Ezra Klein

I mean, do you think it would work?

I mean, do you think it would work?

I'll say a couple things on this because I think about it on a couple levels. Because there's one level on which there's a part of me that wants to say, not my job. And lie that I wasn't thinking about this while writing the book.

I'll say a couple things on this because I think about it on a couple levels. Because there's one level on which there's a part of me that wants to say, not my job. And lie that I wasn't thinking about this while writing the book.

It's a call to arms. So I think a couple of things. One, I would just say as a matter of experience, like you sort of don't know how things will play, how the material works. So they try it out on the crowd. And so we've been sort of working on this in the back room for a long time. Then it comes out and people actually, it is memetic. People do want to argue about it.

It's a call to arms. So I think a couple of things. One, I would just say as a matter of experience, like you sort of don't know how things will play, how the material works. So they try it out on the crowd. And so we've been sort of working on this in the back room for a long time. Then it comes out and people actually, it is memetic. People do want to argue about it.

And nothing I have ever done in all of my years of politics has been picked up as quickly by actual politicians. So clearly they see something in it. Both I think something substantive, right, which is a framework for confronting some mistakes liberals have made and also a framework for thinking in a different way about the future, but also something political.

And nothing I have ever done in all of my years of politics has been picked up as quickly by actual politicians. So clearly they see something in it. Both I think something substantive, right, which is a framework for confronting some mistakes liberals have made and also a framework for thinking in a different way about the future, but also something political.

I think the other thing that I would say, though, in terms of what I think works in it politically, is first, I think liberals have found themselves in a dysfunctional relationship with the future. I think we have lost most of the people who are the big futuristic influencers. You're Elon Musk's, you're Marc Andreessen's. And it's not exactly that I want them back at the moment.

I think the other thing that I would say, though, in terms of what I think works in it politically, is first, I think liberals have found themselves in a dysfunctional relationship with the future. I think we have lost most of the people who are the big futuristic influencers. You're Elon Musk's, you're Marc Andreessen's. And it's not exactly that I want them back at the moment.

I have some disagreements, it turns out, with them. But that question of what is your relationship to technology? What is your relationship to what is coming? Is it fundamentally optimistic? Are you telling people a story where they can imagine a life that is better for them in the future, rather than a life that is built around different kinds of sacrifices?

I have some disagreements, it turns out, with them. But that question of what is your relationship to technology? What is your relationship to what is coming? Is it fundamentally optimistic? Are you telling people a story where they can imagine a life that is better for them in the future, rather than a life that is built around different kinds of sacrifices?

And I actually think this is a pretty profound, I don't think I've said this anywhere, I think there's a pretty profound difference that American liberalism, it is a transformation of American liberalism from, say, Obama to more or less the present. You know, the critique of Obamaism, as you know better than most, was it was teleological, right? You know, the arc of history bends towards justice.

And I actually think this is a pretty profound, I don't think I've said this anywhere, I think there's a pretty profound difference that American liberalism, it is a transformation of American liberalism from, say, Obama to more or less the present. You know, the critique of Obamaism, as you know better than most, was it was teleological, right? You know, the arc of history bends towards justice.

It was relentlessly optimistic. So, you know, the audacity of hope, right? All of it is about looking to a future that you, on a very fundamental level, believe is going to be profoundly better, morally better, economically better than the past. And a lot of the rhetoric is very abundance-esque. And I think that liberalism in the years since got into a rhetoric of sacrifice.

It was relentlessly optimistic. So, you know, the audacity of hope, right? All of it is about looking to a future that you, on a very fundamental level, believe is going to be profoundly better, morally better, economically better than the past. And a lot of the rhetoric is very abundance-esque. And I think that liberalism in the years since got into a rhetoric of sacrifice.

Moral sacrifice because we are a nation built on sin and on stain. But also environmental and material sacrifice because climate change is a disaster. Deforestation is a disaster. Biodiversity is a disaster. So it wasn't always said explicitly, but I think liberalism had stopped having a theory of technology because it didn't like the technologists anymore.

Moral sacrifice because we are a nation built on sin and on stain. But also environmental and material sacrifice because climate change is a disaster. Deforestation is a disaster. Biodiversity is a disaster. So it wasn't always said explicitly, but I think liberalism had stopped having a theory of technology because it didn't like the technologists anymore.

It was quite consumed with arguments, understandably so, about the deep injustices of the past. And I'm not saying they were not true or there, but it was a tough politics. And its environmental side, as things got worse, it had a lot of trouble. arguing what I think we should be able to argue, which is that the clean energy future should be fucking awesome.

It was quite consumed with arguments, understandably so, about the deep injustices of the past. And I'm not saying they were not true or there, but it was a tough politics. And its environmental side, as things got worse, it had a lot of trouble. arguing what I think we should be able to argue, which is that the clean energy future should be fucking awesome.