On Tuesday, The Ezra Klein Show released “What We Got Right – and Wrong – in ‘Abundance,’” a one-year-out conversation between Ezra Klein, his co-author Derek Thompson, and Why Nothing Works author Marc Dunkelman about the state of the abundance movement.
In the episode, Thompson cited new research from Blue Rose Research, commissioned by Inclusive Abundance Action, to make the case that the populism vs. abundance debate is a false choice, and that the strongest message tested combines both.
KEY EXCERPTS:
- THOMPSON: “The polling outfit Blue Rose recently did this survey where they asked people whether they liked abundance messaging or populist messaging. It turns out that the most popular messaging was a synthesis of abundance and populism. It was things like: ‘Working Americans can’t afford the basics – and it’s because we stopped building them: not enough housing, not enough energy, not enough child care, and what little gets built goes to the wealthy first. Democrats will build an America that works for everyone, not just those at the top.’”
- THOMPSON: “There are philosophical differences between liberals and populists that we shouldn’t run away from. They exist. But the fights often obscured the degree to which individuals could hold simultaneously both populist and abundance principles.”
- THOMPSON: “I’ve come to think of this somewhat cheesily as the abundance mullet, which is to say, economic populism in the front and abundance in the back. So who’s wearing the abundance mullet – as horrifying as that might be to imagine? Zohran Mamdani ran on freezing the rent, but here he is talking about making it easier and faster for developers to build in New York City.”
- THOMPSON: “Another example is Mikie Sherrill, the New Jersey governor, who ran on freezing utility increases… But her second executive order was all about supply-side renovations to encourage the construction of solar and storage. There, again, you have the promise of freezing the utility in the front with the promise of expanding supply in the back.”
The full Inclusive Abundance research memo is available here.
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Inclusive Abundance Action is a 501(c)(4) federal legislative advocacy organization committed to implementing solutions that combat self-imposed scarcity