What is an Abundance Democrat?
As Abundance criticizes blue cities and states, what separates us from other Democrats—or DOGE?
First things first: join our next event, a book club about Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book, Abundance!
It’s an odd political moment: Republicans are going full degrowth, New York’s Democratic mayor is skipping the party primary, and Democrats of all stripes are trying on “abundance” for size.
The take-off of the abundance movement in this time of scrambled political alliances and messaging has led to a lot of questions. What is an Abundance Democrat, anyway? With all this talk of deregulation and criticism of the left, what differentiates us from the right?
We answered some of these questions on one of our favorite podcasts, Max Politics, the other day—and as abundance discourse heats up, we thought we’d take a step back to better define how we see the movement in New York.
Abundance = building more than enough of what we need + state capacity to deliver
Most definitions of the abundance agenda have two commonalities: increasing the supply of what we need, and well-run governments that enable growth. “What we need,” of course, is broad: Klein and Thompson include housing, mass transit, clean energy, healthcare, and scientific research, among other things. Some abundance movements include public safety or education in their agendas.
In New York, we’re focused on housing, public transit and public space, and renewable energy and resilience infrastructure. These issues shape our homes, commutes, and job opportunities, and they are intimately tied to affordability, quality of life, and safety. They all involve the built environment; getting projects in these areas approved typically requires going through onerous and highly contested land use processes.
Often, the obstacle to building more isn’t funding or technical know-how, but political will and process capture: a small set of vocal, highly empowered “NIMBY” constituents can block a new housing development or bus lane or wind turbine through the “vetocracy” of community feedback or environmental review processes. Both private and public sector projects are delayed and degraded by these procedural challenges and costs.
This brings us to state capacity: we need more streamlined decision-making processes, and more efficient machinery of government, to bring abundance policies to fruition. In the meantime, we need to give voice to a silent majority currently underrepresented in these processes—and end the doom loop of dissatisfaction and disengagement that further entrenches the status quo.
Goals—and, more importantly, outcomes—matter
When asked what differentiates his worldview from that of red-state politicians who have reformed environmental review processes or DOGE employees who are cutting government waste, Ezra Klein responds that “goals matter.” Red states cut red tape to allow for continued emissions; Abundance adherents do it to pave the way for a green energy transition. For DOGE, the goal and the means are one and the same: dismantling the administrative state. For Abundance champions, the goal is a better government that delivers—government that we can trust.
Blue-state Democrats have long expressed laudable goals: make housing affordable, welcome people in need of a place to live safely and authentically, connect constituents to jobs and education and healthcare, keep communities secure, reduce carbon emissions to fight climate change. But goals only take us so far; the proof is in the pudding.
It’s easy to find examples of politicians who have set lofty goals while doing little to pass policies, or build state capacity, to achieve them. In California, this looks like the failure of high-speed rail or mayors passing affordable housing policies with fanfare, only to revise and retract them in face of community opposition. Here, it looks like politicians saying housing is a human right while opposing new homes as rents skyrocket, ambitious renewable energy goals getting kicked down the road, or the “bus mayor” refusing to meet legally mandated bus and bike lane targets.
We believe in good regulation, not just deregulation—and a strong state, not a starved one
We need a big tent, and a big toolbox of policies, to help us achieve our goals.
In the housing space, the left has effectively galvanized a movement around demand-side interventions and increased regulation, from housing vouchers to rent stabilization to stronger tenant protections. These policies protect existing residents and deepen affordability; we see an opportunity for complementary policies focused on increasing the housing stock through deregulation and supply-side reforms. In a time of scarcity, reforming zoning codes can be the cheapest way to drive up housing supply and affordability.
In the climate and energy space, deregulation is a critical tool (for example, where permitting processes have prevented us from building renewable energy infrastructure), but so too is greater regulation—from New York’s cap-and-invest program to congestion pricing, both of which assign a cost to the negative externalities related to emissions and congestion. In both of these fights, the solution is not smaller or less government intervention, but instead bold government action to shape consumer behavior and steward the energy transition.
Muscular and effective government is also needed to enable public sector solutions, whether social housing or subway lines. As the now-temporarily-suspended Trump tariffs threaten to make housing construction and transit projects more expensive—with trade policy set by a decades-long degrowth NIMBY—Abundance Democrats can draw a clear contrast with destroy-it-all DOGE Republicans while also pointing out the flaws and failures of status quo politics and institutions.
Abundance is not located on the left-to-right spectrum: it’s its own axis
We’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: we don’t see Abundance as a “moderate” position, nor do we think of it as a point on the left-to-right political spectrum. While the left-right axis is the most legible way to define candidates and electeds in New York, it is not the most relevant. What matters to us is where someone falls on the abundance vs. scarcity spectrum: whether they believe in growth, change, and a New York that can do big things again; and how they bring these beliefs to fruition through housing, transit, and climate policy.
Just as there are NIMBYs left, right, and center, there is an emerging coalition of Abundance leaders that span the ideological spectrum. Rather than defending—or destroying—broken institutions, they insist on remaking them. And when they offer progressive rhetoric, they insist on pairing it with outcomes-oriented policies—even if they're not currently politically expedient. These are the Abundance Democrats we're excited to uplift and organize, and to elect and reelect in June.
P.S.
In case you missed it amidst the tariff tumult, a few updates from New York:
Congestion pricing will survive at least through mid-summer, giving the program even more time to demonstrate positive results
Per usual, our state budget is delayed—driven by continued conflict over mask bans and discovery reform
With Adams running on the independent line, our November ballots could look nearly as crowded as our June ones.