For months after Kamala Harris' defeat, Democrats have been debating the party's political and policy mistakes. This discussion is concentrated in part on the bestselling books by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (co-founders of VOX). Abundance. These political columnists argue that Democrats have failed to provide enough material. The Blue State doesn't provide the right housing for its residents, and Federal Democrats are struggling to build time and budgets. Klein and Thompson believe that these failures are partly attributable to zoning restrictions and flaws in the environmental review laws.
In making this claim, they repeated the analysis of many other commentators, policy windows, and activist groups, but lended names to ideological trends: rich liberalism.
Some on the left look at the movement as a plan to reduce progressive impact on the Democrats, looking at the power of workers in the American economy. In this view, Democrats must choose to pursue rich reforms and “populist” reforms. Party can take red tape or Corporate greed.
A new poll from progressive nonprofit organizations, demand progress, suggests that parties should choose the latter.
The survey presented voters with a virtual Democratic candidate who argued that America's “big problem is the “bottleneck” and that it is a “bottleneck” that makes it difficult to produce homes, expand energy production, or build new roads and bridges. The candidate said: “These bottlenecks often take the form of intended regulations aimed at giving people a voice or protecting the environment, but these regulations are leveraged by organized interest groups and community groups to slow things down.”
He then presented alternative Democrats who argued, “The big problem is that big corporations have too much power over our economy and government.”
With a margin of 42.8-29.2%, voters preferred populist Democrats.
This is not surprising on some levels. First, advocacy groups rarely publish polls showing voters who disagree with their views. Demand Progress' mission is to “fight against corporate power” and “disband monopoly.” It set out to move forward with the factional project rather than indifferent measurement of public opinion. And this is reflected in the language of the investigation. The poll embeds that “abundant” message (which shows people less “voice” and environment, less protection, but not the other way around, but that “abundant” message (which informs candidates that fewer “voices” and environments). If the hypothetical populists from the survey committed to combating “a deliberate pro-business policy aimed at creating jobs and promoting innovation,” their messages may not have worked very well.
I think this is almost certain that populist rhetoric resonates more politically than technical debates about supply-side “bottlenecks.” Harris' best test ads in 2024 included a pledge to “crash” “price goggles” and “landlords who are charging too much,” according to Democrat data company Blue Rose Research.
But it doesn't really play a role in whether Democrats should embrace rich reforms for two reasons. First, these political events of reform are based on material interests rather than rhetorical appeal. Second, Democrats don't have to actually choose to pursue rich liberalism and populism. “Populism” means politics focused on redistributing wealth and power to a few and many.
Political events of “rich” policies are rooted in their real-life effects rather than their rhetorical appeal.
Demand progress aims to rebuttal that debate Abundance I won't make it. Klein and Thompson do not argue that politicians who promise to fight regulatory “bottlenecks” are better than those who swear to fight “corporates.” And I have never seen other advocates zoning liberalization or allowing reform.
Rather, the political events of these policies are primarily related to their real-world outcomes, not their speechful courage.
The starting point for that incident is a diagnosis of the Democratic governance failure. Klein and Thompson have some spotlights
- Big Blue State is struggling with a perennial housing shortage and a very high rate of homelessness. In 2023, the five states with the highest percentage of homelessness (California, Hawaii, New York, Oregon and Washington) were all controlled by Democrats.
- Democrat-run states and cities struggle to build public infrastructure for time and budgets. Seventeen years ago, voters in California approved nearly $10 billion in bonds to fund the high-speed rail system. You have not opened a single row yet. San Francisco is struggling to build one public toilet for less than $1.7 million. New York City has the highest transportation costs in the world.
- At the federal level, similar challenges plague the Democratic infrastructure ambitions. For example, Biden administrators invested $7.5 billion in electric vehicle charging stations in 2021. Analysts were hoping that the funds would win 5,000 stations. Four years later, 58 was built.
Klein and Thompson attribute these results in part to zoning restrictions and environmental review laws. The former prohibits the construction of apartments in about 70% of U.S. residential areas, while the latter strengthens appropriate benefits to thwart infrastructure projects through litigation.
