Politics is war. In war, capturing and replacing a rival head of state does not constitute victory. Looking into the future, policies and practices have to change.

But you also have to look back into the past. Statues of the old leader must be demolished. The people he appointed must be fired and replaced with new personnel. His institutions must be dismantled. If you fail to abolish their legacy, everything that mattered about them lives on. You may not know it — but you have lost.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint written as a governing plan for a conservative administration, understood that. It treated rolling back rolling back the prior Democratic agenda — especially Joe Biden's — as a central task. Donald Trump spent much of his first year focused on that rollback, and Republican voters loved it.

As the 2028 campaign begins in earnest next summer, however, Democratic voters have little reason to believe the next Democratic president would erase Trump's legacy with anything close to the same scale or energy. That is the Ratchet Theory, as former Reagan-Bush official Bruce Bartlett explained: "Republicans are extreme radicals; when in power they do extreme stuff. Democrats are moderates; in power they do moderate stuff. This means they never undo all the bad radical stuff Republicans do, so there is a steady ratchet toward Republican priorities over time."

Sen. Bernie Sanders and the populist-progressive wing he leads have watched that ratchet work for decades. They want Democrats who fight for their own ideas and reverse conservative policies whenever they can. Trump is increasingly unpopular, and anti-Trump sentiment is at a fever pitch. Democratic messaging will still be incomplete without sweeping pledges to make it look as if no one named Donald J. Trump had ever lived in Washington.

Part of that is symbolism. Any 2028 Democratic nominee should promise to tear down however much of Trump's White House ballroom gets built, restore the East Wing and Jackie Kennedy's Rose Garden, and rip out that horrid helicopter pad on the South Lawn. Palm Beach International Airport should get its name back. Restore the bordello-ized Oval Office to its pre-Trump state. The Kennedy Center should get its name back, plus a new charter that guarantees its financial solvency and blocks future politicization. No more Gulf of America, no more Lake America — and blow up the Arch too.

I'd leave the Department of War. It's a rare case of Trump telling the truth.

If history is any guide, far too much of Trump's legacy will outlast both his presidency and his body. When Biden confided to wealthy donors in 2019 that "nothing would fundamentally change" if he won, he meant it.

Barack Obama kept George W. Bush's wars and started new ones.

Biden kept Trump's tax cuts for the rich and his Space Force. Rather than return to Obama's status quo, he maintained Trump's sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela. He endorsed and tried to expand Trump's Abraham Accords, refused to move the U.S. embassy out of Jerusalem, accepted Trump's recognition of the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli, and continued a pro-fracking energy stance. He did reverse the Muslim travel ban and rejoin the World Health Organization. On two of the biggest issues, though — Israel's war in Gaza and human-caused climate change — the two old white guys were hard to tell apart.

Approval of Trump's tariffs regime is in the toilet: 30% in the latest polls. His Canada-specific tariffs are even less popular, at 20%. Yet California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a leading 2028 hopeful, will not promise to mend fences with our northern neighbor and closest ally. "I can't guarantee that," he says. Is making nice with Canada really such a heavy lift?

Similarly, only 5% of registered Democrats support Trump's partnership with Israel in attacking Iran, a war that has become an economic disaster with no end in sight. Yet no major Democratic prospect has promised to withdraw U.S. forces from that war of aggression on day one. Newsom, who governs a state with a large Iranian exile community, echoes Trump-era talking points: The "corrupt and repressive Iranian regime must never have nuclear weapons," and Iran's leadership "must go." Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro criticizes Trump for sidestepping Congress, then recites the same brief against the "Iranian regime" — the target of Trump's war — as a repressive state and "the leading state sponsor of terrorism." On this latest forever war, it is reasonable to expect the 2028 nominee to land, as Kamala Harris did in 2024, on Team Israel.

The party may be splitting, but its voters agree on this: They hate Trump, want his presidency behind them and want what he did undone. A pivot to the center for swing voters will not save a nominee who cannot close the enthusiasm gap. That requires a clear list of promises to unwind the last eight to 12 years.

That means not only leaving the Iran war but moving fast toward diplomatic normalization as well as begging forgiveness and paying restitution. It means cutting off U.S. military and financial aid to Israel and redirecting those funds to Palestinians. Nicolas Maduro and his wife should be returned to Venezuela, and he should be allowed to resume the presidency; tear up the attempt to seize the country's oil. Everyone fired by the Department of Government Efficiency should be offered their job back, with back pay and restitution. People who entered the country with permission — including under Biden — should be allowed to return, with a path to permanent residency and citizenship.

With a presidency this extreme, it is not enough to promise to govern differently or better. You have to scrap what they built. Annul every executive order, reverse every law, fire every appointee. If you can't promise that, why should anyone vote for you?

Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of the brand-new "What's Left: Radical Solutions for Radical Problems." He co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.

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