Start making sense

For the past decade or so, I've donated money and time to political efforts that I support. I've done that locally, but also nationally, giving time to and canvassing for issues and candidates here in California and in other states.

That's landed me on a cockroach-like collection of mailing, texting and calling lists. I get inbounds from people I've never heard of from all over the country, threatening certain doom if I don't give them money.

I know it won't stem the infestation, but I stomp on all of them with STOP or "Delete and report spam."

Here's the thing.

The Democratic party has lost me. Leadership is decrepit. It demands that I hate the bad man. It whines for my money, because it hates the bad man, too.

And look: I don't like the bad man!

But more fundamentally, I want a path and a plan to a better future. I want to know what issues matter to a particular candidate or group. I want to understand specifically what policies they plan to pursue. I want a plan for how, once elected, they'll muster the votes to pass legislation that will get signed into law.

Immigration reform would totally grab me. A rethinking of whom and how we tax, and how to begin to retire the debt, would be huge. New ways to manufacture and work in a world dominated increasingly by algorithms and models, new approaches to employment and opportunity, would snap my head back.

What I get is: Bad man! Please money!

Every now and then, I'll reply to a text or even pick up the phone. I say: No money for any Democrat in any race, local, state or federal. No canvassing, no volunteering. No votes.

I've almost perfectly held the line on contributions. A very few relationship-based inbounds have breached my defenses. And, honestly, the "no votes" thing will see some strategic relaxation – I wouldn't want to blame myself for a California governor's race with only two candidates, MAGA and MAGA-lite. But I mean the threat to be sobering, and I mean mostly to hold ot it.

Last week for the first time, I heard from a new political organization called Project 2029. The name comes from exactly where you expect: it's a progressive response to the devastatingly effective Project 2025. It promises to address my frustration and to propose a path to a better future. Chad Maisel, an economist who worked on Cory Booker's 2020 Presidential campaign and served advisory roles in the Obama and Biden administrations, has just written a post on the group's ambitions called The Moment for Ideas Is Now.

If it came true, I think I would like it.

Maisel's isn't the only voice arguing for a reboot. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson laid out a useful manifesto in Abundance. Jen Pahlka has been deep in tech policy and government reform for decades. Her Eating Policy blog is excellent, as you can see from her most recent post.

The Project 2029 site is, so far, rich in intent, free of substantive content. It hasn't breached my "no money" barricade yet. But the new voice and its message are hopeful. They make sense.

I'll keep an eye on 'em.

I know you've been aching for David Byrne's counterpoint to my blog post title since you read it. Here you go.