When the Democrats dropped popular positions, Trump picked them up, and now there is nowhere for the Democrats to go back to, because they would have to agree with Trump. "cutting back on the environmental reviews, strict zoning, labor rules and other obstacles..." That's Trump's platform! The alternative being advocated on cultural issues is to walk back support for wildly unpopular positions ranging from BLM to DEI to Trans Militancy to Open Borders. That's also Trump's platform! So, Democrats are stuck between wildly unpopular positions and agreeing with the opposition. No wonder they can't agree on a new direction. All they have is "Trump and his supporters are Hitler," and unfortunately, we saw yesterday the consequences of that.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered American flags to be flown at half-staff after the deadly shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk—something he did not do when Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, was assassinated months ago.
Trump mocked Paul Pelosi after he was attacked and seriously injured. Trump pardoned all the Jan 6 rioters
The Minnesota case stemmed from one man’s religious extremism—no one celebrated or condemned the victims. September 7, however, came from a young man radicalized by left-wing demonization. Within hours of the assassination, the left erupted in hateful condemnation of the VICTIM. This reminds me of October 7, when Palestinians rejoiced and celebrated atrocities en masse.
Ruy Texeira is, as usual, spot on. But how many times and in how many ways can The Liberal Patriot's fine columnists advise today's dysfunctional Democratic Party that you can't put lipstick on the proverbial pig, call it a Monet, and expect anyone to take you seriously? The party has a substance problem, a problem worsened by the undue influence of a radical Left that most Americans to their credit will have nothing to do with.
For any Democrat to treat this as a mere messaging problem in need of superficial imaging adjustment only underscores how fatally serious the disconnect has already become.
Your party has an assassination issue…maybe start by addressing that. All of the rest of this is, respectfully, moot this morning. I’m actually pretty surprised you would publish something political today…the anniversary of 9/11 and less than 24 hours following a political assassination.
I appreciate the level-headed and objective analysis you provide. I’m a Republican…I come here (paid subscriber) to learn a different perspective and sometimes to engage in thoughtful debate. I find your readers to be intelligent and engaging. As a conservative, who 90% of the time is reduced to a racist, Nazi, Fascist, cult member, I seek out opportunities to exchange ideas with people who seem to be operating in good faith. The objective always being to inspire someone to consider an alternative point of view and to perhaps re-consider their assumptions of people who do think differently.
Charlie Kirk did that as well…always with a smile and with love in his heart, and he was killed for it. His wife was made a widow for it, and his young children will grow up without a father for it.
Like millions of Americans, I am heart-broken this morning. I did not sleep last night. And more than sad, at least right now, I am very, very angry. There is no 'whataboutism here'…this is not a ‘both sides’ issue. There is one side that demonizes the other, that is intolerant of other views, who view words as violence and view actual violence as acceptable in the right circumstances.
Until the Democrat party addresses this, meaningfully confronts it with more than empty rhetoric, I consider the party to have forfeited its right to govern. There is a moral rot in your ranks, which your policies and liberal politicians, pundits, and influencers have nurtured.
Charlie Kirk’s death, while tragic, serves as a warning. We are on the brink. Two assassins attempted to kill president Trump. Just imagine where we’d be had they succeeded.
We are in a very dark place. If you pray, please pray for Charlie and that our country can find a way out of this.
I watched only snippets of Kirk, and found him interesting. At times too condescending from the political right (I have a dog's sense of smell for condescension), but that's pretty damn hard to avoid when you hear these young "progressives" on campuses. Not only stupid, but arrogant. One of the worst combinations.
The comment sections of the Facebook pages of the NYT and WaPo are chock full of praise for the murder. It is shocking but not surprising. I'm one of those pissed-off independent former Democrats who left about a decade ago when I saw the party I once called home abandon just about everything that had made my stick with them for 40 years.
I can't call myself a Republican -- once burned, twice shy -- but I sure hope the Republicans realize what a perilous situation this has become, and play it as smart as they can. Above all, if they ever really want us to switch, someone(s) will prevail on Trump to call off the trolling. I find it increasingly offputting. The man needs to quit it with the Dennis the Menace act. In the absence of that wish coming true, I'll be watching J.D. Vance very closely,
By the way, a side comment on that murder of Kirk. The god damn FBI agent goes out there and says they found a "high powered bolt action rifle." Folks, it was a .30-06 deer rifle with a scope. The killer shot from 200 yards. That was not a hard shot to make, presuming that (a safe bet) the shooter had something to rest the gun on.
By comparison, one of my neighbors bags coyotes while they are moving with a 7mm rifle (roughly .27 caliber, a little less recoil than .30 cal.) with no scope, just old fashioned iron sights and nowhere to rest the barrel, at 300 yards. And he's in his 70s, fer chrissakes. So now we'll have the idiot "news" media and every suggestible moron thinking conspiracy, when it's was just someone with a deer rifle who knows how to shoot. Will the idiocy never stop?
