Democrats Look for a New Villain: The Groups or the Billionaires

The shiniest, newest path toward salvation, many Democrats believe, is the Abundance movement, which celebrated its second annual conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Though the message of Abundance, the book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, wasn’t explicitly centrist, its call to cut red tape, including some of the environmental reviews and diversity imperatives that they argue can slow down government construction products, has appealed to pundits who want to distance themselves from the far left.

At its core, abundance is a pro-growth argument—especially when it comes to areas where Americans feel shortages most, like in housing and mass transportation. But the mechanisms for building more and building faster that the book focuses on are snoozy issues like zoning and bureaucratic reform. Polling shows that “cutting red tape” is not a popular political message. Ahead of the conference, Abundance 2025, Blue Rose Research, the outfit led by Democratic polling guru David Shor, surveyed voters and found that messages “focused heavily on process changes” were not very effective at appealing broadly to voters.

Proponents of abundance know that they have a policy argument but not necessarily an electoral strategy. Some embrace that, said Misha Chellam, a founder of the Abundance Network, which helped sponsor the conference. “They’re like, ‘Abundance is a governing framework, not a campaigning framework,’” he said. “And so, it’s a different set of questions you have to answer to win elections.” Some abundists believe that increasing the speed with which government builds will be enough to help get them credit with voters.