By Julianne Malveaux
(Trice Edney Wire) – A candidate for mayor of Washington, D.C., is promising to take on the rats. Janeese Lewis George proposes appointing a rat czar, and while I would welcome relief from the rodents that have plagued this city for decades, I suspect the rats have survived enough administrations to know the difference between a campaign announcement and a threat to their continued prosperity. Before they pack their bags, they may want to see the budget.
Voters ought to be at least as discerning. People will say almost anything during a campaign, especially when they have identified something that makes us angry, frightened, or exhausted. The challenge is to distinguish a promise that earns applause from a program that can produce results. Who will do the work, where is the money, and what happens when somebody with influence objects?
That brings me to Project 2025 and a question for Democrats and progressives: Where is our project? Donald Trump distanced himself from Project 2025 during the 2024 campaign, even as the conservative movement prepared its policy and personnel agenda for a Republican administration. His disavowal did not prevent his administration from pursuing much of that agenda. The Center for Progressive Reform and Governing for Impact reported in February 2026 that his administration had initiated or completed 283 of the 532 domestic administrative actions identified in their tracker. That is a chilling measure of preparation.
MAGA Republicans had worked out what they wanted government to do and how to use its machinery to accomplish it. Those of us who abhor the objectives of Project 2025 must examine the organization behind them, because outrage at the results will not substitute for preparation of our own. Democrats and progressive organizations have policy proposals, talented researchers, and communities that know precisely where public policy has failed them. What I want to see is a shared governing program that people can understand, organize around, and use to hold those asking for their votes accountable.
Why is it so much easier to describe what we oppose than what we intend to build? “Affordability” needs some arithmetic attached to it. A housing agenda should tell a nursing assistant or a retired teacher what share of their income they ought to spend on shelter and what government will do to make that possible. An economic agenda should explain how workers will gain the bargaining power to secure better pay, rather than asking them to celebrate growth that too often fails to reach their household budgets. Schools do not get better because the education advocate won an election, and environmental justice does not appear because a candidate acknowledges that pollution is unfair. Both require decisions about resources and power, including a willingness to confront people who benefit from existing arrangements.
A serious agenda ought to identify those conflicts before taking office. For Black voters, so often summoned to rescue democracy, the questions must include what that democracy will deliver. What is the program for reducing the racial wealth gap, protecting Black landownership, and enforcing fair housing? We deserve commitments with a route from the campaign platform to the public budget. Black voters cannot substitute the pride of a historic first for tangible results. If Hakeem Jeffries becomes the first African American Speaker of the House, the significance will be undeniable, but so will the questions about what his leadership can deliver.
Will “affordability” translate into a serious push to raise the federal minimum wage? What will he fight to restore or expand in student aid and student debt relief? What can a House majority do to reduce the costs squeezing household budgets, and how will it overcome the obstacles? We can celebrate a breakthrough, but we must insist on a program. “Not Trump” is not an agenda.
A House majority cannot accomplish all this alone. An honest program would explain what requires legislation, how to confront a president prepared to veto progressive measures, and where state and local governments must act. Voters can understand obstacles; what wears people down is discovering after the election that the promises came without a plan for confronting them.
The organizations that mobilize us must remain engaged when campaign offices close. Churches, unions, civil rights groups, and neighborhood organizations should help shape the agenda and sustain pressure to advance it. That work needs funding and staff throughout the year, because the interests resisting change will remain on the job. The ballot is necessary, but its power depends on the work surrounding it.
We should arrive at Election Day knowing what we intend to demand the morning afterward and who will help us demand it. I hope Washington gets relief from its rats. Whether the promise concerns rodents or racial inequality, I want to see the resources, the timetable, and the people responsible for delivery. Campaigns are full of people telling us what they want to do. We ought to insist on knowing what they are prepared to get done.
Dr. Julianne Malveaux is a DC based economist and author.