Could well be. They don't talk about it much. There are 90 million owners of 450 million firearms and 1 trillion rounds of ammo. More and more, I think the media, whoever and wherever, are scared to death of us. Good thing.
America scares the shit out of them. Want to know why? Because 90%+ of them know that they have faked it until they made it, and if they get fired they just might have to move back to Ottumwa, Iowa and then what? LOL
Agree completely. There is an abundance of posts on social media today from former Democrats and Independents who are pledging to register as Republicans today. Abundance agenda will not erase the thousands of ghoulish posts celebrating Kirk's murder. I too hope we find a way out of this as a country, but the Democrats aren't likely to fix their problems anytime soon.
We don't register by party in WA State, but I can say that Kirk's murder has given me a shove to the political right. Not so much the killing itself, but the hundreds of comments on social media, and some from Democratic officials praising and/or justifying it.
Clean energy isn't clean. It just moves the dirt somewhere else. China, Congo or flyover country-it doesn't matter as long it is not the cities where the Abundance advocates live. You get equity by internalizing the externalities. Put power generation where the power consumption is.
The best way to internalize the externalities is through a combination of reasonable government limits on pollution and other environmental impacts (which generally exist, though some arguably in excess) in combination with a carbon tax that would mobilize market forces in the transition away from fossil fuels to sustainable forms of energy (including nuclear).
I could support a carbon tax if it were paired with a dollar for dollar reduction of income tax. Always better to tax consumption than income. But not as a way to increase the total tax burden.
I agree that to be politically acceptable and not economically disruptive, a carbon tax should (a) be phased-in and (b) paired with a reduction in some other tax. And to offset the fact that a carbon tax would be somewhat regressive, I would reduce the Social Security/Medicare tax on employment and fund those programs more out of general revenues. Note that Social Security essentially is being partially funded from general revenues in the form of the Treasury buying back the Treasury bonds held in the Social Security trust fund.
FICA is a variety of income tax. To do as we suggest you would have to put the carbon tax in the general fund and not earmark it as a subsidy for "clean" energy. I am not sure it is regressive as rich people consume more carbon than poor people.
I'm acknowledging the down-side of a carbon tax in saying that it is somewhat regressive. That is because energy costs make up a larger part of the expenditures of lower income people than of upper income people, and that explains the "populist" opposition to a carbon tax.
However, money is fungible, which means that any revenues collected by the federal government can be spent on anything authorized by Congress. Earmarking funds is a financial device (and political gimmick) that insures that a particular amount of government funds will be spent on a particular program in the future. It doesn't really affect the total tax burden on future taxpayers, only how those taxes will be spent.
It's worth touching on the conversation Ezra Klein had with Jon Stewart to understand that the average brunch liberal would be truly astounded at the cluster-eff that is our current regulatory environment. The futility of the abundance movement lies not in the sincerity of people like Ezra Klein, but in the fact that they are attempting to make the Democratic Party a vessel for the abundance agenda. At best, we could see smaller blue cities (likely in red states) build a few more townhouses. However, what we really need is a full-blown nationwide overhaul that establishes US energy dominance which is necessary to win the AI arms race. The only realistic way that happens in 2025 is a brute force political battle between Trump allies and the sclerotic, entrenched bureaucracy which is categorically a client class of the Democratic Party. We can't wait another 5-10 years for a political realignment where abundance becomes a truly bipartisan issue.
An important side note is that law and order goes hand-in-hand with abundance. You can't have abundance when we have hundreds of zip codes that are unlivable because a critical mass of a major Democratic Party client class is unwilling to interact safely with the general public.
If you spend any time in pro-Second Amendment circles you’ll find a plethora of anecdotes about leftists trying to buy a firearm, getting angry about all the hoops they have to jump through and blaming the guy behind the counter.
The whole Abundance! idea has always struck me as a feel-good slogan embraced by the virtue-signalling clueless, rather than a serious policy platform. Am I the only one who suspects that the term “Abundance” was designed by committee to have “maximum impact” on “voter perception” of the Democratic Party?
Then there’s the hypocrisy built into it. The people touting abundance are the same ones who continue to define Trump voters as stupid racists who are knuckle-dragging the country into fascism. I’m supposed to believe that suddenly they’re embracing people they have contempt for? Or is it only an embrace on the D’s terms? So, business as usual?
As Texeira says here, they’re using it to paper over their toxic ideas.
The entire movement seems prefabricated. At best, it hints at a dim awareness that a millions of people are unhappy with Dem policies, mixed with denial about why. And it’s a desperate attempt to be seen to be doing something without actually having to do something.
