The Promise of Abundance – Part 1

The Gap Between Democratic Hopes and Governance

This is the first of two essays on Abundance, a book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. The author, Wes Melville, is an advisor to Civic Way. Wes has over 20 years of management consulting and executive coaching experience including with Booz Allen and his own firm. Wes has an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina.

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To have the future we want, we need to build and invest in more of what we need. – Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Introduction

After every presidential election a wave of political autopsy books enraptures the political pundits. The books’ theories are hyped as oracles that explain one political party’s demise and another’s ascendance. The shelf life for this well-worn genre is brief. Very rarely does their relevance survive the next midterms.

The book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson may be an exception. Its ideas have gained traction with many national Democratic politicians—like Wes Moore, Jared Polis, Cory Booker and Gavin Newsom. It would not be surprising if the ‘Abundance agenda’ informs Democratic messaging through the next election cycle (hopefully, as inspiration for governing, not just fodder for campaigning).

Abundance offers some overarching ideas that Democrats should heed. One is that America is entering a new, still unfolding political era that could last for generations. Another is that Democrats are fighting the wrong fights and losing ground when the stakes couldn’t be higher. While Abundance also urges Democrats to make good governance a top priority, it urges Democrats to first recognize their own culpability in creating the conditions that dominate our politics today.

A New Political Order

Klein and Thompson make a convincing argument that American politics is amid a massive and messy shift from one political order to another. The last century of American politics has been defined by two dominant political orders. The first was the New Deal liberalism that shaped our politics from the 1930s to 1970s. The second was the neoliberalism that came crashing down in 2016.

The events that presaged the end of the neoliberal era were the Iraq War and 2008 financial crisis. For a time, Obama’s popularity masked much of this political shift. However, with the groundswell of support for Sanders and Trump, that shift—and the populistic anger that fueled it—was undeniable. Still, most Democrats were caught flat-footed in 2016 and remained so through 2024.

Rising from the ashes of one dying political order is the opportunity to create another. But nature abhors a vacuum, and if Democrats don’t fill the void, then Trump and his partisans will. In fact, so far, it has been the Republicans—not the Democrats—who have dominated efforts to define the new political order. The Big, Beautiful Bill (not to mention Project 2025) provides a clear and distressing glimpse into that new order and what it could mean for Americans.

Abundance offers an optimistic read of the opportunity, and a sober assessment of the Democrats’ ability to exploit it. To regain the initiative, Democrats must first come to grips with their own failings. Their misread of the political tea leaves. Their neglect of the intersection between good government and good politics. Their failure to deliver outcomes that matter most to voters.

Ignoring the Signs of Change

It’s taken far too long for Democrats to wake up to the reality of a changing political order. The Obama coalition was dismissive of both Sanders and Trump. In stubborn defiance of those historic campaigns, Hillary Clinton defended a dying political order.

Biden, despite his 2020 win, came to symbolize the Democrats’ myopia. His DC-based political career spanned the totality of the neoliberal political order. Furthermore, his stubborn denial of his deteriorating faculties, coupled with his party’s indifferent, almost highbrow response to voter anxieties, was emblematic of perceived liberal remoteness or detachment.

For the past decade, Democrats have failed to fully grasp the fundamental changes in American politics. They have been mired in the unenviable task of defending institutions, propping up a dying political order, and doubling down on a fading political consensus. They have exhausted their political resources and capital championing morally righteous causes at the expense of delivering outcomes.

The authors also admonish “lawn sign liberalism” where people display proudly signs like "Black Lives Matter” or “‘Kindness Is Everything” while blocking new housing projects, particularly affordable housing. Such symbolism has not translated well to governance. Klein/Thompson assert that many liberals in blue jurisdictions are “symbolically liberal and operationally conservative.”

The implications are huge. If we can’t build sufficient housing, how will we build the clean energy infrastructure to stave off climate change? About 60 percent of the nation’s electricity comes from fossil fuels. Lowering that ratio to near zero will require massive change. Converting a billion machines like cars and appliances to clean energy. Amassing enough land for solar and wind farms. New transmission lines to carry wind and solar power. How can this be achieved with our morass of permitting hurdles?

