PROJECT 2030: A New Democratic Agenda to Defeat the ‘Madness in the Air’
The co-founder of Open Democracy Anthony Barnett offers fixes for a better future and explains why China, the US, Russia see Europe as a spectre — a shared enemy due to its strong democratic values
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“I have a degree of confidence in the American spirit. American is inventive. Americans are not deferential, as they are in the United Kingdom, Americans are not going to — quote — take that shit. And there is a great capacity within the United States for people to say, ‘It will not happen here.’”—Anthony Barnett, Bette Dangerous Happy Hour, September 28, 2025
At Byline Festival this year, I met the co-founder of Open Democracy, Anthony Barnett, who writes a column for the Byline Times. We were having breakfast in a hotel at Keele University, and he was taking notes on what he wanted to say on stage on a panel with Peter Jukes and Katherine Stewart, author of Money, Lies, and God. The panel was on the subject of “Is Trumpland Here to Stay?”
He was jotting down notes, and after he’d read his thoughts to the audience, I asked him to appear on a Bette Dangerous ‘Happy Hour’ zoom and share his ideas with our community — pragmatic fixes for broken democracies and a better future.
Barnett joined us September 28, and here is a transcript from that event, edited for brevity and clarity.
PROJECT 2030: A New Democratic Agenda to Defeat the ‘Madness in the Air’
Anthony Barnett: What has struck me when we try to get a grip of what’s happening now is we need to start with the experience of what is going on, rather than just trying to look at it rationally… there is this sense for us of what I call vertigo, the sense that we’re staring into a number of voids where the handles, what we would normally grip on, are not there, and what we feel we can grip on, we are not convinced they have the strength to hold. So there’s a sense of falling into a void, and this sense of vertigo, which we have at the moment — what I call the 10 vertigos.
An Orgy of Self Destruction
One of them is, where is the ruling class? This applies in this country, in the United Kingdom, but especially in America… there was an American establishment which no longer exists, and the United States is going about an orgy of self destruction of its power system and its traditional values. And you think, where is the ruling class when we need it? I mean, I was against the ruling class. But there’s a sense that the traditional power structures, which we felt overall governing a country with shared values across the universities, across the institutions, across business, that no longer exists.
A Sense of Madness in the Air
And the second vertigo is madness. The thing which is very alarming about this is that the American President, in certain respects, he’s a shrewd guy, but in other respects, he’s mad. His speech at the United Nation just now was deranged, and this is very, very frightening, because he’s going to pass the disillusion. Behind Trump and around Trump are a series of much younger and very determined figures who are simply deranged, and one of them is Stephen Miller. He thinks that the Democratic Party isn’t a political party. He thinks they’re a party of terrorists. So we have a sense of a madness in the air.
Attack on Knowledge
And this is reinforced in my third sense of the void, which is the attack on science, the attack on knowledge, not just on on climate change but the attempt to dismantle universities themselves and a way of understanding what is going on in the world.
The Great Derangement
And then, I think, is something which haunts everybody. There is the climate emergency itself. This isn’t something which might happen. It is happening, and many people are losing their livelihoods. From the storms, the extreme weather events of all kinds, and there’s a book by Amitav Ghosh, who wrote some topics about nearly 10 years ago called The Great Derangement, which is about, how is it possible for our society to know what we do know about climate change and to proceed as if it’s not happening, or indeed, as Trump is doing, to deny it’s happening?
And this is a theme which has been taken up by a new novel, which I recommend by Ian McEwan where people, in 100 years time look back on this period, and they call it the period of ‘the Derangement’… the book is titled What We Can Know.
China Is Winning
And then there’s another sense of something which should give us a very profound sense of vertigo and of surprise, which is that President Xi in China is winning. This isn’t something which my generation and younger generations have been expecting. We thought that China, when it was industrialized, would become part of the Western, American-dominated universe… But Xi rebuked human rights, freedom of information, the idea of freedom of the press, and even the concept of civil society and you can see this in Putin. You can see it in Trump, but the solid core of this has been articulated in China. And the sense that China is now going to both — not just in an economic sense, but ideologically — to dictate the future and nature of our society, that is frightening.
AI
And this is then reinforced, especially within the United States, with the massive unleashing and development of AI. AI could be artificial intelligence. Could be used as a way of helping us to govern society as a whole. But in fact, it’s consuming cyberspace itself. It’s telling us what we need to know. And it has a very dangerous and authoritarian potential and it’s out of control… outside of government control.
Witnesses to Genocide
And then there’s the very direct sense of a loss, which we can see in Gaza. And a man called Arno Mayer, who I met briefly, who was at Princeton, wrote a book, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? And this was a book about the Holocaust. And we now know the answer… That here we are witness to a genocide in Gaza. It’s taking place in our time in front of our eyes and for the younger generation, they have all witnessed the death of children and of the innocents being crushed by the pitiless expansion of Israeli power, funded and backed by the United States, and then reinforcing this is Putin’s war on Ukraine.