ABSOLUTELY! All the hallmarks of some group of viciously overpaid "inside the Beltway" (+ Ivy League and Silicon Valley) consultant pukes. How do we know? Because of how sudden and discontinuous it is. I'm old enough to remember the Democratic Leadership Council and Progressive Policy Institute of the 1980s that turned the party toward the center. Those were top down too, but had a far more organic feel. The "Abundance" crew comes across as a pack of advertising executives.
Totally agree - the Left is always looking for new words for stupid ideas, when the old words get toxic by association with said stupid ideas. "Abundance" will soon go the way of many other words the Left insisted everyone had to use, before they banned those words and substituted others. And as you say, prefabricated, which is totally in line with their whole idea that their political problems are only a "messaging" problem, and if they can only get the "messaging" right (not that there is anything wrong with the actual "message", of course), all of their problems would magically go away and the dumb gullible voters will flock back to the Dems and put them back in charge. Keep it up, Dems, and continue merrily down the road to total oblivion.
“The contrast between what most liberal Democrats, including abundance advocates, want such voters to want and what they actually do want is a fundamental problem.“
Why is listening to the voters so hard? Why is promoting their priorities out of the question? Look at the voters top three issues and work to deal with them.
Listening to the voters is so hard because legislators would rather pay attention to organized pressure groups than unorganized voters. Why do you suppose, for example, that teachers' unions get away with charging exorbitant taxes for shoddy education? Because the National Education Association has lobbyists with checkbooks, which schoolchildren and their parents do not.
Why can't you buy a new car on-line, as you can other products? Why do you have to buy through a dealer? Because the Auto Dealers Association is one of the biggest legislative campaign contributors in nearly every state. Only dealerships can sell you a new car because your legislator sold you out.
Bullseye. Have read that only a small fraction of Americans realize electricity is a delivery system, not energy. The power must come from somewhere. Thus the occasional diesel generator, sitting next to an EV charging station. Moreover, energy produced in the US is some of the cleanest in the world. Oil is always coming out of the ground, somewhere on the globe. Better to extract it in the West, where it is removed in a far cleaner manner.
Not just Abundance Dems, but the world is running headlong into energy reality. Germany, long the economic engine of the EU, is in its' 3rd year of economic contraction, owing largely to crazy climate polices, the loss of their nuclear energy and the disappearance of cheap Russian oil. Idle German factories are not only leveling the living standards of previously wealthy Germans, they leave the entire EU working without a net.
At home, new versions of Solyndra are about to start falling from the sky. As government subsidies disappear, Green corporate bankruptcies are going to soar. The economic deaths will prove many Green companies, founded in a sea of Biden handouts, are really just unsustainable fantasies, without taxpayers perpetually picking up the very expensive tab.
Another great article. I love the first point “get out of jail card”. The Democrat leaders are a bit clueless and/or spineless that they cannot see what you are saying. One of the things that I believe gets in their way is ever admitting that their opponent (ie Trunp) has been right about several things or that they have been wrong. If they don’t change they may be a long time in the wilderness
There is a huge difference between a dirt cheap apartment and government subsidized a.k.a. “affordable” housing.
In the former your neighbors tend to be fellow working stiffs who can at least keep their lives together enough to make rent on a regular basis. Couple that with a local law enforcement that’s actually allowed to enforce the law and you have reasonably decent if spartan living conditions. With government subsidized housing you are always going to get a bad element that never gets removed.
The left’s attempts to legislate fairness just disincentivize building cheap apartments, by making it impossible to screen out bad tenants and next to impossible to evict them later. The numerous environmental building code also jack up the cost of construction to the point where it’s harder to recoup the investment with lower rents as well.
If the professional managerial left had a good idea they wouldn't need to attach a new name to it.
Reduce the rat's nest of regulations, and streamline permits? Great! Safe nukes? Sure. Technology and cheaper greener energy? You betchem.
Abundance of low wage subservient workers flooding the labor market for service work combined with an abundance of high quality cheap imports? well not until it's combined with a less abundant work week, more abundant health care, a much higher min wage, an end to homelessness, no more stabbing Ukrainian immigrant women, secure employment with a retirement, and a route to doing better than our parents.
I think abundance is a word destined to enjoy a short life. Even those lefty socialist types don't like it, 3% of the population is not enough to win elections.
BINGO! Ruy Teixeira, articles like this one are why I actually pay money to subscribe. Once again, a grand slam home run. Bravo!
From where I sit, the Democrats have spent the past decade doing their damndest to undermine the structure of an American economy that did an outstanding job of delivering abundance. And now they want to proclaim an "Abundance" agenda? It's a good example of just about everything they've been doing: hypocritical, insulting, condescending, and darkly humorous.
