Michael Pollan wasted no time cutting to the heart of the matter: The top-selling recently released book “Abundance,” a 288-page manifesto on creating a “liberalism that builds,” may no longer be relevant.
“It’s almost like a sick parody of your book,” Pollan said of President Trump’s actions in D.C. — cutting a trail through the federal bureaucracy, firing tens of thousands of workers, cancelling the kinds of research grants the book seeks to reform.
“Abundance,” by journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, critiques inefficient bureaucracy and seeks a deregulatory scalpel; Trump and his pit bull Elon Musk have opted for a red-and-chrome chainsaw.
The book was written before Trump’s election and the experience of reading it now, Pollan told Klein and Thompson onstage at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco on Thursday evening, induced a kind of “cognitive dissonance” for him.
Learning details about “the sclerotic grant process for [National Institutes of Health] and medical grants and scientific grants” landed differently, “now they’ve just been torched.” Plus: “The fact that regulations are getting in the way of building the way we need, and then having all the [Environmental Protection Agency] regulations torched.”
Trump is “arrogating new powers” left and right, Pollan continued, and “efficiency” — a core concept of the “Abundance” agenda — is now the name of the game in Washington.
“How do you process that?” he asked Klein and Thompson, sitting to his left in red armchairs before a sold-out crowd. The two are on book tour and Pollan, the famed journalist and author of the 2006 best-seller, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” was moderating. “How does the book feel to you, and the idea of ‘abundance,’ in light of Trump’s election?”
In answering Pollan’s question, Klein and Thompson made clear “Abundance” is not just a white paper of policy prescriptions. It is explicitly a political manifesto aimed at transforming the Democratic Party in the face of incipient authoritarianism.
“This book and its themes and its arguments are more profound and more urgent now than they would be in an alternate reality where Kamala Harris would be president,” said Thompson, who called Trump a “tragic dark foil” to “Abundance” arguments who has a “scarcity” outlook that pits one disadvantaged group (like blue collar workers) against another (immigrants).
“What would it have been like if you brought it out in the other timeline? The ‘Kamala Harris wins’ timeline?” wondered Klein. The Democrats, he mused, would have said “Hey, thanks, those are some good points.” Instead the book is seeing “reception and interest” from “inside the political system” and garnering dozens of reviews from CNN to the New York Times.
There is, Klein said, a “sense that if you do not make liberal democracy, and liberals leading liberal democracy, deliver again, you might just lose liberal democracy.”
‘Abundance’ born of San Francisco’s ills
“Abundance,” released March 18, is the latest and most forceful entry in a set of books and policy papers that critique the “protectionism” and “proceduralism” of liberal homeowners and wealthy elites (though, to the chagrin of critics, not corporations).
The authors — Klein is a columnist at the New York Times, Thompson a staff writer at the Atlantic — and their acolytes seek to reduce the costs of basic goods like housing, healthcare, and transportation that have, in recent decades, grown even as other consumer goods have gotten cheaper.
The book is filled with examples of government process adding years of delay and billions to the cost of these goods — California’s high-speed rail boondoggle, a dearth of urban housing, subway costs-per-mile that vastly exceed other countries, and more.
The Democratic Party — which has a 29 percent approval rating per CNN, the lowest since its poll began in 1992 — must become “an opposition that is popular and that is effective,” Thompson argued.
That means deregulating, albeit selectively, to build solar farms and semiconductor plants and dense cities, the latter devoid of the urban ills of homelessness, drug addiction, and street chaos that are streamed in a loop on Fox News.
“We’ve created a situation where Democrats have turned the places in which they have the most power into advertisements for the opposition, rather than advertisements for our own movements,” said Thompson.
Klein and Thompson, for their part, do not push punitive policies — they want to build homes to cure homelessness. But “Abundance” supporters are, broadly, part of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party and have, at least locally, embraced tough-on-crime officials and ballot measures like Prop. 36, which re-introduced felony charges for drug and theft crimes.
Klein specifically points to the San Francisco YIMBY movement as his inspiration — when Klein and Thompson first chatted by phone it was “on Mission Street or Valencia maybe” to speak about, of all things, cryptocurrency. The YIMBY nonprofit Abundance Network has in the post-pandemic period become a key player in the interconnected network of big-money pressure groups in city politics.
Last year, the Abundance Network bankrolled a tech-backed takeover of the San Francisco Democratic Party, financed the Great Highway measure Prop. K, and unsuccessfully backed Mayor London Breed with hundreds of thousands of dollars; it is involved in similar efforts in Oakland, and has another chapter in Santa Monica.
Zack Rosen, founder of the Abundance Network, sat in the audience on Thursday, in a particularly cheery section. “Oh good,” Klein said at one point, “I know where the Abundance Network is sitting.”
