I'd add in response to this question in your last paragraph ("Don’t they want DOGE to have some level of success?") that the answer is yes. In fact, if DOGE were actually trying to improve government rather than simply disable it, the answer would be a resounding yes.
But I suspect that even as destructive as the current DOGE approach is, by clearing out some of the deadwood in government and updating legacy systems, it will make it easier for an Abundance Administration to build back better without some of the pain that would have occurred if they had inherited the executive branch and agencies that existed in January.
Thanks -- I suspect that you are not the only person in your camp who feels that way. I don't think the most prominent ones will say it out loud though.
For me, this Jennifer Pahlka piece (https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/dear-mr-kupor-please-fix-federal) about hiring into the Federal government was eye opening. While I had always known that the government could be slow and bureaucratic, I was still shocked by the level of dysfunction described in this story. I don't see how any organization that works like that could ever accomplish anything, and I was angry both at the Democrats for their complacency in allowing this kind of dysfunction to fester without doing anything about it and at myself for my ignorance of the situation and failure to advocate for focusing on the problem.
Which brings me to a question/potential column suggestion Noah.
I became a big fan of charter schools 35 years ago after doing a lot of work in public schools and seeing how even great principals were hamstrung by their inability to hire teachers who were a good fit for what they were trying to accomplish and to move on from teachers who weren’t. So my first instinct is that we should be giving cabinet department and agency heads as much discretion as they want to build out their teams from top to bottom. At the same time, I also recognize the potential danger of returning to the kind of abuse of the spoil system that triggered civil service reforms in the first place.
So I would love to see a piece where you share your thoughts on what the right balance should be.
I’ve been thinking about your questions seriously and as someone who sympathizes with abundance democrats, my preliminary answer is this:
Firstly, this administration’s many executive “innovations” so far are developed under the guise of “accountability.” That should raise a big red flag, because many pathology described by the abundance Democrats were also intended to increase accountability beforehand by adding numerous venting points to public and private building endeavors.Similarly, what this admin did in reality is the gutting of many autonomous federal agencies, making them harder to achieve effective regulatory missions. And so far DOGE has only made firing people more easy but did nothing to streamline hiring process and failed to pay any attention to talent retention problem. That makes an asymmetrically negative impact for an abundance agenda.
Secondly, for Abundance Democrats, the problem with the current vetocracy is not only there are too many veto points, but they are misaligned. Many changes should have happen in municipal and gubernatorial levels. Which makes it largely a parallel dialogue with what is happening now in federal level.
And thirdly, I must concede that you pointed out a very core mind set indicated by the abundance democrats, that they are more inclined to believe, sometimes, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. And that may create massive problems. But giving the extremity of current situation, I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt and accepting (to some extent) the risk of letting (good and bad) things happen.
Authoritarianism has a bad habit of mainly being good for a handful of people, at a cost to the wider society. Even the fancy "new" neo-reactionary version pushed by Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel.
Wow. You do raise a troubling issue. Housing is one of our biggest problems right now, and our current system can't seem to do anything about it. If we're going to have an authoritarian president, I guess I'd prefer one who focuses on housing. (I'd also prefer de Gaulle instead of Trump, but one can't have everything.)
The abundance folks want Brooklyn to have the same population density as Manhattan. If that happens who will want to live here? Making a place less appealing is one way to make it more affordable, not to mention whether the below and above ground infrastructure is adequate for the additional population.
I've written about this before; it's possible that you have three choices:
1. Encourage economic growth, demographic growth and build whatever is necessary to accommodate them. Pave paradise to put up a parking lot.
2. Encourage economic growth but limit construction to preserve paradise. Then demographic growth becomes impossible, land prices soar, and it becomes a paradise only for the rich.
3. Discourage economic growth so that you don't have to worry about demographic growth. Instead you get demographic decline, paradise gets overgrown and is ultimately abandoned.
New York is big enough not to have to go only one way; we can do some of each. But we don't seem to have the balance right at this point, at least I don't think we do.
I’ve read a number of Derek Thompson articles, not the book, and it didn’t seem like he was advocating for the executive (whether state or federal) to spearhead the abundance agenda, but for a public recognition that hyper local concerns were thwarting collective wants and for reforms (much I would expect to take place in legislatures) that would expedite private and public projects.