Superb. I would only add that energy abundance in this column is treated in the context of TODAY'S energy needs. But tomorrow's AI data needs are off the charts, and ONLY Trump is addressing this with an expansion of not only oil and gas but small nuclear reactors. Moreover, NEITHER you nor Trump are digging deeper, to the other massive need that would spur abundance, water for the data centers via a "moon shot" type radical investment in desalinization.
And well to point out that there are cultural issues, the most pressing right now is that abundance is irrelevant if you stand to get murdered on light rail or if you're a conservative (peaceful) debater who is shot in broad daylight by an assassin. There is NO, repeat, NO Democrat "infrastructure rebuilding" that in any way deals with the violence of the left that has reached murderous proportions.
Although I came to TLP after your extremely astute takedown of pre-election Dem CW on , I think, Pod Save America , i think you are missing someone really important with Abundance. You seem to be seeing what Kkein, Thompson, and others have as mostly a yuppie Green wet dream, with overtones of elitism. What I saw in reading " Abundanance" and related stuff was, over, and over, and over again how excessive and unnecessary regulation had made everything from housing to high speed rail unaffordable and/or eternally incompetent. And thatcthis could be substantially resolved not by abolishing sensible regulations, but by prioritizing their completion, or eliminating them when excessively duplicatcaive, or weighted down by NIMBYISM. One example, given in an "Atlantic" article , would be to contract out regulations completion to private agencies, under contact to complete them speedily, correctly, and honestly, with oversight by government agencies.
The bigger boat you are missing is one that unites most liberals and Trumpies up here in Stefanik's NY 21st District: Freedom. Because of Federal, New York State and, most of all, Adirondack Park Agency regulations devised 50 years ago to prevent overdevelopment of the Adirondacks , it is virtually impossible to build middle income housing outside specified areas, most of which are already built up, andx substantially with short term rentals or second, third, or 4th homes for the wealthy . And of course, made unaffordable for the non-wealthy whose parents lived here. From where I sit, an Abundance agenda that would sensibly reduce and speed up restrictions on housing and other sensible projects that would employ regular folks and small contractors who now seethe at these restrictions, would also be a Freedom agenda that would appeal to voters far beyond the Adirondacks.
If enough Democrats can return to all-of-the-above energy policy (praise abundant oil and gas while still pushing for more EVs and non-fossil energy), the next step might be to take all-of-the-above approaches to cultural and safety issues.
Crime: invest a lot more in treating mental illness and substance abuse *as well as* putting more cops on the beat and raising their salaries. If we're looking for ways to fund these, we can tax opioids (some Senate Dems have proposed this), and legalize and tax marijuana.
Immigration: Build more border fences, ensure a large number of well-paid CBP and ICE personnel, and deport anyone who committed an additional crime after illegally crossing the border. Also arrest employers who knowingly hire illegals. *Simultaneously*, take the masks off agents, protect due process, and give a path to citizenship to anyone whose only offense was illegal border crossing. And accept that it's okay to say "illegal immigrant."
My career revolved around large organizational change associated with systems changes. I have been reading your excellent observations on the change in the Democratic Party. Based on my experience, I think that you may be underestimating the difficulty of changing the direction in the Democratic Party.
In that work, a key to succeeding in the change is strong leadership with the authority to take action when objections or roadblocks arise. At least, in my experience, when blocks occur, the leadership takes advantage of the block to eliminate the objectors. In business, this often means firing or removing the objectors. The intent is to begin the breakdown of the legacy organization.
The removal of Hogg might be viewed as that type of action. However, it seems to me that there was no related elimination of personnel supporting him. The key takeaway was simply not to be noticed. This can be achieved by doing nothing or by appearing extra helpful in promoting change, ultimately taking over the change process over time. From experience, this may be the process in place now. The mass of the hive survived, and based on your excellent articles, no change occurred.
Once again, in my experience, the hive learns to” run silent, run deep.” That often means volunteering to do the work of change, only to find it difficult to implement, or making the change essentially what things were under a different name. And report things are going well.
A final point, before beginning a change effort, ask what things will be like when the change is achieved. I can find no clear definition of what abundance will mean. Will it mean that when Abundance is achieved for society that it will be able to provide “from each according to ability to each according to need?”
If that is what it will mean, the party will be back where it started from. This has been a problem for left-leaning parties for many decades.
When the Democrats dropped popular positions, Trump picked them up, and now there is nowhere for the Democrats to go back to, because they would have to agree with Trump. "cutting back on the environmental reviews, strict zoning, labor rules and other obstacles..." That's Trump's platform! The alternative being advocated on cultural issues is to walk back support for wildly unpopular positions ranging from BLM to DEI to Trans Militancy to Open Borders. That's also Trump's platform! So, Democrats are stuck between wildly unpopular positions and agreeing with the opposition. No wonder they can't agree on a new direction. All they have is "Trump and his supporters are Hitler," and unfortunately, we saw yesterday the consequences of that.