And this is something which initially, perhaps we felt it a bit like the Vietnam War or the Iraq War, in a different way that it was self contained. And it was a war that somebody would win, somebody would lose, and the world will then continue to go on. But Putin, I think, can’t win, but he also can’t lose. He can’t do what the Americans did in Vietnam. There isn’t the political space in Russian society where an opposition could then take over Russia.
The Chinese are funding Putin because the Chinese are very happy. Here are two white Christian societies killing each other. I think that the view from Beijing is that they want the war to continue. They don’t want either side to be victorious. And what happens when you get a stalemate of this kind in a war is that somebody escalates. The Russians are likely to escalate. So we’re facing the possibility that war will come to us, and that in some way or another, the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine are going to connect, as Putin tries to make Ukraine his West Bank.
Naked Racism
And then there’s another aspect of the sense of vertigo, which I feel very strongly, which is the return of open racism. One of the striking things about the protests over Black Lives Matter across the United States was that most of the demonstrations took place in majority white areas. This was not a protest like the Civil Rights Movement, a black protest against white hegemony and racism.
This was a multi-racial protest against murder, and people saying, ‘We do not wish to live in a society which does this or permits this,’ And to see this roll back, I am surprised and astonished and appalled, as I think many of us are. There is now naked racism being expressed. The big demonstration, which took place in London now two weeks ago, was a racist demonstration, it wasn’t just anti-migrant. It was an unveiling of misogyny as well as racism of a kind that I had not expected, and which leaves many of us speechless.
Migration is Part of Nature
And then the final vertigo: what’s going on with migration? Migration is part of nature, part of what human beings do. They move. You’re a migrant, Heidi, a refugee from the United States. People flow, people move. This is the wonderful thing. It needs to be managed. It needs to be governed. It needs to prevent being exploited — I’m in favor of controlling the legalizing of the movement of people, but the attack, the assault upon migration itself, which is taking place, is both unexpected and appalling, and we now have to find a language to fight back. But I think we don’t yet, we’re not yet clear how to do so.
Their Last Stand
I think we need to start from the profound sense of shock and of reeling back from the unleashing of this, this assault and the surprise, we’ve got to regroup. And if I could just say on the last thing, because I want to end on why are they doing this? And I think that part of the answer is ‘democracy.’
What has happened after 2010, after the great financial crash, is that it’s clear that we can govern ourselves. It’s clear that the people behind Trump and Project 2025 know that they are a minority. This was their last stand.
Minoritarian Language
They are not people confident that they will win. They know they can’t win the midterms. Trump is becoming increasingly unpopular. They’re going to seek to prevent the mid-terms from happening by force, if necessary. And that language, which is clear, whether it’s Stephen Miller or others, it’s minoritarian language. It’s a language of white supremacy, and they are coming at us not because they’re frightened of communism, but because the combination of feminism, of racial equality, of the environmental movement, all of these are a threat, democracy is a threat.
The End of Corruption
And what is threatening about democracy, in so far as it really gets going, is it will put an end to corruption. Corruption is incredibly unpopular, including among Republicans, and Republican voters. And so this is being fed by big money, and it’s being fed by oil money.
Putin and Middle Eastern powers, the oil money in particular, is behind this and they are seeking, quite deliberately, to undermine the democratic nature of our societies, which, however limited, were opening the door to more egalitarian and democratic societies. So I don’t want the sense of vertigo that we’re powerless and that we’re crushed. They are doing this because they understand the capacity of what I call the Definite Left, and they understand our ability to be able to say ‘no’ better, I think, than we do.
The crucial moment is coming in the midterms. I think that if there was straightforward election in the United States in the midterms, that Trump and the Republicans will lose. But what they’re going to do, I think this is now very clear, they’re going to militarize the voting, they’re going to put ICE on every voting booth, and anybody of color, anybody who looks like they may be a migrant, is going to be stopped, and then they’re going to be worked over before they can get to the voting booth, and people will be intimidated. They will try to stop mail-in voting. All of these are forms to try and fix the outcome, and there’s going to be an enormous battle over that. And they could win, or they could lose.
Confidence in the American Spirit
I have a degree of confidence in the American spirit. American is inventive. Americans are not deferential, as they are in the United Kingdom, Americans are not going to — quote — take that shit. And there is a great capacity within the United States for people to say, ‘It will not happen here.’
So much of what they’re doing is illegal, they’re going to be fighting for their lives, and then we need a presidential candidate in 2028 who has a coherent alternative politics. The traditional Democratic Party, just wants to keep the show on the road. And there’s this deep, deep belief that somehow, the capitalism that we’ve got can now be moderated, and we can manage and we don’t need to do anything about the Supreme Court, and somehow or other, the America we’ve known can be resuscitated. And it can’t be.
