Abundant Populism

The GOP is closing in on a massive wealth transfer. Can Democrats unite their warring visions?

- Sam Adler-Bell

IN LATE MAY, House Republicans jammed through a reconciliation package that would almost certainly balloon the deficit, imperil America's credit rating, and redistribute wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest. Under President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, millions of families would lose health insurance and food assistance, while the top 0.1 percent of earners would get a $390,000 tax break on average.

An endeavor so straightforwardly greedy should present a serious political opportunity for Democrats. But while the GOP engages in class warfare by budget bill, Democrats remain mired in a partywide identity crisis, uncertain who and what to blame for their problems or how to talk to voters. As Bidenism—with its welfare-state expansion and antitrust enforcement—has failed to reverse working-class defection, moderate Dems have made a bid to regain control, embracing an agenda called “abundance,” most recently articulated in a book of the same name by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Abundance partisans assert the enemy to Democratic success is not corporate greed but regulatory red tape, NIMBYS, and environmental laws, all making it impossible to build and innovate. It's a “simple idea,” as Klein and Thompson put it: “to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need.” Who could disagree? It brings to mind my favorite George W. Bush-ism: “I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington,” he told the AP two days before his inauguration in 2001, “but I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.” In Washington, tautology is a way of life.