Yes, especially since right wingnuts can assassinate Minnesota state leaders without anyone apparently much caring. The Dems may be literally doomed.
Donald Trump, whose guts you hate, condemned that slaying.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered American flags to be flown at half-staff after the deadly shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk—something he did not do when Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, was assassinated months ago.
Trump mocked Paul Pelosi after he was attacked and seriously injured. Trump pardoned all the Jan 6 rioters
Yes, I checked on that and he did denounce the Melissa Hortman killing as “horrific.” I don’t the rules on flying flags at half mast if there are any.
On further thought, I would like to retract the above statement I made. I'd delete it if I could.
Use the ... button to the upper right of your comment. You should be able to find a "delete" choice there.
Thank you
The Minnesota case stemmed from one man’s religious extremism—no one celebrated or condemned the victims. September 7, however, came from a young man radicalized by left-wing demonization. Within hours of the assassination, the left erupted in hateful condemnation of the VICTIM. This reminds me of October 7, when Palestinians rejoiced and celebrated atrocities en masse.
Ruy Texeira is, as usual, spot on. But how many times and in how many ways can The Liberal Patriot's fine columnists advise today's dysfunctional Democratic Party that you can't put lipstick on the proverbial pig, call it a Monet, and expect anyone to take you seriously? The party has a substance problem, a problem worsened by the undue influence of a radical Left that most Americans to their credit will have nothing to do with.
For any Democrat to treat this as a mere messaging problem in need of superficial imaging adjustment only underscores how fatally serious the disconnect has already become.
soooo well said ....
Thank you.
Your party has an assassination issue…maybe start by addressing that. All of the rest of this is, respectfully, moot this morning. I’m actually pretty surprised you would publish something political today…the anniversary of 9/11 and less than 24 hours following a political assassination.
I appreciate the level-headed and objective analysis you provide. I’m a Republican…I come here (paid subscriber) to learn a different perspective and sometimes to engage in thoughtful debate. I find your readers to be intelligent and engaging. As a conservative, who 90% of the time is reduced to a racist, Nazi, Fascist, cult member, I seek out opportunities to exchange ideas with people who seem to be operating in good faith. The objective always being to inspire someone to consider an alternative point of view and to perhaps re-consider their assumptions of people who do think differently.
Charlie Kirk did that as well…always with a smile and with love in his heart, and he was killed for it. His wife was made a widow for it, and his young children will grow up without a father for it.
Like millions of Americans, I am heart-broken this morning. I did not sleep last night. And more than sad, at least right now, I am very, very angry. There is no 'whataboutism here'…this is not a ‘both sides’ issue. There is one side that demonizes the other, that is intolerant of other views, who view words as violence and view actual violence as acceptable in the right circumstances.
Until the Democrat party addresses this, meaningfully confronts it with more than empty rhetoric, I consider the party to have forfeited its right to govern. There is a moral rot in your ranks, which your policies and liberal politicians, pundits, and influencers have nurtured.
Charlie Kirk’s death, while tragic, serves as a warning. We are on the brink. Two assassins attempted to kill president Trump. Just imagine where we’d be had they succeeded.
We are in a very dark place. If you pray, please pray for Charlie and that our country can find a way out of this.
I watched only snippets of Kirk, and found him interesting. At times too condescending from the political right (I have a dog's sense of smell for condescension), but that's pretty damn hard to avoid when you hear these young "progressives" on campuses. Not only stupid, but arrogant. One of the worst combinations.
The comment sections of the Facebook pages of the NYT and WaPo are chock full of praise for the murder. It is shocking but not surprising. I'm one of those pissed-off independent former Democrats who left about a decade ago when I saw the party I once called home abandon just about everything that had made my stick with them for 40 years.
I can't call myself a Republican -- once burned, twice shy -- but I sure hope the Republicans realize what a perilous situation this has become, and play it as smart as they can. Above all, if they ever really want us to switch, someone(s) will prevail on Trump to call off the trolling. I find it increasingly offputting. The man needs to quit it with the Dennis the Menace act. In the absence of that wish coming true, I'll be watching J.D. Vance very closely,
By the way, a side comment on that murder of Kirk. The god damn FBI agent goes out there and says they found a "high powered bolt action rifle." Folks, it was a .30-06 deer rifle with a scope. The killer shot from 200 yards. That was not a hard shot to make, presuming that (a safe bet) the shooter had something to rest the gun on.
By comparison, one of my neighbors bags coyotes while they are moving with a 7mm rifle (roughly .27 caliber, a little less recoil than .30 cal.) with no scope, just old fashioned iron sights and nowhere to rest the barrel, at 300 yards. And he's in his 70s, fer chrissakes. So now we'll have the idiot "news" media and every suggestible moron thinking conspiracy, when it's was just someone with a deer rifle who knows how to shoot. Will the idiocy never stop?
