It’s Time To Ruin Your Dinner Parties, Democrats
A hard-truth hot take on Abundance
I’m a fan of abundance, the lower case version.
Five years ago I co-founded and serve as board chair of an abundance-minded organization called Megafire Action. Our CEO may as well be nicknamed Mr. Abundance. The org came together because of work we did within Abundance Network, of which I’m a member.
But with Abundance now capitalized, there are blind spots we must address — necessary conditions for “Abundance the Platform” to have a shot. After reading excerpts (admittedly, I haven’t read the book in full yet), listening to the authors, and subsequently consuming many-a-hot-take, here’s one more.
The Messengers Matter
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson are talented journalists, writers, and thinkers. Journalists can make great investors because they investigate and appreciate unmet needs, which often translate into big market opportunities. That’s what we see right now with a homeless moderate political majority in the United States and the electoral opportunity they represent.
While most journos have deft diagnostic skills, prescribing solutions is not typically in their DNA. This is why Ezra and Derek are short on details of how to take the Abundance platform forward — in fairness, a colossal challenge regardless. As those in the trenches know, the devil is in the details more tactically, and specifically connected to the lived realities of voters.
Hard Conversations Needed, Post Haste
Abundance, if taken up by Dems, requires a 1984 /Democratic Leadership Council-like moment, which…hasn’t happened yet. It may get a little ugly internally before the party can take on this bizarre, incumbent Republican machine in earnest. That means openly disavowing big tent politics to expunge the obstructionists of which the Abundance authors speak. People they once called political allies? No more, if the party wants to win.
Derek Thompson has a story for how this shouldn’t work: Dining with friends in Los Angeles, he listened as they protested the construction of a 200-unit complex down the street — and in the next breath, moaned about their adult child not being able to afford housing in LA. When asked if he confronted their hypocrisy on Bari Weiss’ Honestly podcast, he laughed and said “I said nothing, because he was serving me expensive wine, and I didn’t want to be rude!”
But this is no laughing matter. To have a chance at winning, Democrats must exorcise those demons at the dinner table, risk rudeness, and lose the comfiness of losing itself. They need to muster “the political courage” of which Derek speaks, but does not exercise himself.
If these tough conversations don’t happen now, then when? It took the Democrats eight years and a hefty serving of Ross Perot interference to beat Republicans and win the White House in 1992. More on that below.
Operational Competence Needed
In order for Abundance to tangibly resonate with voters nationally, its leadership must have demonstrated effective governance or management of some kind. This starts with operational competence, and the challenge here for today’s Democratic leadership is that their presumptive 2028 primary candidates — the likes of Newsom, Whitmer, Harris, and Mayor Pete — do not have that earned competence, nor a credible track record to stand on. You can’t talk about Abundance unless you have delivered.
Who has operational competence? I’m glad you asked.
Gina Raimondo, former Rhode Island Governor and Secretary of Commerce, has this in spades. As governor she reduced regulations by 30%, addressed a $7 billion unfunded pension liability, built a free community college program statewide, and had 70% of Rhode Island students’ butts in seats in September 2020 (when most blue state governors locked their students out of schools) — all while cutting taxes nearly every year from 2015–2021. She has bipartisan, federal chops at the highest level with the CHIPS Act. The fact that hard-left Senator Elizabeth Warren has problems with her is a positive sign: she has the nerve to stand up to what moderate voters would consider more extreme elements in the party.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis is another. He oversaw the reduction of income tax and business personal property tax, the capping of property tax, and funded state child tax credits and earned income tax credits benefiting families. He is also independent-minded, which is what the party needs.
There are more. Abundance should be a heat-seeking machine for these operationally-competent leaders. Because the chaotic, cut-to-the-bone Trump administration is opening the door rather widely with its own competence challenges.
2028 or Bust?
It is now commonly known that given demographic shifts away from California, New York, and Illinois (i.e., big, blue, operational-competence-challenged states) toward Texas and Florida, the electoral map is shifting quite unfavorably for Democrats. In a post-2030 world, should it continue in this direction, a Democratic presidential candidate would have to perform at an entirely new level as compared to the past ~30 years to win.
In order to have a run at 2028, feels like the time is now to start warming up. So where’s the urgency?
Perhaps the Dem battery is out of juice in the wake of Trump-Musk’s “flood the zone” strategy. A close friend of mine described the current malaise as pseudo-inefficacy: a feeling that problems are so big and we are too small to do anything about it, with real physiological impacts that shut down our creative abilities.
2026 is around the corner, and soon 2028 will be upon us. Timing is important. That’s the only point here. In the words of Peggy Noonan, it’s time to snap out of it.
Abundance Requires Political Bravery
In September 2024, Megafire Action helped pass the bi-partisan Fix Our Forests Act in Congress (and got thanked on the House floor). The organization was an honest broker, working across the aisle to make it happen. Despite its common sense with a bevy of safeguards, the legislation was opposed by many environmental organizations — for anything that touches NEPA will be struck down by them. But without categorical exemptions for NEPA, we won’t be able to do the work required to manage our forests and protect our communities — and ironically, increase the likelihood that our forests will burn to the ground. These extreme positions have painted the party into a corner.
Thankfully, 55 Democrats voted for it anyway.
Today, that is considered a brave act. I applaud them all.
I was not involved in these negotiations. But when the bill was in its most nascent stages, CEO Matt Weiner and I had a long conversation about whether and how to engage. In hindsight, what may now look like an obvious bipartisan slam dunk was anything but.
Matt had political bravery. All those Democrats had political bravery.
We need more leaders like him and them, with more abundance mindsets like theirs.
It’s exciting that those across the political spectrum are having the Abundance debate, and I am thankful to Ezra and Derek for making it happen. Let’s see who stands up to have the hard conversations at the dinner table, and far beyond.
