574 | Nancy Scola: The Anti-Monopoly Summit, Abundance 2025, & National Conservatism - What D.C.’s Conference Season Really Revealed

Summary

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The Realignment – Episode 574

Guest: Nancy Scola
Hosts: Marshall Kosloff
Title: Nancy Scola: The Anti-Monopoly Summit, Abundance 2025, & National Conservatism—What D.C.’s Conference Season Really Revealed
Date: September 18, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Marshall Kosloff welcomes political journalist Nancy Scola to examine Washington, D.C.'s 2025 “conference season,” focusing on three major gatherings: the Abundance Conference, the Anti-Monopoly Summit, and the National Conservatism Conference. They dissect the ascendancy and tensions of Big Ideas—abundance, antitrust, and national conservatism—in American politics, unpacking the performative politics and real-world impacts of these evolving movements.

Nancy shares ground-level insights from attending the Abundance and the Anti-Monopoly conferences, comparing their atmospheres, substance, and the shifting dynamics between bipartisan coalition-building and ideological clarity.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Conference Season in D.C.: What It Means

• Contextualizing the Trifecta: Marshall emphasizes how back-to-back conferences represent the new energy and unsettled questions animating U.S. politics, with each gathering becoming both an idea laboratory and a performance stage for rising political actors ([00:00]-[03:06]).
  • “A lot of ambitious figures have started attaching themselves to [big ideas]...these spaces do matter.” — Marshall, 01:36
• Marshall admits his personal connections to all three conferences, underscoring the proximity and overlap—professionally and personally—between hosts, guests, and policy worlds.

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2. The ‘Abundance’ Movement: Vagueness, Promise, and Challenges

• Nascent and Nebulous: Abundance, originating with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book, is pitched as a bipartisan call to "build more"—whether housing, energy, or infrastructure—but remains frustratingly ill-defined to many observers.
  • “I came away from the Abundance Conference not quite knowing what the idea was.” — Nancy, 00:58
• Atmosphere at Abundance Conference: Nancy recounts a lack of specificity among attendees, many seemingly drawn more by network and prestige than concrete agendas ([03:06]-[05:06]).
• Vagueness as a Feature, Not a Bug: Marshall explains this as a deliberate attempt to keep the tent wide—"so big it lacks rigor"—but acknowledges how that undermines clarity and practical momentum.
  • “That bipartisan articulation is so big, it leads to a lack of rigor...frankly, attendees would know where to go next if we did sort of ideologically bifurcate a little better.” — Marshall, 10:11

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3. Clash with Anti-Monopoly and Core Differences in Approach

• Specificity vs. Generality: Nancy is struck by stark differences in style: Anti-Monopoly panels feature concrete grievances (e.g., Mars Inc. buying up veterinary practices), named villains, and legal/policy debate, while Abundance tends toward sweeping, less actionable optimism ([07:24]-[10:00]).
• On-the-Ground Impact: Anti-Monopoly conversations are rooted in “who is the villain, what provision of the law do we use,” whereas Abundance still struggles to get beyond the slogan, “we need more housing, more energy, more stuff.”
  • “At the Anti-Monopoly Summit...they actually get into the specifics...what provision...is applicable here?” — Nancy, 07:50

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4. The Ideological Fault Line: Can ‘Abundance’ Bridge Right and Left?

• Tension within ‘Abundance’: Marshall and Nancy discuss whether the left-populist anti-monopoly impulse or climate “degrowth” left is the bigger opposition to Abundance. They note surprising conflict between abundance advocates and the anti-monopoly left ([05:06]-[06:14]).
• Shared Tent, Different Stories: Marshall explains that while left and right might agree in principle—America needs to build more—what, why, and how diverges sharply. Narratives about government’s role and speed (citing post-WWII “move fast” New Deal era vs. regulatory caution since the 1970s) supply the backbone of a center-left version. Right-leaning participants object to left priorities, particularly regarding climate ([10:11]-[15:05]).
  • “If the dark abundance folks and the liberal abundance folks disagree on the problems and the solutions, what is the overlap there...?” — Nancy, 15:05
• Supply-Side Focus as Unifying Kernel: Abundance’s core is the shift from decades of demand-side policy (subsidies, vouchers) to supply-side action—“yes, let’s build more housing, not just subsidize demand”—but skepticism remains about whether this goes beyond “no shit, Sherlock” insight ([15:19]-[18:09]).