Even the "conservative" media doesn't seem to have a clue about how firearms work.
Could well be. They don't talk about it much. There are 90 million owners of 450 million firearms and 1 trillion rounds of ammo. More and more, I think the media, whoever and wherever, are scared to death of us. Good thing.
Conservative media is largely based in NYC.
Just like the liberal media. It's all the same. None of them know squat about anything, especially guns. LOL
America scares the shit out of them. Want to know why? Because 90%+ of them know that they have faked it until they made it, and if they get fired they just might have to move back to Ottumwa, Iowa and then what? LOL
Agree completely. There is an abundance of posts on social media today from former Democrats and Independents who are pledging to register as Republicans today. Abundance agenda will not erase the thousands of ghoulish posts celebrating Kirk's murder. I too hope we find a way out of this as a country, but the Democrats aren't likely to fix their problems anytime soon.
We don't register by party in WA State, but I can say that Kirk's murder has given me a shove to the political right. Not so much the killing itself, but the hundreds of comments on social media, and some from Democratic officials praising and/or justifying it.
"We are in a very dark place."
Indeed. The darkest since the '60s, probably.
"this is not a ‘both sides’ issue."
It gets darker if you don't understand that this statement is incorrect. Remember, this happened two months ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_shootings_of_Minnesota_legislators
Clean energy isn't clean. It just moves the dirt somewhere else. China, Congo or flyover country-it doesn't matter as long it is not the cities where the Abundance advocates live. You get equity by internalizing the externalities. Put power generation where the power consumption is.
The best way to internalize the externalities is through a combination of reasonable government limits on pollution and other environmental impacts (which generally exist, though some arguably in excess) in combination with a carbon tax that would mobilize market forces in the transition away from fossil fuels to sustainable forms of energy (including nuclear).
I could support a carbon tax if it were paired with a dollar for dollar reduction of income tax. Always better to tax consumption than income. But not as a way to increase the total tax burden.
I agree that to be politically acceptable and not economically disruptive, a carbon tax should (a) be phased-in and (b) paired with a reduction in some other tax. And to offset the fact that a carbon tax would be somewhat regressive, I would reduce the Social Security/Medicare tax on employment and fund those programs more out of general revenues. Note that Social Security essentially is being partially funded from general revenues in the form of the Treasury buying back the Treasury bonds held in the Social Security trust fund.
FICA is a variety of income tax. To do as we suggest you would have to put the carbon tax in the general fund and not earmark it as a subsidy for "clean" energy. I am not sure it is regressive as rich people consume more carbon than poor people.
I'm acknowledging the down-side of a carbon tax in saying that it is somewhat regressive. That is because energy costs make up a larger part of the expenditures of lower income people than of upper income people, and that explains the "populist" opposition to a carbon tax.
However, money is fungible, which means that any revenues collected by the federal government can be spent on anything authorized by Congress. Earmarking funds is a financial device (and political gimmick) that insures that a particular amount of government funds will be spent on a particular program in the future. It doesn't really affect the total tax burden on future taxpayers, only how those taxes will be spent.
It's worth touching on the conversation Ezra Klein had with Jon Stewart to understand that the average brunch liberal would be truly astounded at the cluster-eff that is our current regulatory environment. The futility of the abundance movement lies not in the sincerity of people like Ezra Klein, but in the fact that they are attempting to make the Democratic Party a vessel for the abundance agenda. At best, we could see smaller blue cities (likely in red states) build a few more townhouses. However, what we really need is a full-blown nationwide overhaul that establishes US energy dominance which is necessary to win the AI arms race. The only realistic way that happens in 2025 is a brute force political battle between Trump allies and the sclerotic, entrenched bureaucracy which is categorically a client class of the Democratic Party. We can't wait another 5-10 years for a political realignment where abundance becomes a truly bipartisan issue.
An important side note is that law and order goes hand-in-hand with abundance. You can't have abundance when we have hundreds of zip codes that are unlivable because a critical mass of a major Democratic Party client class is unwilling to interact safely with the general public.
If you spend any time in pro-Second Amendment circles you’ll find a plethora of anecdotes about leftists trying to buy a firearm, getting angry about all the hoops they have to jump through and blaming the guy behind the counter.
The whole Abundance! idea has always struck me as a feel-good slogan embraced by the virtue-signalling clueless, rather than a serious policy platform. Am I the only one who suspects that the term “Abundance” was designed by committee to have “maximum impact” on “voter perception” of the Democratic Party?