So far, the general “Abundance” refrain has been adopted by this self-same moderate wing of California Democrats. “This is one of the most important books Democrats can read — wake up,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in an interview with Klein this week. “Reimagining government instead of slashing it. Good stuff!” tweeted Rep. Ro Khanna.
“I’m thrilled,” said Sen. Scott Wiener, speaking by phone after the event, of the widespread interest in the book.
The longtime YIMBY legislator sees San Francisco housing politics as the purveyor of the “abundance movement.” Klein and Thompson say as much personally, and housing is a major part of their book.
“Process reform, permitting reform, is a big focus in the legislature this year,” Wiener said. Politico reported that, on Thursday, Klein privately gathered with state lawmakers including Wiener, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire.
As policy? Sure. As a politics? ‘It’s wonky.’
But Mission Local spoke to several experts skeptical that “Abundance” is the right medicine for this moment — even if they believe in its ideas.
“No one gives a shit about NIMBY vs. YIMBY — none of the regular people, and that’s who we lost,” said Rudy Gonzales, secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, a pro-development group of unions.
He called the movement “technocratic” and symptomatic of “hyper insular divides among Democrats” at a time when the base is clamoring for “more meat” and unification. “But what do I know? I’m just elected by blue collar people, a lot of whom voted for Donald Trump.”
“My strong impression is that this is deregulation tricked out in new clothing, and deregulation has been a Republican mantra forever,” said David Kennedy, an emeritus history professor at Stanford.
Kennedy saluted Klein and Thompson for tackling the bureaucratic obstacles against housing and infrastructure, but as a political alternative to the current moment brought up the offerings of European-style welfare states. “Other societies just pay more attention to publicly consumable goods. We’ve paid a lot less attention to that.”
Jennifer Burns, a Stanford history professor, agreed with the general premise of the book and spoke favorably of its policy prescriptions. But as an electoral strategy? “It’s hard to boil it down. It’s inherently wonky, I think that’s a real challenge.”
At a time when Trump’s deportation agents are collaring students on the street, Tesla dealerships have been firebombed across the country, and Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes are holding mega-rallies decrying oligarchy, the “Abundance” agenda “doesn’t have a clear enemy,” Burns said. “It’s like we are the enemy ourselves.”
“Whether or not this is the kind of thing that will actually resonate with voters and address the scary things happening out of the Trump White House — I just don’t know,” added Mike Konczal, a policy director at the Economic Security Project, who praised the book’s policy ideas. “I think this is something for people other than opinion writers to figure out.”
Others have written dozens of reviews critiquing the book for everything from ignoring corporate power to creating spurious historical narratives to rebranding neoliberalism.
Still, Klein and Thompson appear convinced their ideas will translate into Democratic wins.
Near the end of the 90-minute conversation, a woman asked the pair who they thought the most dangerous person in the world is, and how they would stop them.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk, said Thompson, after mulling it over. He spoke for a few minutes about the “fucking tragedy” that was Musk devolving from a “walking advertisement” of public-private partnership into a “dark wrecking ball for the future.”
“And the how-to-stop-him part of the question?” Pollan asked.
“You win,” Thompson responded.
“And what’s a good platform to win on?” Klein prodded his co-author.
“And a good platform to win on is abundance.”
Abundance of crap. Abundance of denial. Abundance of entitlement. Abundance of cluelessness. Abundance of denial of the real causes of socialized housing not being built. Abundance of tone deafness to the vulnerabilities of millions of working people, elders, their kids, and their families.
Do these people ever stop?
More Reagan era supply side, trickle down, neoliberal nonsense thrice warmed over, only this time, from people who are also kind to LGBT.
Because this time, the oligarchs that own the political system will share the fruits of increasing economic productivity instead of hoarding all of the carrots for themselves while giving the rest of us nothing but the stick.
If we’ve learned anything over the past four decades, it is that the oligarchs are our opponents, the winners of the liberal meritocracy ain’t all that, and that technology causes at least as many problems as it solves if not more, the antithesis of the “Abundance” scam.
The very name, “Abundance,” tells you it’s a grift. Ezra has long been an apologist for the neo-liberal, deregulating, warmongering, Big Pharma/Wall St anti-FDR Democrats that Bill Clinton handed the party to.
As an obscure haberdasher once said, ” If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat.”
Every time the Dems lose an election, the Ezras of the world push the Dems further to the right. Also, every time the Democrats win an election, the Ezras of the world push the Dems further to the right. Today’s Dems are now well to the right of Richard Nixon. Why is that? QUI BONO?
What a shame neo-liberal apologist Ezra’s “Trump-lite” grift has been exposed for the disingenuous sham it is.
Klein is not now, nor has he ever been, any great crusader of the Left. As if his entire career hadn’t already proved that, it was emphasized further when Ta-Nehesi Coates (a real leftist) recently handed Klein his ass to him on his own show the over the latter’s hypocrisy about Israel’s attempted genocide of Gaza. Klein’s the same inactive/try-to-please-everyone wimp we’ve seen from Newsom and Schumer, and look what that’s gotten them.