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5. Abundance as a Mindset for Governance

• Reframing Government’s Role: Nancy is intrigued by abundance as a “presumption of yes” instead of “default to no” for public projects—a mental shift, especially valuable for mayors, city officials, and local leaders ([18:09]-[20:49]).
  • “If government...the expectation for the last few decades has been that the role of government is to say no...if we sort of recalibrate that...that seems like a kernel.” — Nancy, 18:09
• Implementation Gap: Both agree national and local politicians often lack tools to deliver tangible results, as shown by Biden’s frustrated attempts to show built outcomes for voters ([21:06]-[22:24]).

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6. The Politics of Performance and Messaging

• Building as Symbolic Action: Marshall argues that Democratic politicians need to “be seen building” to connect with voters—citing examples like Ryan Petersen of Flexport live-tweeting supply chain fixes as a model. Similarly, the appeal of figures like Trump and RFK Jr. is not policy but the symbolism of action, disruption, and “builder” energy ([27:41]-[38:34]).
  • “A symbolic politician...doesn’t have to say a single word. He clearly communicates something that grabs people viscerally.” — Marshall, 35:34
• Limits of Democratic Messaging: Efforts like Pete Buttigieg’s infrastructure focus lack breakthrough power, in part because of style and credibility with less-elite, working-class voters ([34:20]-[38:34]).
• Building Political Empathy: Abundance, at its best, gives center-left politicians a language to talk about anti-status-quo issues—the cost-of-living crisis, housing unaffordability—even if they’re uneasy with populist polemic ([25:05]-[27:41]).

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7. Building Coalitions vs. Taking Sides

• Coalitional ‘Big Tent’ or Concrete Clarity?: Both hosts see limits to the “giant tent” approach. To evolve, abundance must facilitate real debate and welcome internal disagreement. Right now, ideological cleavages are papered over for the sake of appearances and funder comfort, but Marshall pushes for more honest, sometimes awkward, panel discussions ([55:03]-[58:16]).
  • “If we want to make this more specific, making the same enormous, massive tent...is going to have a limited ability to actually take things.” — Marshall, 51:55
• Pragmatics of Funding and Programming: Nancy asks if well-funded abundance organizations resist hosting real conflict on stage. Marshall says donors encourage bold programming, but personal and professional relationships—and the institutional temperament of centrists—foster avoidance of direct confrontation ([61:30]-[63:19]).
  • “It was less the donors and more self-selection personality reality.” — Marshall, 66:49

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Defining the Divide
  “The specificity you hear at these two different conferences is just markedly different. And it’s two different approaches to doing politics.” — Nancy, 09:04

• On the Pitfalls of a Too-Broad Movement
  “That bipartisan articulation is so big, it leads to a lack of rigor on what story are we telling...If we did sort of ideologically bifurcate a little better, reporters like yourself would have a clearer picture.” — Marshall, 10:11

• Symbolic Politics and Building Trust
  “A symbolic politician…doesn’t have to say a single word. He clearly communicates something that grabs people viscerally about what we’re actually doing here.” — Marshall, 35:34

• Abundance As “Supply-Side” Restoration
  “For now, the articulation that abundance is about increasing more supply in America is a broad enough tent…The question is, does that lead anywhere useful beyond someone hearing my five-minute rant and being like, ‘Okay, that’s useful. I’ll think about supply a little more.’” — Marshall, 17:48

• Calling for Tougher Debates
  “I think we should be comfortable with disagreement and not always being all in the same tent. And…next year I want to get more populists on…even if it makes people uncomfortable.” — Marshall, 66:49