Then there’s the hypocrisy built into it. The people touting abundance are the same ones who continue to define Trump voters as stupid racists who are knuckle-dragging the country into fascism. I’m supposed to believe that suddenly they’re embracing people they have contempt for? Or is it only an embrace on the D’s terms? So, business as usual?
As Texeira says here, they’re using it to paper over their toxic ideas.
The entire movement seems prefabricated. At best, it hints at a dim awareness that a millions of people are unhappy with Dem policies, mixed with denial about why. And it’s a desperate attempt to be seen to be doing something without actually having to do something.
The entire movement seems prefabricated.
ABSOLUTELY! All the hallmarks of some group of viciously overpaid "inside the Beltway" (+ Ivy League and Silicon Valley) consultant pukes. How do we know? Because of how sudden and discontinuous it is. I'm old enough to remember the Democratic Leadership Council and Progressive Policy Institute of the 1980s that turned the party toward the center. Those were top down too, but had a far more organic feel. The "Abundance" crew comes across as a pack of advertising executives.
Totally agree - the Left is always looking for new words for stupid ideas, when the old words get toxic by association with said stupid ideas. "Abundance" will soon go the way of many other words the Left insisted everyone had to use, before they banned those words and substituted others. And as you say, prefabricated, which is totally in line with their whole idea that their political problems are only a "messaging" problem, and if they can only get the "messaging" right (not that there is anything wrong with the actual "message", of course), all of their problems would magically go away and the dumb gullible voters will flock back to the Dems and put them back in charge. Keep it up, Dems, and continue merrily down the road to total oblivion.
I think you've hit the nail on the head.
“The contrast between what most liberal Democrats, including abundance advocates, want such voters to want and what they actually do want is a fundamental problem.“
Why is listening to the voters so hard? Why is promoting their priorities out of the question? Look at the voters top three issues and work to deal with them.
Listening to the voters is so hard because legislators would rather pay attention to organized pressure groups than unorganized voters. Why do you suppose, for example, that teachers' unions get away with charging exorbitant taxes for shoddy education? Because the National Education Association has lobbyists with checkbooks, which schoolchildren and their parents do not.
Why can't you buy a new car on-line, as you can other products? Why do you have to buy through a dealer? Because the Auto Dealers Association is one of the biggest legislative campaign contributors in nearly every state. Only dealerships can sell you a new car because your legislator sold you out.
Bullseye. Have read that only a small fraction of Americans realize electricity is a delivery system, not energy. The power must come from somewhere. Thus the occasional diesel generator, sitting next to an EV charging station. Moreover, energy produced in the US is some of the cleanest in the world. Oil is always coming out of the ground, somewhere on the globe. Better to extract it in the West, where it is removed in a far cleaner manner.
Not just Abundance Dems, but the world is running headlong into energy reality. Germany, long the economic engine of the EU, is in its' 3rd year of economic contraction, owing largely to crazy climate polices, the loss of their nuclear energy and the disappearance of cheap Russian oil. Idle German factories are not only leveling the living standards of previously wealthy Germans, they leave the entire EU working without a net.
At home, new versions of Solyndra are about to start falling from the sky. As government subsidies disappear, Green corporate bankruptcies are going to soar. The economic deaths will prove many Green companies, founded in a sea of Biden handouts, are really just unsustainable fantasies, without taxpayers perpetually picking up the very expensive tab.
Another great article. I love the first point “get out of jail card”. The Democrat leaders are a bit clueless and/or spineless that they cannot see what you are saying. One of the things that I believe gets in their way is ever admitting that their opponent (ie Trunp) has been right about several things or that they have been wrong. If they don’t change they may be a long time in the wilderness
There is a huge difference between a dirt cheap apartment and government subsidized a.k.a. “affordable” housing.
In the former your neighbors tend to be fellow working stiffs who can at least keep their lives together enough to make rent on a regular basis. Couple that with a local law enforcement that’s actually allowed to enforce the law and you have reasonably decent if spartan living conditions. With government subsidized housing you are always going to get a bad element that never gets removed.
The left’s attempts to legislate fairness just disincentivize building cheap apartments, by making it impossible to screen out bad tenants and next to impossible to evict them later. The numerous environmental building code also jack up the cost of construction to the point where it’s harder to recoup the investment with lower rents as well.
You are so right.
If the professional managerial left had a good idea they wouldn't need to attach a new name to it.
Reduce the rat's nest of regulations, and streamline permits? Great! Safe nukes? Sure. Technology and cheaper greener energy? You betchem.
Abundance of low wage subservient workers flooding the labor market for service work combined with an abundance of high quality cheap imports? well not until it's combined with a less abundant work week, more abundant health care, a much higher min wage, an end to homelessness, no more stabbing Ukrainian immigrant women, secure employment with a retirement, and a route to doing better than our parents.
I think abundance is a word destined to enjoy a short life. Even those lefty socialist types don't like it, 3% of the population is not enough to win elections.