I can imagine many Dems coming to accept the procedural, administrative, and legal changes over the long-term even if they never approve of the concrete goals of the current administration. The executive has been growing in power for decades at least, from both parties. The US Left will accept the new status quo and, insofar as Trump's vision of government endures court challenges, use it for their ends. I'm horrified at that prospect of embracing Trump's view of the federal government in the hopes that a better person or at least someone with politics I like more might eventually hold the same power.
On a practical level, it's highly unstable. I haven't read enough from the abundance folk to know how they feel about instability. When I think of federal builders I think of someone like FDR who famously did not come in and out of power.
So you're saying we should hope Trump ignores the 22nd amendment along with the 5th? ;-)
More seriously, I don't think a presidential dictatorship is a good solution to the problems presented by our pre-Trump political arrangement. What's a better but still achievable solution, I don't know. But that's what we should be looking for.
I don't think I was clear, if it sounded like I want the dictator. I can imagine "Well, the rules are what they are now, might as well use them" becoming more common among Dems. But I don't like that idea, even as those people would probably say that they have no choice and besides, you'll like us more than Trump. That's all bad.
I think the questions raised here are good ones, but I think the answers are fairly clear.
Abundance Democrats (and I would include myself) want to make it easier to get things done and that means accepting some bad along with the good.
That said, I don't think it means resisting the courts. It means circumscribing (legislatively) what the courts have decision making power over.
I'd add in response to this question in your last paragraph ("Don’t they want DOGE to have some level of success?") that the answer is yes. In fact, if DOGE were actually trying to improve government rather than simply disable it, the answer would be a resounding yes.
But I suspect that even as destructive as the current DOGE approach is, by clearing out some of the deadwood in government and updating legacy systems, it will make it easier for an Abundance Administration to build back better without some of the pain that would have occurred if they had inherited the executive branch and agencies that existed in January.
Thanks -- I suspect that you are not the only person in your camp who feels that way. I don't think the most prominent ones will say it out loud though.
For me, this Jennifer Pahlka piece (https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/dear-mr-kupor-please-fix-federal) about hiring into the Federal government was eye opening. While I had always known that the government could be slow and bureaucratic, I was still shocked by the level of dysfunction described in this story. I don't see how any organization that works like that could ever accomplish anything, and I was angry both at the Democrats for their complacency in allowing this kind of dysfunction to fester without doing anything about it and at myself for my ignorance of the situation and failure to advocate for focusing on the problem.
Which brings me to a question/potential column suggestion Noah.
I became a big fan of charter schools 35 years ago after doing a lot of work in public schools and seeing how even great principals were hamstrung by their inability to hire teachers who were a good fit for what they were trying to accomplish and to move on from teachers who weren’t. So my first instinct is that we should be giving cabinet department and agency heads as much discretion as they want to build out their teams from top to bottom. At the same time, I also recognize the potential danger of returning to the kind of abuse of the spoil system that triggered civil service reforms in the first place.
So I would love to see a piece where you share your thoughts on what the right balance should be.
As it happens, I plan to write something adjacent to this; keeps getting pushed off, but I'll get to it at some point.
I’ve been thinking about your questions seriously and as someone who sympathizes with abundance democrats, my preliminary answer is this:
Firstly, this administration’s many executive “innovations” so far are developed under the guise of “accountability.” That should raise a big red flag, because many pathology described by the abundance Democrats were also intended to increase accountability beforehand by adding numerous venting points to public and private building endeavors.Similarly, what this admin did in reality is the gutting of many autonomous federal agencies, making them harder to achieve effective regulatory missions. And so far DOGE has only made firing people more easy but did nothing to streamline hiring process and failed to pay any attention to talent retention problem. That makes an asymmetrically negative impact for an abundance agenda.
Secondly, for Abundance Democrats, the problem with the current vetocracy is not only there are too many veto points, but they are misaligned. Many changes should have happen in municipal and gubernatorial levels. Which makes it largely a parallel dialogue with what is happening now in federal level.