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–03:06 — Introduction & overview of D.C. conference season; why these gatherings matter
• 03:06–07:24 — Nancy on “Abundance” as a vague but rising movement; contrasts with Anti-Monopoly Summit
• 07:24–10:00 — Anti-Monopoly’s specificity vs Abundance’s big ideas; scene-setting examples
• 10:11–15:05 — Marshall explains the liberal “abundance” narrative and its pitfalls in trying to span the spectrum
• 15:19–18:09 — The “aha moment” of supply-side abundance; why this insight matters even if it seems obvious
• 18:09–22:24 — Abundance as a government mindset shift; political implementation challenges (Biden’s “Morning in America” that never landed)
• 23:28–27:41 — How politicians do (and don’t) sell abundance; the populist advantage in channeling discontent
• 27:41–38:34 — Symbolic politics: Ryan Petersen/Trump/RFK Jr.; why being seen building matters & limits of Democratic figureheads
• 41:19–44:08 — The Booker/Buttigieg builder archetype: does it work? Why symbolic action may only go so far
• 48:13–51:55 — Do business figures’ ‘builder’ branding really work in politics? The appeal and the pitfalls
• 55:03–58:16 — Why abundance must eventually get more specific (and possibly split); programming and honest debate
• 61:30–66:49 — Can abundance host real debate? Programming, personality, and funder dynamics; calls for a more combative, pluralistic approach

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Conclusions

• Abundance’s strength lies in providing a “yes, let’s build” mindset for a generation of policymakers trapped by stagnation and red tape. But for it to matter, advocates must get concrete and comfortable with tension, even conflict.
• Anti-monopoly populism continues to attract adherents by identifying villains and prescribing specific remedies—giving it a narrative and tactical advantage over vaguer, optimism-heavy abundance rhetoric.
• The performative side of ideas is critical: who gets credit for “building”? For abundance to win the narrative, it needs builders who resonate beyond the elite—figures with both real accomplishments and visceral appeal.
• Future pathways for Abundance depend on embracing sharper internal debates, clarifying ideological vision, and rewarding local, implementer-level successes instead of elite consensus.

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Ending Thought:
This episode gave a rare, self-reflective look at the intellectual and social infrastructure behind political realignment—revealing both the promise and the messiness of coalition politics in Washington.

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Transcript

[A]

Marshall here. Welcome back to the realignment. Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. Earlier in the summer, I had reporter Nancy Scola on the show to discuss how ideas work in Washington during a period where since there are so many open questions in American politics and the overall world, a lot of ambitious figures have started attaching themselves to them. So we talked about a bunch of different big ideas, everything from antitrust to abundance, and how we can understand the debates in 2025 through that. Len Last week we had the Abundance Conference, we had the National Conservatism Conference, and this week we had the Anti Monopoly Conference by the American Economic Liberties Project. Nancy was at the Abundance conference and she was at the Anti Monopoly conference. So I thought this would be a perfect time to look at this trifecta of different events through the lens of what ideas are rising and falling in Washington right now. We also get into the politics of performance and how these big ideas actually translate into effect political moves and articulations of candidates when voters are clearly looking for change. I should also note that during the lead up to this episode, I saw a tweet where Nancy explicitly said she came away from the Abundance Conference not quite knowing what the idea was, given what everything was. So I took this as a personal opportunity to sort of give the case for at least understanding what abundance's pitch is in the context of all these different ideas. So hope you all enjoy the conversation. Nancy Scola, welcome back to the realignment.

[B]

Hey Marshall, thanks for having me.

[A]

Yeah, really excited to chat with you. So I really enjoyed our episode. At the start of the summer. The big idea was how do ideas actually work in Washington? Because I had a tweet thread about this and I've always been sort of trying to make the case to people who think that monopoly and abundance and national Conservatism, oh, that's just airy fairy, think tanky stuff. But in this political moment where there are a bunch of unsettled questions, regardless of what you sort leave when it comes to those big topics, I think these spaces do matter. And as we talked about in our episode, individuals can use these ideas and movements to gain power. You know the natcons where we staff the administration, a lot of these people met at the conference. So I think this is just so important. And in terms of this episode, it's been a really interesting event in D.C. if you are obsessed with conferences. You had the National Conservatism Conference, this was the New Rights Conference. You had the Abundance Conference where I was the emcee, and then you had the anti Monopoly conference where I should note I'm conflicted on two out of these three. Actually I'm conflicted on three out of three. The first episode of the Realignment was recorded of JD Vance in the basement of NATCON 1 in 2019. Two, I was the emcee of the Abundance Conference. And then three, my wife Olivia Kozlov moderated the first panel. So no conflict, no interest, the old Hollywood saying. But I would love to just sort of get your, you could take this as long as you want to go. Like I'd love to hear your reaction to the two out of the three, like events you got at and then we could sort of like get into things just at a broad ideas level.