Some argue that Democrats have been so busy fighting Trump that they have failed to offer Americans a clear vision of opportunity and prosperity, a compelling agenda for improving their lives. Abundance offers one thoughtful explanation for how Democratic governance has often failed to fulfill its intentions.

A Triumph of Process Over Results

Klein/Thompson argue that the conditions that choke our ability to build are largely procedural. The idealistic Nader’s Raiders movement of the 1960s left a legacy of public interest regulations. These legal approval thresholds have morphed into a weapon that just about any interest group (conservative or liberal) can use to slow or defeat projects they oppose.

It’s no secret in conservative circles that one of the best ways to shrink government is to attack its “red tape.” Nevertheless, liberals continue to burden government projects with more process and paperwork. Klein/Thompson call this phenomenon “everything bagel liberalism” whereby liberals load their policies or projects with wish list items thereby rendering them too costly or complicated to finish.

The authors argue that liberals, with their demand-focused redistribution approach, often have the right intentions but the wrong methods for achieving those intentions. By enacting demand policies when supply is choked—like with housing—liberals inadvertently make redistribution more costly and difficult to deliver. As a result, liberals can point to fewer results—and promises kept—on which to justify their leadership.

Klein/Thompson believe that liberals (and many Democrats) are obsessed with process at the expense of outcomes, at exactly the moment when society needs vastly more housing, infrastructure, clean energy, and scientific breakthroughs. At a time when American politics desperately need new ideas and answers.

Illustrations of Process-Driven Governance

The promises Democrats make on the campaign trail too often succumb to a buzzsaw of red-tape and grab bag of liberal purity tests, especially in blue state and local governments. To reinforce their point, Klein/Thompson offer a rich fodder of damning California housing statistics:

• California has 12 percent of America’s population, but 30 percent of our nation’s homeless population and 50 percent of our unsheltered homeless.

• Since 2015, California, despite having nine million more residents than Texas, has authorized the construction of only half as many homes as Texas.

• In 2022, Los Angeles and San Francisco permitted only 2.5 units per 1,000 residents while Austin metro permitted 18 new homes per 1,000 residents (and led the nation in housing permits).

• In 2023, it took on average 523 days to approve new housing in San Francisco—and 605 days to secure the requisite permits (in 1930-31, it only took 410 days to build the Empire State Building).

These numbers aren’t anomalies but rather the predictable result of inflexible, abused zoning rules and unchecked NIMBYism. Not coincidentally, the blue states and cities plagued by such procedural inefficiencies and supply barriers include the same places that shifted most to Trump in 2024.

California’s proposed light rail system is another example. As early as 1982, then Governor Jerry Brown announced plans to study the feasibility of a new high-speed San Francisco-Los Angeles rail system. In 2008, voters approved the construction of a $33 billion segment (to be completed by 2020). One year later, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and touted California light rail as a signature investment. The state had the money and political capital to get the job done.

By the time Governor Brown left office in 2018, he had all but conceded defeat. The state abandoned the San Francisco-Los Angeles segment and instead proposed a slimmed down $22 billion segment from Bakersfield to Merced, scheduled for completion after 2030. During those years that California failed to lay much more than 500 miles of track, China built over 23,000 miles of high-speed rail.

Joe Biden’s signature legislative accomplishments—the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS and Science Act—put this in stark perspective. The three bills represented a total of $450 billion in clean energy investments. However, instead of being able to hype the outcomes of those bills, Democrats were stuck praising their price tag. John Podesta, who led the rollout of the Inflation Reduction Act, complained about pervasive delays at all levels of government.

Closing Thoughts

The process-driven approach has come to characterize the Democratic approach to governing. It makes it harder for Democrats, despite their best intentions, to deliver outcomes that improve lives and keep America competitive. Without clear results that matter to voters, Democrats rarely get any credit from voters for their governing achievements. Even when their ideas are right, the processes attached to those ideas are too cumbersome to make any of them work the way they should.

Abundance offers an impressive framework for a new governing agenda. To learn more about this framework, please read the second part of this essay later this week.