Ezra Klein’s year of Abundance |
Key takeaways
The abundance agenda means figuring out how Democratic governments can follow through on their promises to voters. Runaway housing costs and housing shortages are key issue for Democratic-led areas. “Abundance” doesn’t align with any particular lane of the Democratic Party. Both California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani have talked abundance — but the real test is whether they can deliver.Do you remember where you were when you first heard about “abundance”?
In some circles, 2025 was the year that abundance became inescapable. The political framework — which essentially argues Democrats need to focus less on process and more on delivering for constituents — provided the title of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book in March. For, seemingly, the rest of the year, an endless stream of podcasts, X posts, and articles followed its publication.
The discourse has elevated Klein into something of a spiritual leader for the Democrats, a position he finds a bit uncomfortable.
“I see my job as trying to create good ideas built on an honest assessment of the world that will lead to things being better,” Klein told Today, Explained host Astead Herndon. “I would love it if that at this moment did not seem quite so partisan.”
Herndon talked to Klein about the tenets of abundance, the challenges prominent Democrats like Zohran Mamdani and Gavin Newsom face in delivering it, and what he hopes the legacy of his book will be.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Define the abundance agenda for us.
So Abundance comes out of a series of pieces that me and my coauthor Derek Thompson wrote.
We were struggling with the reality that, in places where Democrats governed, you were not seeing enough of the things people need get built or produced — in places like California and New York, Massachusetts, just not enough housing. And that’s compared, by the way, to red states like Florida or Texas, which have an easier time producing it.
Under the Biden administration, we were seeing this huge push to decarbonization, but there was a lot standing in the way of building the transmission lines, electrical vehicle charger networks, the solar panels, the wind turbines.
And so this question of how can you have a........