[B]

Yeah, for sure. And thanks for having me. So I think we talked a little bit about this last time that I've been Abundance curious since the ideas of political concept really kind of got traction in Washington, which is arguably this past spring. And I just wanted to, you know, sort of preface this with I'm a reporter. I'm looking at this as a reporter. I'm just, you know, I'm constantly on the hunt for new ideas to write about. That's sort of a very self interested, transactional approach to this sort of thing. But I'm sort of always looking at what's popping up on the landscape escape, what make might make for a good story. So when abundance started getting traction, I thought, okay, here's something kind of start poking at and started doing that. So the first Abundance, my sort of dipping my toe into the abundance world was back in March. There was a Happy hour in D.C. at one of these very nice D.C. rooftop bars. And I thought, I'll go see what I can find out about what people are talking about in this space. It was, it was tied to the release of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's book, hopefully called Abundance. And so I went and I sort of circulated, mingled, you know, kind of started talking to people. I said, okay, what do you know, what, what's your interest in abundance? And it seemed to be like, you know, we're here for the drinks and we're here for the fact that this is kind of a place to be on a D.C. wednesday night or whatever it was. And so since then I've kind of been tracking, you know, read the book, obviously have been tracking how this idea has gotten traction. Morphed a few months later, kind of hoping to get a sense of where it might be going from here. So one day the Abundance conference that you, as you Mentioned you moderated, took that in for couple days and then just a couple days ago went to the anti monopoly conference, which, you know, the hot topic is probably obvious is antitrust there. And that conference has been going on a little bit longer. Antitrust is a little bit more. More of a history in D.C. so the conversation there is a little bit further along, but just kind of comparing and contrasting. Right. These are two big ideas that, you know, you might say the sort of the realignment that people talk about in American politics, the antitrust conversation and the abundance conversation are kind of really at the center of that. Right. Where do both parties go from here? Is there any overlap between the left and the right on some of these issues? So really just trying to figure out what people are talking about in these spaces and make sense of it enough that I can write a story about it.

[A]

So here's a question that I'm really fascinated to ask you. So as a reporter, you, I'm sure you've got some sort of useful perspective on this. So leading into the publication of Abundance, sort of giving everyone what people are texting in the group chat, people in the abundance cohort thought the big opposition to Abundance was going to come from like the degrowth of climate left that was going to be the centerpiece. Ezra's talked about this on the podcast. And because of the nature of the realignment, I happen to book have booked on this show a lot of the sort of left populists who actually were sort of the main anti abundance cohort. I saw and was told very explicitly that actually it's the antitrust populist left that is going to be most skeptical at a serious level. So since you went to these two conferences that were literally, once again, I've talked to everyone involved. It was an accident that all these conferences were near each other. So these accidentally dueling conferences, just sitting during these panels and these conversations. Would it be surprising to you that Abundance and Anti Monopoly, at least on the center, left to left, are in conflict more than just the environmental side, Just like seeing these things in the wild.

[B]

I think I'm going to be a little bit superficial about this. I think it's not on substance. I'd be curious why your guests kind of had that, you know, that early warning that this was going to be the conflict, because I don't know that I would have seen that. Not my job to predict these things, but I'm not sure that I would have seen that conflict being where the reaction, the negative reaction to the book was going to Be. But the. I think just in terms of vibe that looking at these sort of like two different ways of approaching some of the major political questions facing the United States. They're just very different approaches. So at the, you know, the abundance conference, the. It's still sort of these big picture ideas of we need more housing, we need more energy. There was a panel between Oren Cass, who's the founder, as you all know, of American Compass, and Matt Iglesias, who's Matt Iglesias, a substack fame and all that kind of trying to define what abundance is. And Oren talked about, you know, I think it's just more stuff. Oh, you moderated that panel actually, didn't you?

