Opinion: Project 2025 could be the end of America as we know it — enter Democracy 2026

As president, Donald Trump did a lot of damage to the fabric of constitutional government. Whether he was interfering with the independence of the Department of Justice, bypassing the Senate’s constitutional responsibility to confirm presidential appointments or doing an end-run around Congress’s authority to appropriate money, Trump made it painfully clear that what we had thought were the guardrails of democracy were often just white lines painted on the road.

And should Trump win in November, Republicans intend to use the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint to do even more damage and turn the presidency into a virtual autocracy.

In large measure, this is President Biden’s fault. When he was elected, his first priority should have been fixing everything Trump broke. Instead, apart from modest fixes to the Electoral Count Act, he did almost nothing . And he was initially lukewarm about even those bipartisan reforms.

It’s early days yet, but Kamala Harris, taking over for Biden as the official Democratic nominee for 2024, seems to take the need to defend American democracy more seriously. Highlighting the dangers of Project 2025 is good, but proposing reforms to autocrat-proof the presidency would be better.

Welcome to Democracy 2026.

The 250th anniversary of the American experiment is coming up in 2026. There is no better way to celebrate that milestone than to refurbish our system of checks and balances, to ensure that American democracy lasts another 250 years.

The fact is, we’ve gotten sloppy. Instead of having “a government of laws, not of men,” Congress has slowly ceded power to the presidency , with the understanding that these powers would only be used with wisdom and restraint. That might have been a good bet once, but it isn’t now. And it’s past time we did something about it.

There is a lot we can do. Democracy 2026 would include a wide range of common-sense, even bipartisan, reforms. Many of them aren’t even controversial.

For example, due to an unanticipated interaction between a long-standing Justice Department policy that prevents sitting presidents from being indicted and federal law on the statute of limitations, presidents get a free pass that can place them above the law, even for crimes they may have committed before becoming president. This is a legal accident that no one thinks is a good idea. It’s an easy legislative fix — literally one line — but it still requires a president willing to invest the time and attention necessary to get it through Congress.

Some fixes, while equally uncontroversial, will require a constitutional amendment. Most people aren’t in favor of presidential self-pardons . People on both sides of the aisle are concerned about the Supreme Court’s recent decision granting presidents wide immunity from prosecution. Crafting a constitutional amendment to address these two issues will require sustained attention and lots of discussion. But that’s exactly the sort of discussion that strengthens our personal commitments to democracy. Debating this amendment in the individual states will be a healthy exercise in self-government. There is no better way to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

There is a whole laundry list like this. Congressional subpoena power needs to be clarified and strengthened . The National Emergency Act, which enhances the president’s powers in times of national emergency, needs to be updated . The Vacancies Act needs to be fortified . Civil service protections need to be bolstered Even things like the Hatch Act and the Emoluments clause need to be upgraded to handle the realities of the 21st century. This is just a sampling. There’s a lot of work to be done here.

But to make this happen, the president has to own these reforms. Of course, this is a lot easier for a President Harris if Democrats control Congress. But a committed president could get many of them through, regardless of who is running the House and the Senate. Even the most partisan Republican will lend a sympathetic ear to a Democratic president willing to limit her own power.

Hopefully, Harris gets this, and Democracy 2026 can be one of the stand-out legacies of her presidency. Because we can’t keep rolling the dice with our democracy every four years. If Joe Biden had invested some political capital in rebuilding America’s democratic infrastructure as well as its physical infrastructure, the threat posed by Project 2025 would not be so dire. But he did not, and now we are facing the consequences.

A Harris victory might see off Donald Trump but the next aspiring authoritarian — and there will be one — will be smarter, smoother and more organized. We had better be ready.

Chris Truax is an appellate attorney who served as Southern California chair for John McCain’s primary campaign in 2008.

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