President Trump’s outright war on the administrative state has put Democrats in a difficult position, since their core brand is that they are the pro-government party.

Faced with the challenge of blocking a tsunami of bad ideas for government reform, Democrats are naturally tempted to hunker down and defend the status quo. This makes them sound like they are comfortable with the existing system. But the system is a mess, desperately in need of reform.

So Democrats wind up undermining the central proposition they are making to voters, which is that government is capable of solving their problems.

The only way for Democrats to break out of this trap is to take a page from the Trump administration, whose attack plan was laid out well in advance in the form of Project 2025. Where is the liberal equivalent?

What Democrats need is a Project 2029. Such a project should be just as ambitious, just as radical and iconoclastic, as Project 2025, yet grounded in a genuine desire to fix the problems of American governance.

A good place to start would be where government is currently under assault: public administration. It’s not enough just to defend the administrative state — it must be strengthened. Right now, liberals and progressives consistently articulate lofty ideals that could improve the lives of millions of Americans — a comprehensive system of public health insurance or a transition to green energy. Yet they are trying to achieve these outcomes with a state apparatus that takes decades to accomplish even simple administrative tasks, like abolishing the penny. It would be difficult to find a better example of willing an end but rejecting the means necessary to its attainment.