[A]

By the way? No offense to Matt or Oren, but that is the definition of a panel. You should just not moderate, just like fight. And I was, I am rejecting all those offers from the future forward perspective.

[B]

I should check the trans. Many words you actually managed to get in there. But you know, Oren said, I think, you know, and he has his own approach on abundance, but he said, I think what we're talking about here is basically more, more. More stuff, you know, more, more better things, faster things, more of them. And you kind of pushed back a little bit and said is this, you know, is this more energy or is this more toys? Right? Like it's defining the terms here. And that kind of got lost. Right? The conversation from there wasn't. So I think like the reason I bring that up is I think the specificity you hear at these two different conferences is just markedly different. And it's two different approach of doing approaches, doing politics. You go to the anti Monopoly conference, the one of the panels was they talked about the effect of corporate consolidation on small businesses in the United States. And the panelists are at something like that. At the Anti Monopoly summit, a veterinarian from. I'm blanking on where he was from, but somewhere out in the United States who runs a veterinary practice hasn't done that for a long time. And, and they open up the panel by saying, okay, name your villains to the small businesses that were on the. On the panel. Name your villains. Who are you fighting against when you're doing your sort of day to day work? And this veterinarian said it's the Mars Corporation or Mars Inc. Whatever it is, it's the actual big candy company. They have a subsidiary that buys up small veterinary practices. And he talked about the impact on the sort of pricing model that they have to use in their veterinary practices if they're they're responsible to these corporations of really producing short term profits. And so he said, you know, I've been doing this for 50 years, whatever it is. And in the past we would do things for no cost, you know, small fees and with the expectation that they're the person whose pet I'm treating, their, their kids are going to bring their dog in there and those that kid's kid is going to bring their cat in somewhere in the future. Right. Some of the typical things you hear about like the effect of big business on, on small companies, but, and then they actually get into like the specific, okay, what provision on these panels, what provisions of the packers and Stockyards act, you know, is, is applicable here and what would enforcement look like? Just really specificity around these ideas that I think abundance is just, it's just a different approach. And I'd love to, you know, if you talk to some of the abundance folks, they say, well, we're. This is a nascent movement. Right. This is early on enough that we're still kind of diagnosing things without, without necessarily getting to the prescriptive phase of like, what exactly do you do about these things? But you're also pairing that with a big, flashy, high profile conference, right? So it's not a couple people meeting in a room saying, okay, we've got something here, let's cultivate it and turn it into something bigger. It's really kind of going prime time without necessarily kind of, you know, nailing down some of those details. But I will say I'm going on and on. But part of the reason I wanted to do this conversation, I love speaking with you, but was because I want, I want to hear from you. What am I missing here? What should I be looking for? Why am I, if I'm misinterpreting the moment we're in with the abundance movement, how am I misinterpreting that?

[A]

