Still stinging from their 2024 defeat, Democrats are sampling new messages in an attempt to win back lost voters. One prominent effort is the “abundance agenda,” promoted by the likes of New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson.
The pair decries sclerotic public projects, cost overruns, infrastructure delays, the housing crisis, and other examples of bureaucratic mismanagement, calling for the left to embrace a more efficient, better-functioning government that pursues human flourishing over hyper-regulation.
It’s a great idea, but it’s not new. The proper term for the abundance agenda is “conservatism” — and there’s a reason Democrats haven’t given it a try.
You see, the Democratic Party isn’t one cohesive whole. It’s a collection of organizations, communities, and interests that Democrat elected officials merely represent. The most powerful of these — unions, environmentalists, social justice organizations, etc.—are known simply as “the Groups,” and what the Groups say goes on the left.
Want to build housing? Ask what the environmentalists want. Want to finish an infrastructure project? Well, that depends on the unions. Looking to improve education, public health, or anything else? Social justice activists better ensure everything is done “equitably,” according to their standards.
The Groups and the Democratic Party exist in a symbiotic relationship. Democrats funnel money and power to the Groups through grantmaking and rent-seeking (case in point, USAID) while protecting the interests of the Groups through the legal system (for example, through excessive environmental reviews or burdensome labor laws). In return, the Groups provide the Democrats with votes, political activists, and campaign cash. One cannot exist without the other.
It’s this bond between the Democratic Party and the Groups that has led to the very problems Klein and Thompson lament in the first place. Limited housing is caused by blue, urban NIMBY political machines and hyperregulation. Expensive energy is driven by ineffective environmentalist preening. The economic sclerosis in our once-dynamic cities and industries exists because big government, led by Group interests, makes “success” determined by who you know and what lawyers you have, not whether you can make the best product in the fastest time.
For the Democrats to enact an abundance agenda, they would not only have to reject their identity as the party of big government. They would also have to threaten the interests of the most powerful NGO leaders, union bosses, and professional activists, who they depend on for their power and who, in return, depend on Democrat-provided government patronage to exist.
Asking the Democrats to enact an abundance agenda, therefore, is like asking someone to saw off their own leg. Political parties only exist because of power, and the power of the Democratic Party (diminished as it is) is built around these Groups. Ultimately, a true abundance agenda that unshackles America from overregulation and government morass can’t come from the Democratic Party because the Party can only survive in this status quo.
Even if, somehow, Democrats were miraculously able to enact an abundance agenda without divorcing themselves from the Groups, the Groups would demand that the benefits be limited and redistributed in the name of “equity,” diminishing the entire purpose of the grand project. Then, eventually, the entire system would inevitably degrade into reimagined forms of rent-seeking and legal carveouts as the Groups use their leverage with the party to, once again, benefit themselves at the expense of the common good.
But none of this means an abundance agenda is impossible. There already exists a place with plentiful housing, rapid growth, rising incomes, and clean, cheap energy. That place is called Texas, and it achieved the abundance agenda by keeping progressives as far away from government as possible.
THE ABUNDANCE BROS HAVE ALREADY WON
Perhaps nothing is more indicative of the success of the Texas abundance agenda than energy. Gas is cheap, utility bills are relatively low, and Texas actually leads the country in renewable energy. Free markets, not government regulations, made Texas into the clean energy capital of America, driving down emissions without burdening the general population with shortages and unaffordability.
So if Democrats truly want an abundance agenda, they should cut ties with the Groups, enable free markets, and embrace the power of human freedom. Or they could just become Republicans.
Chris Johnson is a GOP strategist who organizes the next generation of conservative leaders. He also serves as a senior adviser to the National Federation of College Republicans, focusing on energy issues.