 pushed for lower taxes, a flat income tax, and corporate tax cuts. Project 2028 goes to the opposite extreme:[16][12][2]

• Implement a 2% annual wealth tax on wealth above $50 million, 3% above $1 billion (the Warren Wealth Tax)[16]
• Raise the top marginal income tax rate to 70% on income over $10 million
• Raise the corporate tax rate to 35%
• Create a financial transaction tax of 0.1% on all stock, bond, and derivatives trades
• Eliminate the carried interest loophole, step-up basis, and all capital gains preferences

Chapter 12: Housing — Housing as a Right

Project 2025’s HUD chapter called for deregulating housing markets. Project 2028 would:[7]

• Declare housing a constitutional right and mandate federal enforcement
• Construct 10 million units of public housing over 10 years, funded by the wealth tax
• Enact national rent control: limit rent increases to inflation
• Create a federal right to counsel for all tenants facing eviction
• End exclusionary zoning nationwide via federal funding conditions[13]

Chapter 13: Financial Regulation — Break Up Big Banks

Project 2025 called for weakening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and deregulating Wall Street. Project 2028 would:[17][7]

• Reinstate and expand Glass-Steagall, separating commercial and investment banking
• Break up any bank with assets over $500 billion
• Create a U.S. Postal Bank offering free checking and savings accounts to all Americans
• Expand the CFPB into a Consumer Financial Protection Agency with rule-making authority over all financial products
• Tax stock buybacks at 100% above inflation-adjusted book value

Chapter 14: Commerce and Trade — Anti-Monopoly Enforcement

Project 2025 sought to weaken antitrust enforcement. Project 2028 would:[7]

• Enact a presumptive ban on all mergers above $5 billion
• Break up Big Tech monopolies (Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple) through aggressive antitrust suits
• Create a Department of Economic Democracy to oversee corporate concentration
• Bar companies from both owning platforms and competing on them (ending Amazon’s dual role)
• Mandate open-source AI models for any AI system trained on public data

Chapter 15: Culture and Social Policy

Project 2025’s “Culture War” chapter targeted LGBTQ+ rights, pornography, and DEI programs. Project 2028’s cultural chapter would:[7][1]

• Pass the Equality Act permanently enshrining LGBTQ+ non-discrimination protections[13]
• Mandate federal funding for gender-affirming care under Medicare for All[13]
• Implement reparations for descendants of enslaved people: a federal commission to determine amount and delivery mechanism
• Enact comprehensive police reform: end qualified immunity, mandate body cameras, redirect 10% of local police budgets to community services
• Establish Universal Basic Services: free public transit, broadband, and childcare as federal entitlements

Chapter 16: Elections and Democracy

Project 2025 sought to restrict voting access and consolidate Republican electoral power. Project 2028 would:[7]

• Enact automatic voter registration for all Americans at age 18
• Create a federal public campaign financing system, banning all private donations above $200
• Pass the For the People Act (H.R. 1) to nationalize election standards
• Abolish the Electoral College via a National Popular Vote compact or constitutional amendment
• Expand the Supreme Court to 13 justices and impose 18-year term limits
• Grant statehood to Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico

Side-by-Side: Project 2025 vs. Project 2028

Why the Symmetry Is Instructive

The exercise reveals something important: both the far right and the far left share a common structural approach: identify ideological enemies embedded in the existing system, replace them with loyalists, and use executive power to reshape government in the image of the movement’s values. Project 2025 explicitly built a “spoils system” based on ideological tests. Project 2028, as imagined here, would do exactly the same thing in reverse.[1]

Both blueprints also share a weakness: cost and political durability. Project 2025’s proposals have already generated significant public backlash, and the progressive agenda faces even steeper arithmetic challenges. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated Medicare for All alone would require a 32% payroll tax; add the Green New Deal ($16T), free college ($3T), housing ($4T+), and a federal jobs guarantee, and the total spending package would dwarf any historical peacetime program.[19][12]

Real-world Democrats in 2026 are debating precisely whether a figure like AOC (whose allies are laying groundwork for a 2028 run) or a centrist like Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg better serves the party’s electability. Third Way and the center-left have explicitly launched a “Stop AOC” effort for 2028, reflecting the same internal tensions that produced the conservative-vs-MAGA split on the right. Thomas Edsall’s New York Times column on a hypothetical “Project 2028” for Democrats took a very different path, explicitly centrist and market-oriented, underscoring that the actual Democratic mainstream is nowhere near the hypothetical maximalism described above.[20][21][22][5][6]

The fringe left version described in this document is thus not a prediction. it is a structural mirror, showing what institutional maximalism looks like when the ideological polarity is reversed.

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References

1. Project 2025: The Blueprint for Christian Nationalist Regime Change – Trump become the next president. The plan calls for establishing a government that would be imbued w…
2. Project 2025 – Wikipedia – Project 2025 is a political initiative published in April 2023 by the Heritage Foundation with the g…
3. [PDF] A Blueprint for Transforming Donald Trump’s Administration 2.0 – Abstract. This study aims to analyze the objectives of Project 2025, an initiative led by the Herita…
4. Watch Democrats unveil new 2028 election playbook – FNC – FOX One – After 2024 losses, Democrats unveil a 2028 playbook focused on voter connection, progressive policie…
5. Centrist Dems launch ‘28 mission: Stop AOC – Axios – It’s a reflection of the deep divisions within the party over how to take on Trump’s MAGA Republican…
6. AOC’s Allies Lay Groundwork for 2028 Presidential Bid – NYC Today – According to a report from Axios, allies of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are quietly laying the gro…
7. [PDF] Subject-by-Subject Breakdown of Trump’s Project 2025 – Project 2025 is the blueprint for Trump and MAGA Republicans to gut checks and balances so that they…
8. Project 2025 Chapters – Finding Archived Government Information – Research Guides: Finding Archived Government Information: Project 2025 Chapters
9. Bernie Sanders’ Foreign Policy – Follow the presidential candidates on the major foreign policy issues, including North Korea, climat…
10. Bernie Sanders – Wikipedia
11. Deal for All – Congressional Progressive Caucus – “For FY 2013, defense spending will consume about 20 percent of the total federal budget and more th…
12. The Progressives’ Empty Policy Agenda: Utopian Promises Are Not … – Progressives built a national movement around enacting items like Medicare for All, the Green New De…
13. Key Issues – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress – Medicare For All · Housing As a Human Right · A Peace Economy · Justice for Workers & Small Business…
14. [PDF] Project 2025 Summary Overview
15. Issues – Senator Bernie Sanders – Economy Even before the coronavirus pandemic – and the deep economic recession that it has wrought –…
16. Warren seeks to put her progressive stamp on Dems’ 2028 makeover – Warren isn’t running for president in 2028. But as one of the most influential voices on the progres…
17. Political positions of Bernie Sanders – Wikipedia
18. What would a hypothetical authoritarian need to actually subvert … – 54 votes, 337 comments. I’ve been reading a lot about the historical circumstances that led to autho…
19. What is Project 2025? Wish list for Trump second term, explained – A conservative think tank set out a sweeping vision for governing that could influence Trump’s next …
20. Opinion | Project 2028 – The New York Times – This column is an experiment of sorts: an outline of items in a hypothetical 2028 Democratic Party p…
21. Edsall: A ‘Project 2028’ for Democrats – The Democratic Party believes government has a substantial obligation to secure this equality throug…
22. Democrats divided over centrist or progressive 2028 candidate – Democrats are grappling with an existential question as the 2028 Democratic primary comes into view:…