Yeah. So here is. Thanks for sort of coming on my show, genuinely giving me a chance to sort of, I think, speak in good faith on this. So I'm gonna sort of expose the audience to like conference planning and all these different things work. So at a structural level, I think the lack of clarity around abundance comes down to a decision to frame abundance as a bipartisan movement that encapsulates all these different issues and always different topics. And hypothetically could include everyone from Trump's Secretary of Energy to Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. However, because that bipartisan articulation is so big, it leads to a lack of rigor on what story are we telling? What understanding do we have of the challenges in the moment? And why should people who aren't typically interested in ideas be interested in this? So it should be noted, and this has always been like the awkward thing. I obviously want there to be an abundance conference next year. I'm going to be involved in planning of it, but I want there to be a right wing dark abundance conference also and a left of centered or left conference, because in both cases, the articulation of like, what is left of centered or left abundance is actually quite a bit different than the rite of center to dark abundance version. And the way that these are different then implements itself in terms of the story you're going to tell. So I think something that Derek and Ezra and people like Mark Duckelman and Steve Talleys have done a really great job of doing is really tell the story of why abundance matters when you frame it from a future of liberalism perspective, right? What they will say is, look at the New Deal. We built all this energy. We, we electrified the Hill country near where I live in Texas. We moved quick, we built things. We had the arsenal of democracy. Government was fast and it moved. And then we built the suburbs and everyone had housing. We moved, we moved, we moved, we moved. As you got into the 1960s, though, we started to experience the cost of moving so quickly. Robert Moses, he built a lot of stuff. He wouldn't take 10 years to build a new subway in New York City like we have today. But he would have also built that subway quickly by demolishing a black neighborhood. Then you have the Cleveland river lighting on fire. Because we've just let industry go and go and go and go. Starting in the 1970s, liberal project transitions from one that's like, it's the New Deal and the Great Society. We're moving to one where we're sort of like, hold on, whoa. And then you sort of start seeing liberalism focused more on slowing down and responding to the problems created by the last era of growth. The way that abundance articulates this from a policy perspective, and Steve Tallies and Mark Duckleman are particularly good at articulating this is liberalism is now in a new stage after the 2020 election, which is now we are in an era we actually need to do a lot of things. We actually do need to move really quickly. We do have a housing emergency. We do have a climate crisis. We do have massive issues with childcare and affordability. And just this 1970s era of liberalism that's always saying, like, whoa, let's slow everything down, doesn't meet the moment and needs to be rethought in context. And what Mark Dunkelman so perfectly articulates here is you balance liberalism's Jeffersonian instincts. The Jeffersonian instinc is sort of like small farmers and yeomen and democracy with the Hamiltonian get things done things. Here's the thing, what I just articulated is a perfect scaffolding story for a center left to left conference. If you are on the right though that story, not only would you object to certain ways I frame things, like, not only would you object to like the priorities, you would definitely say, Murphy, you just said climate crisis. That's not a priority of ours. There's a lack of energy crisis. Like this climate stuff is terrible. We're defunding batteries right now. These are just so different. That sort of combining those two together leads to us awkwardly not just being frank and clear about these things. And then the last thing, because I'd love to hear your thoughts on David Brooks's conversation with Derek and Ezra. David Brooks's conversation just treated abundance. I'm sure it probably made conservatives in attendance awkward. It just treated abundance as like this debate over the future of left liberal. That was the entire premise of that was, hey, this is a thing for that the left needs to think seriously, how much of a response to populism and Trump is this? That message and that framing is going to alienate half of the room under this overly broad bipartisan thing. So once again, I am not advocating for no bipartisanship next year. But I do think reporters such as yourself would have a clearer picture of what's going on here. And then frankly, attendees would know where to go next. If we did sort of idea logically bifurcate a little better.

[B]

If you, if the dark abundance folks and the liberal abundance folks disagree on the problems and the solutions, what is the overlap there other than other than the sort of branding of abundance? I mean, and the idea of we need, you know, there needs to be more rather than less.

[A]