Project 2030
This is the fact — it’s gone, and therefore, there has to be a Democratic agenda, which is what I call Project 2030, which is systemic but coherent and realizable. Something has to be done about the Supreme Court to bring it into line with the rule of law. Something has to be done about legalizing immigrants who are in the United States, have lived there for 10, 15, 20 years, have families, have children, and do not have status. People have earned the right to live in America, people who’ve lived and worked there for 20 years, should get citizenship. And so there needs something to be done rapidly. Migration has to be controlled, but certainly the immigrants in America can be embraced. It is the land of immigrants.
The Land of Immigrants
And of course, one consequence of that is that this will demographically start to shift the vote. We have to end the gerrymandering that’s now taking place. There needs to be a clear program, and it needs to be implemented very rapidly, and it needs to be articulated in a way which people find convincing and attractive.
A Lot to Play For
And here in England, we need the equivalent thing. The only way that the right will not win, in my view, in three or four years time, is if we have proportional, fair voting system and the European voting system, and there are ways of doing that. At the moment, Starmer is absolutely riding the rails of the status quo and big business, and it is going to lead to catastrophe if he continues. So I think there’s a lot to play for.
Make Empathy Great Again
Regarding the oligarchs, Musk came out against empathy and saying there’s too much empathy, and society can’t exist without empathy. Neighbors can’t exist without empathy, cities can’t exist without empathy.
These guys live off hatred… a desperation to stay in power, a fear of aging… Putin caught on a hot mic with Xi talking about organ transplants… Rupert Murdoch rumors of blood transfusions… what kind of dystopia is this?
A Deep Existential Question
Britain faces a deep existential question, especially England, which it doesn’t want to answer. And that is, are we a European country, or are we part of the American sphere of influence? And the whole history has been, ‘we’re going to be a bridge.’ 1970s onwards, the whole of my political lifetime, the basic answer to that question is, ‘we will be a bridge between America and Europe. We are both.’
And at this moment, Starmer in particular, is reinforcing the traditional one. If it comes to a choice, we go for America. And Farage has said our culture is identical to American culture. Now, this isn’t true in terms of the health service, in terms of values… And if you go to Scotland or Ireland, these are European countries, and I think the same is happening in Wales.
But the political establishment and the money is deeply embedded in a sense of greatness, which comes from being part of the American Alliance. And we haven’t been able to resolve this… So here, an anti-Russian sense is now very strong. But if you’re pro Trump, then you’re playing the Russian game. It’s a little confusing.
Whether you’re in Poland or if you’re in France or Germany, I think the sense is that Europe has to find a European way. And what’s also very clear, there’s a very good piece in the New York Times, just yesterday, about this, the assault by the Americans and the Russians and the Chinese against Europe.
Europe Is Seen As a Spectre
Europe is seen as a as a specter for them, of regulation, of law, of human rights, of an embrace of combating climate change, trying to regulate big tech companies. So Europe is the shared enemy of the big oligarchs and titans. And I think they can feel that the European Union understands that, and they understand they can’t go back, whereas I think here in England, they still hope they can.
Trump Is Abhorred
It’s important to know that Trump is abhorred here. I would say that doesn’t mean that America is.
Keep Going
My final thoughts are to keep going. I think it’s all to play for. I don’t think Trumpism and Putinism are succeeding. They’re not popular. That’s really, really important. We don’t yet have the coherent program of resistance in Europe. Problem is that we are a group of different countries with different national stories, and that’s very important for us. We don’t want the European Union to take over us and it’s very technocratic, on the other hand, we — here now I speak of the European — we need to be able to work together and to invest together and to defend ourselves together in a way which is different from hitherto. And so how we articulate a democracy which is in favor of regulation, supports regulation, we haven’t resolved that.
And at the heart of this, where the balance of power lies, is corruption.
Corruption is incredibly unpopular, right? When it comes to corruption, that is an absolute hinge issue, and we should be able to focus on that, and be able to say to every political party, ‘what are you doing to push back the role of big money in politics? What are you doing to stop the rich from buying the outcome?’ That is our link, and that is a battle we can win, and it’s a battle we have to win.—Anthony Barnett, September 28, 2025, Bette Dangerous
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Anthony Barnett is a leading organiser for democracy in Britain and a political writer and essayist - with books on the Falklands war, Gorbachev and the Soviet Union, the UK’s monarchy, replacing the House of Lords with citizens assemblies, Brexit, Trump and how to defeat him. From 1988 to 1995, he was the first director of Charter 88 — the influential campaign for a modern democracy in Britain, and in 2001 co-founded openDemocracy and became its first Editor. He writes the monthly ‘Notes on Now’ for Byline Times. He made the short film US Progressives on a Knife Edge in 2022.
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