Abundance It argues that this is a political issue for Democrats in at least three ways. First, the party's prominent failure to contain the cost of living in New York and California undermines its reputation for economic governance nationwide. Second, the inability of the public sector to construct something efficiently breaks the conservative narrative of massive government foolishness. Third and most specifically, Americans are dealing with the high housing costs of the blue state by moving to the red state. This is an immigration pattern that is trying to make it even more difficult for Democrats to win election colleges. After the 2030 census, election votes will be rebalanced based on population changes. If the current trend continues, California, Illinois and New York will lose votes from election colleges, while Florida and Texas will win them. As a result, Democrats were able to win all blue states in 2032 along with Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, losing their presidency.
Therefore, Klein and Thompson are the reasons to support Democrats politically by enacting proposed reforms to improve the party's reputation for economic management, increase confidence in public sector effectiveness, and increase the group of blue nations (and therefore their representatives at Congress and electoral universities).
Therefore, political debates about “rich” policies cannot be countered by messaging polls. Rather, to do so, 1) “rich” reforms will not actually make housing, energy, or infrastructure more abundant, or 2) make these products more abundant, won't really increase support for Democrats, or 3) people will need to show that even if the former starts building more homes, they will continue to move from blue to red.
For the record, I think the substantial cases of rich agendas are stronger than political ones. I am confident that legalizing the construction of inner suburban apartments will increase housing supply. I don't think that doing so will win the Democratic vote. Many Americans are homeowners who don't want tall buildings (and/or many non-users) in municipalities. But that's not a discussion of progress in demand.
There is no real trade-off between dipping the rich and making things easier to build
The Demand Progress Survey assumes the concept that Democrats must choose a “rich” agenda and a “populist” agenda. But this is pretty much wrong.
There is no inherent tension between proactively implementing antitrust laws and easing restrictions on multi-family home construction. On the contrary, there is definitely a philosophical connection between these two efforts. Both involve promoting greater competition to erode the pricing power of property owners. (If the zoning law preempts the construction of apartment buildings, tenants have fewer options to choose from, which will reduce competition between landowners and allow them to charge a higher price.)
More fundamentally, rich liberalism is directly at odds with traditional environmentalism.
The wider and richness is compatible with improving the standard of living and economic strength of workers. The more homes a city builds, the more property taxes it can collect. And this basic principle applies more generally. Increased economic growth through regulatory reform means more wealth is redistributed, either through union contracts or through welfare states.
This is not to say there is no The trade-off between “rich” reform and economic progressivism is as if we understand its ideology. For example, individual labor unions may support limiting the supply of socially useful goods, such as housing and hotels, for reasons of self-interest. Some populists may encourage reflexive respect for such union demands. The rich liberals are generally not the case. However, policies that make a smaller segment of workers better are not prorave in the best sense of the term, at the expense of a much larger group of workers.
More fundamentally, rich liberalism is directly at odds with traditional environmentalism. The initial objective is to facilitate the construction of green infrastructure, at the expense of preventing fossil fuel extraction. Many environmental organizations have opposite priorities. But fighting to limit US oil and gas supply, especially when it means making infrastructure more expensive and scarce. Populist The cause, even if we consider it valuable.
“Affluent” debate is primarily about policy, not politics
Ultimately, rich liberalism is not about how Democrats should message rather than how they should govern. It is useful to know whether a particular analysis of party governance failures is politically appealing. However, it is even more important to know whether the analysis is accurate. Democrats can oppose corporate fraud on the campaign trajectory, no matter what position they take on zoning or permitting. But if they operate from a false understanding of why Blue State struggles with building proper housing and infrastructure, they will fail to work people.
Therefore, critics of rich liberalism should focus on their substance. To their achievements, many progressive skeptics have done this. I don't think their arguments are convincing (and plans to address them in the future). But they at least clarify the conditions for the discussion on the bottom left over regarding abundance. In contrast, they require a progress poll, but they obscure them.
Corrected, June 2nd, 12pm: Previous versions of this story were incorrect about what happened with the California high-speed rail system. Voters approved billions of dollars for the railroad.