BINGO! Ruy Teixeira, articles like this one are why I actually pay money to subscribe. Once again, a grand slam home run. Bravo!
From where I sit, the Democrats have spent the past decade doing their damndest to undermine the structure of an American economy that did an outstanding job of delivering abundance. And now they want to proclaim an "Abundance" agenda? It's a good example of just about everything they've been doing: hypocritical, insulting, condescending, and darkly humorous.
Superb. I would only add that energy abundance in this column is treated in the context of TODAY'S energy needs. But tomorrow's AI data needs are off the charts, and ONLY Trump is addressing this with an expansion of not only oil and gas but small nuclear reactors. Moreover, NEITHER you nor Trump are digging deeper, to the other massive need that would spur abundance, water for the data centers via a "moon shot" type radical investment in desalinization.
And well to point out that there are cultural issues, the most pressing right now is that abundance is irrelevant if you stand to get murdered on light rail or if you're a conservative (peaceful) debater who is shot in broad daylight by an assassin. There is NO, repeat, NO Democrat "infrastructure rebuilding" that in any way deals with the violence of the left that has reached murderous proportions.
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Although I came to TLP after your extremely astute takedown of pre-election Dem CW on , I think, Pod Save America , i think you are missing someone really important with Abundance. You seem to be seeing what Kkein, Thompson, and others have as mostly a yuppie Green wet dream, with overtones of elitism. What I saw in reading " Abundanance" and related stuff was, over, and over, and over again how excessive and unnecessary regulation had made everything from housing to high speed rail unaffordable and/or eternally incompetent. And thatcthis could be substantially resolved not by abolishing sensible regulations, but by prioritizing their completion, or eliminating them when excessively duplicatcaive, or weighted down by NIMBYISM. One example, given in an "Atlantic" article , would be to contract out regulations completion to private agencies, under contact to complete them speedily, correctly, and honestly, with oversight by government agencies.
The bigger boat you are missing is one that unites most liberals and Trumpies up here in Stefanik's NY 21st District: Freedom. Because of Federal, New York State and, most of all, Adirondack Park Agency regulations devised 50 years ago to prevent overdevelopment of the Adirondacks , it is virtually impossible to build middle income housing outside specified areas, most of which are already built up, andx substantially with short term rentals or second, third, or 4th homes for the wealthy . And of course, made unaffordable for the non-wealthy whose parents lived here. From where I sit, an Abundance agenda that would sensibly reduce and speed up restrictions on housing and other sensible projects that would employ regular folks and small contractors who now seethe at these restrictions, would also be a Freedom agenda that would appeal to voters far beyond the Adirondacks.
If enough Democrats can return to all-of-the-above energy policy (praise abundant oil and gas while still pushing for more EVs and non-fossil energy), the next step might be to take all-of-the-above approaches to cultural and safety issues.
Crime: invest a lot more in treating mental illness and substance abuse *as well as* putting more cops on the beat and raising their salaries. If we're looking for ways to fund these, we can tax opioids (some Senate Dems have proposed this), and legalize and tax marijuana.
Immigration: Build more border fences, ensure a large number of well-paid CBP and ICE personnel, and deport anyone who committed an additional crime after illegally crossing the border. Also arrest employers who knowingly hire illegals. *Simultaneously*, take the masks off agents, protect due process, and give a path to citizenship to anyone whose only offense was illegal border crossing. And accept that it's okay to say "illegal immigrant."
My career revolved around large organizational change associated with systems changes. I have been reading your excellent observations on the change in the Democratic Party. Based on my experience, I think that you may be underestimating the difficulty of changing the direction in the Democratic Party.
In that work, a key to succeeding in the change is strong leadership with the authority to take action when objections or roadblocks arise. At least, in my experience, when blocks occur, the leadership takes advantage of the block to eliminate the objectors. In business, this often means firing or removing the objectors. The intent is to begin the breakdown of the legacy organization.
The removal of Hogg might be viewed as that type of action. However, it seems to me that there was no related elimination of personnel supporting him. The key takeaway was simply not to be noticed. This can be achieved by doing nothing or by appearing extra helpful in promoting change, ultimately taking over the change process over time. From experience, this may be the process in place now. The mass of the hive survived, and based on your excellent articles, no change occurred.
Once again, in my experience, the hive learns to” run silent, run deep.” That often means volunteering to do the work of change, only to find it difficult to implement, or making the change essentially what things were under a different name. And report things are going well.
A final point, before beginning a change effort, ask what things will be like when the change is achieved. I can find no clear definition of what abundance will mean. Will it mean that when Abundance is achieved for society that it will be able to provide “from each according to ability to each according to need?”
If that is what it will mean, the party will be back where it started from. This has been a problem for left-leaning parties for many decades.