You ever been halfway through a drive-through order, leaned into the Burger King speaker all confident—“Yeah, let me get a double Whopper, fries, and a Coke”—and then your conscience reminds you, “Wait, weren’t we supposed to be vegan this week?” Suddenly you’re slamming the gearshift into reverse like your life depends on it. You’re not pulling forward, you’re backing out before the cashier judges your soul. Reverse is underrated. It’s not failure, it’s survival.

And right now, in politics and education, survival looks a lot like throwing the car in reverse. Because if “Project 2025” is supposed to be the road ahead, then folks, we’re headed straight for a cliff with the top down looking for Thelma and Louise. Seatbelts won’t save us. Airbags won’t save us. We need to crank the wheel, throw it into reverse, and pray we don’t knock over the mailbox.

That’s why I’m calling for Project 2027: A Put It in Reverse Plan.

Forward Isn’t Always Progress

Look, I know we love to chant “forward.” It sounds bold, it sounds inspiring. March forward! Progress forward! Push forward! But forward isn’t always the right move. If you’re heading toward the edge of Niagara Falls in a barrel, forward is a bad plan, risky plan. If you just got a really bad haircut, forward is just bald. And if your political agenda involves banning books, cutting teachers, and privatizing schools for profit, forward is just more stupid.

Sometimes you don’t need forward. You need reverse. And new cars usually have a helpful backup camera.

Right now, the economy is giving major “check engine” vibes. The new data looks like one of those charts you tilt sideways, to make the trend magically point upward. Families are working harder and making less, while grocery shopping cost more than a car payment and college tuition looks like the GDP of Mark Zuckerberg. If that’s “momentum,” then excuse me while I back this Tesla up into the garbage.

Put It in Reverse Plan: Project 2027

Un-ban the books. Because if the scariest thing your kid reads is Charlotte’s Web, you don’t need a book ban, you need reserve stupid therapy. Un-cut the funding. Schools can’t run on duct tape, expired dry-erase markers, and prayers from the Moms for Liberty. Un-villainize teachers. Give them a salary that doesn’t require a second job at Uber, DoorDash, and OnlyFans just to pay for classroom supplies. By the way, my OnlyFans account is. I kid.

Put It in Reverse comes with all the features:

Taking back Congress. Yes.

Reversing privatization back into public investment. Your kid’s education shouldn’t be auctioned off like a foreclosed timeshare in Florida.

Reversing standardized testing mania. If your school calendar looks like one endless exam, you’re not running a school, you’re running a test-prep sweatshop.

Reversing political micromanaging. If politicians want to run schools, fine—let them substitute 11th-grade algebra for one week. Bonus points if it’s the class right after lunch on a Friday when the students had unlimited pop tarts. Survival rate: 2%.

Reversing budget cuts into investment. If we can fund tax cuts for billionaires and $170 billion for ICE to hire serial killers and teens, we can afford air conditioning and instructional technology in classrooms.

The Slogan Section

Everyone keeps saying, “The data looks bad.” Well, yeah, because we’re prioritizing the wrong things and shoving a tariff into your wallet that they’re rebating to the wealthy. If your car is rolling backwards down a hill, you don’t brag about your “record-breaking speed.” You slam the brakes, recheck Waze, and admit you missed the turn in November.

And let’s be real: the economy doesn’t feel bad because people can’t do math. It feels bad because the people making the charts are eating filet mignon in a new $200 million dollar White House ballroom while the rest of us are arguing over who stole the last pack of vegan ramen.

Since politicians love branding, here’s my pitch:

From Project 2025: “Forward Into the Abyss.” to Project 2027: “Oops, Maybe We Should’ve Checked the Map”

You can’t tell me that last one wouldn’t look great on a bumper sticker. Now here’s the part where it gets tricky. In every political conversation, someone always leans over from the passenger seat and says, “Just drive faster, we’ll figure it out later.” In this case, it’s Jennifer.

Jennifer is the one telling you not to worry while the Siri screams, “Make a U-turn immediately.” Jennifer is the one who thinks teachers can do more with less, kids can learn better without libraries and diversity, and we can somehow cut our way to make America great. Jennifer is wrong. Jennifer is misled. Jennifer needs to let go of the usb-c cord and let us DJ the music.

Comedy Aside, Here’s the Truth

I joke because the alternative is crying into my steering wheel and Starbucks. But the truth is, education isn’t a side trip for democracy, it is democracy. And right now, we’re letting people who can’t pass a pop quiz on the Constitution decide our children’s future. That’s like letting someone who failed parking in driver’s ed race in Formula 1. Spoiler: they’re going to hit the wall, and the rest of us are strapped to the spoiler.

Let’s be clear. Developing a Project 2027 plan isn’t just about reversing the car, it’s about pulling out a giant eraser. Everything Project 2025 has scribbled down on paper in these past six months? Gone. Erased. Smudged right off the page. Every bad law, every cruel policy, every attack on teachers and kids, rubbed out like a wrong answer on a Calculus test. I took Calculus three times!

And what do we write in its place? A new blueprint. A coalition. A movement. The same kind of coalition that gave us the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, rebuilt for our time. If the old coalition marched for dignity, we’re planning for the survival of democracy itself. Teachers, parents, unions, civil rights groups, young people, churches, neighborhood associations, everybody in the car, everybody with a hand on the wheel.

Because if they’ve got a Project 2025, then we’ve got to design a Project 2027. And our doesn’t crash the bus. Ours gets kids to school safely.

Because this forward was dumb. Project 2025 was reckless. Forward was ordering the fries when you need onion rings.

And seriously… why is Jennifer driving?

Julian Vasquez Heilig is a nationally recognized policy scholar, public intellectual, and civil rights advocate. A trusted voice in public policy, he has testified for state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, while also advising presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. His work has been cited by major outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, and he has appeared on networks from MSNBC and PBS to NPR and DemocracyNow!. He is a recipient of more than 30 honors, including the 2025 NAACP Keeper of the Flame Award, Vasquez Heilig brings both scholarly rigor and grassroots commitment to the fight for equity and justice.