And thirdly, I must concede that you pointed out a very core mind set indicated by the abundance democrats, that they are more inclined to believe, sometimes, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. And that may create massive problems. But giving the extremity of current situation, I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt and accepting (to some extent) the risk of letting (good and bad) things happen.
Authoritarianism has a bad habit of mainly being good for a handful of people, at a cost to the wider society. Even the fancy "new" neo-reactionary version pushed by Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel.
In such a regime, you can look forward to:
No rights beyond the whims of the "monarch".
https://thucydidesii.substack.com/p/rights-what-rights-the-mad-king-detests
Constant attacks on the very idea of reality.
https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/not-even-wrong
Education on only what the "monarch" wants you to know.
https://kellihere.substack.com/p/the-billionaire-bros-are-tearing
Crime by and for the benefit of the "monarch", with no recourse.
https://lucid.substack.com/p/for-strongmen-like-trump-holding
More crime, under the guise of fighting crime. Again, no recourse.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/its-a-scam-its-a-purge-its-a-scam
Bloody factional infighting.
https://criticalresistance.substack.com/p/the-civil-war-brewing-within-maga-59c
Yeah, I'm not a fan of authoritarianism.
Wow. You do raise a troubling issue. Housing is one of our biggest problems right now, and our current system can't seem to do anything about it. If we're going to have an authoritarian president, I guess I'd prefer one who focuses on housing. (I'd also prefer de Gaulle instead of Trump, but one can't have everything.)
I think most of what the YIMBYs want to do isn't even happening at the federal level.
The abundance folks want Brooklyn to have the same population density as Manhattan. If that happens who will want to live here? Making a place less appealing is one way to make it more affordable, not to mention whether the below and above ground infrastructure is adequate for the additional population.
I've written about this before; it's possible that you have three choices:
1. Encourage economic growth, demographic growth and build whatever is necessary to accommodate them. Pave paradise to put up a parking lot.
2. Encourage economic growth but limit construction to preserve paradise. Then demographic growth becomes impossible, land prices soar, and it becomes a paradise only for the rich.
3. Discourage economic growth so that you don't have to worry about demographic growth. Instead you get demographic decline, paradise gets overgrown and is ultimately abandoned.
New York is big enough not to have to go only one way; we can do some of each. But we don't seem to have the balance right at this point, at least I don't think we do.
Yes. What a hellhole Manhattan is. Who would ever want to live there?
The infrastructure point/question is a fair one, but I'm curious what infrastructure you think might be insufficient?
He's probably thinking especially of subway capacity.
Yes, and also water, sewer, electric grid capacity, sanitation, vehicular traffic, crowded sidewalks, inadequate parking, public school class size.
I’ve read a number of Derek Thompson articles, not the book, and it didn’t seem like he was advocating for the executive (whether state or federal) to spearhead the abundance agenda, but for a public recognition that hyper local concerns were thwarting collective wants and for reforms (much I would expect to take place in legislatures) that would expedite private and public projects.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
I can imagine many Dems coming to accept the procedural, administrative, and legal changes over the long-term even if they never approve of the concrete goals of the current administration. The executive has been growing in power for decades at least, from both parties. The US Left will accept the new status quo and, insofar as Trump's vision of government endures court challenges, use it for their ends. I'm horrified at that prospect of embracing Trump's view of the federal government in the hopes that a better person or at least someone with politics I like more might eventually hold the same power.
On a practical level, it's highly unstable. I haven't read enough from the abundance folk to know how they feel about instability. When I think of federal builders I think of someone like FDR who famously did not come in and out of power.
So you're saying we should hope Trump ignores the 22nd amendment along with the 5th? ;-)
More seriously, I don't think a presidential dictatorship is a good solution to the problems presented by our pre-Trump political arrangement. What's a better but still achievable solution, I don't know. But that's what we should be looking for.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/opinion/trump-caesar-constitutional-rupture.html
I don't think I was clear, if it sounded like I want the dictator. I can imagine "Well, the rules are what they are now, might as well use them" becoming more common among Dems. But I don't like that idea, even as those people would probably say that they have no choice and besides, you'll like us more than Trump. That's all bad.