The “Tesla Takedown” 🗑️ folks are doing more through protest than any of the above (save for Coates) have done since or before November.
Much like how SF 🌉 was only made better by the departure of Emerald Mine Space Karen (and his Epstein-lovin’ hairplugs), so too are we better off without Klein’s unearned self-importance.
“{..] Israel’s attempted genocide of Gaza […]”
It’s actual genocide, not an “attempt.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates calmly handed that smug morning talk show host his ass, but I don’t remember that happening on Klein’s podcast, which was disappointing.
Coates has shaken off the corporate influence a bit, but he’s an Atlantic Goldstein guy, same as Thompson. Klein doesn’t have anyone on his podcast that is truly going to eviscerate Israel, tying it to US-backed war throughout the ME and erosion of fair elections and free speech in the US. The Times wouldn’t allow it for one, and it would be too big of a hit to Klein’s brand for two.
This is a variant of both Clinton and Obama making government “more efficient”. It meant nothing and means nothing more than giving developers and other corporations leave to do whatever they want, no oversight, no rules, no pesky interference by the public (those damn commissions). The billionaires love it. Thats why we have two parties: the hacksaw or the switchblade. BTW dig a little deeper and you will find the high speed train hit a number of speed bumps that were not “red tape”
An abundance of avalanches of horse dookey……. It speaks volumes that the NYTimes actually continues to pay individuals like Ezra Klein and Heather Knight who consistently, predictably parrot trickle down talking points and who are both apologists for free market capitalism and home ownership in a world controlled by oligarchs.
> The authors — Klein is a columnist at the New York Times, Thompson a staff writer at the Atlantic…
That tracks. These two know how to market and sell a product.
……and that product is “abundance”…. but only for folks with Rivians, nanny shares and “vibrant” lives. How can we “streamline” and “upzone” the abundance? How can we inject “abundance” into your “safe” “clean” “corridor”? At the next “abundant” night market in Precious Valley, we’ll have an “abundance” booth selling our book and “abundant” living for all making 6 figures. Let the brainwashing continue!!!
The product is the concept packaged so as it can merchandised, commodified, advertised, whatever. I’m sure Klein believes he’s invested in some altruistic outcome, but it doesn’t matter. I’d imagine he sees journalism as his craft. I see it as sales. There is no takedown to be had here as every play works to his advantage.
It’s weird how all these people who claim to be on the left get mad at the ideas that “we should improve the governments ability to do things we want” and “we can have a greener future”. Horseshoe theory proven correct again, if you go far enough left you end up on the right.
Sweet, more rebranded liberalism/neoliberalism. These [authors of the book] are the people who created the problems that lead to trump’s election and the state of things. How is this different from liberalism dressed up in Frutiger Aero? More tone deaf noise from liberals (right-wingers) crying that Genocide Joe was “too far left”. Ridiculous. Don’t take the bait, people. These people who wrote this book and push these kinds of “agendas” are interested only in “appeasing” fascists and have no interest in helping the working class, and they hate you, and they hate the fact that they have to cater to the working class whom they wish would just disappear already.
It’s important for Democrats to be able to have open discussions about policy.
For too long we have allowed our most extreme ideologues to shut down any discussions that deviate from progressive orthodoxy. Men in women’s sports is the key example that might have put Trump in the White House: before the election, you couldn’t even say men don’t belong in women’s sports without fear of retribution from the vicious pro-trans advocates who police social media.
It’s not the only one. We can’t openly talk about issues like crime and illegal immigration, and now Americans trust the GOP more on these issues.
So you are flat-out wrong about trans athletes.
https://www.readtpa.com/p/fine-lets-talk-about-trans-athletes
I’m also betting that you’re wrong on “crime” and “immigration” too. And, no, “Americans” do not trust the GOP more on those issues. Twenty-two percent of the U.S. population voted for him, for one thing. And, for another, the people who “trust” the GOP — you know, the party that openly campaigned on racism against Latinos and Haitians, the party that promised to round up 11 million people?
They’re called racists.
it’s quite obvious that preston’s little friends have more time on their hands these days . i’d go on but i have stuff to build, work to be done for real blue collar people . yep , in sf .
If we are going to take potshots at any dbag who happens to be begging for attention in the Bay Area let’s start with mark A or something like that? Ezra k is annoying but he’s not the real problem
most of my peers are incapable of ridding themselves of the binary choices presented by the major political parties.
so long as we submit to the fear of losing out if we choose otherwise, we are stuck with the same old and tired political leaders.
rather ironic that we can find (some)acceptance in a plurality of genders but not when it comes to leadership.
shall we call it political dysphoria?
great, say Lucy Van Pelt. now we can label it.