Derek Thompson

So maybe one way to think about the reaction to the fallout of abundance is to think about its impact at three different levels, the level of vibes, the level of legislation, and the level of outcomes.

At the level of vibes, this is a 0.1 percentile outcome given where I was March 1st of 2025, the degree to which the concept of abundance has reached something like full penetration of the political discourse, certainly the discourse of the Democratic Party,

You look at the fact that governors Kathy Hochul, J.B.

Pritzker are talking about how their solutions to the energy crisis or the housing crisis must begin with a supply side policy.

That tells me that this is not just a word that's being bandied about.

It's a concept.

Look at problems, solve them on the supply side that is being actively talked about at the level of governors, at the level of Congress, at the level of the Senate.

Zoran Mamdani has called out the concept of abundance and has paired his policy of rent freezes with a policy of helping developers build in New York City.

So that's the level of vibes.

I think it's clearly entered this level of mimetic strength that is far beyond my wildest dreams of 13 months ago.

At the level of legislation, I'd say it's like a BB plus.

One bill that Gavin Newsom signed is literally called Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act.

Abundant is right there in the first word.

There's legislation that's been passed around the country that also has tried, many times explicitly citing abundance to make it easier to build housing and easier to build clean energy.

But then I think where the strongest criticism of our movement has to begin is at the level of outcomes.

You know, California should be commended for the law that it signed and the work that folks like Scott Weiner and Buffy Wicks have done to advance the concept of abundance in that state.

But if you have the misfortune of going to, say, Fred, the St.

Louis data website, and looking up housing starts in California between, say, 2021 and 2026, you do not see the publication of the book, Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, in those statistics.

And that's pretty concerning.

We said in our book, judge political movements by their outcomes.