So yeah, so this is so, yeah, so good, good, good, good question. So this is where the agreement really does matter. Actually, we'll put it this way. So like when I, when I, when my friends from high school listen to the podcast, they always dunk on me for the abundance episodes. They're like, cool, so what? And sounds sort of simple to say, guys, the answer is we need to agree as a society that we need to create more. In D.C. think tank terms, that sounds like super vapid and superficial. Like the sort of way that leftists tend to dunk on this is sort of, oh, no shit, Sherlock. Thank you, we need more. Thank you for the brilliant insight. DC walks funded to the team of tens of millions of dollars. But the key thing is though, when you understand this within and once again, this is easier to articulate, I think, in different ideological cohorts. If you think about this through the lens of how American public policy has worked for the past 30 years, that is a foundational insight that when you have the right guest or the right thinker on, could lead you really interesting places. So, for example, and this is why this all starts with yimbyism, right? The whole point of yimbyism is the typical way we think about housing is subsidy, Section 8 vouchers, rent control, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It basically, especially if you're in a super zip or powerful city, just gets you into a spiral of always having to actually increase subsidies without actually taking care of other people who are actually there. So what yimbyism did that was actually generationally useful was say, hey, what if just thinking about this through the lens of how do we subsidize demand once again, rent control and vouchers. What if we also said, what if we built more houses for people? If we built more houses for people, that would actually create, yeah, lowering prices. So, so that's why it's just like the foundational idea of increasing supply isn't vapid. And I think what you've got right now, and I think this could sustain itself for a few more years, is just sort of, I would say if you got all the different right of center, left of center and left groups together, they would all say we've had a 30, 40 year of American politics period where everything was about the demand side of things. So, okay, hey, so government's just going to pay for health care even if that keeps going up more expensive. That's the only way we think about the healthcare debate. We don't think about like making healthcare cheaper or hey, college is out of control. Okay, so we're just going to increase Pell grants or we're going to just do free college and not focus on the fact that there's actually a price problem there too. What if we focused on the number of seats that we actually have in college, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So for now, the articulation that abundance is about increasing more supply in America is a broad enough tent that you can at least get 18 to 20 different partner orgs and funders together. The question to your point though is does that actually lead anywhere useful beyond someone hearing my five minute rant and being like, okay, that's useful. I'll think about supply a little more. You haven't actually changed my brain.

[B]

I'm sorry. You're sort of. I'm thinking my way into thinking maybe there is some more here than I thought there was in the idea that like, if government, if the expectation for the last few decades has been that the role of government is to say no, right? To sort of stop progress in a way to throw up roadblocks, and that if we sort of re. Recalibrate that, let's say the presumption is that government is going to say yes. How do we get this thing built? Like that is a slightly different, like, way of thinking about the nature of government. Like, that's it just. But that seems like a kernel sort of. Not sort of.

[A]

Well, but the thing that's weird though, and this is where I have to like speak up for my friends who aren't just podcasters but are actually elected officials. Like, what's really fascinating. So, and I was very proud of this. So we launched a group called Abundance Electeds at the conference. So these are 120, not members of Congress, not senators, not even state reps. It's like actually mayors and city councilors and county commissioners. It was like really exciting to meet them because like, once again, if you know this, you go to a typical D.C. conference and you just. These are not the type of people who typically go to these sorts of, these sorts of events. Right? And, and I think it's easy for us in D.C. who sort of live in the realm of ideas to think that, oh, your job is to say yes, not just say no, is just a kernel. But actually if you are in these positions. And the way I sort of, the way I sort of more of an humble brag about my sort of failed high school political career is like I was a youth governor of Oregon. I was a boys Nation. I was sort of like on that path. I interned for the Democratic Leadership Caucus in Congress. I was very much like on a path that way. And just if I think, think back to that version of me before I just talk to people as more of an interviewer. Just this idea that, hey, the world is broken and your solution isn't just get into Congress and pass the big bill that magically through money makes everything happen. It's actually a real revelation. Think of it. And this is why the high speed Rail example is actually really important. If you talked to the Gavin Newsom in a different form and the members of the California state legislature in 2008 and said to them, hey, is this high speed rail thing going to be completed in the Next, next like 10 years? They say, are you kidding me? It's going to go way faster than that. They had no conception of the idea that this. Basically no one thinks this is going to happen. Now the Trump administration is threatening to cut funding. It's like not a thing. I don't think they had any conception that this could just like not happen. That government isn't just sort of, you know, when you play SimCity and you just like sort of press the button and the thing just sort of happens. When I talk to like my elected official friends, I think it's kind of how we tend to think of things. So, like, my real defense of this idea is that I would love for people like you to talk more to the actual elected officials who just genuinely, I think from their perspective it's, oh, wait, we should like, think about that.

[B]

Yeah, and that does seem a useful corrective. We sometimes talk about how we report as if you, you know, when the bill gets signed, then it's done. And really that's the, that's, you know, step zero on the implementation. And we don't spend near enough time focusing on whether the legislation actually produced the thing that it was supposed to end up producing.

[A]

One quick thing on that. And this is another way this operationalized itself on the national level. This is also another awkward part of like, why this is a good fit for the center left right now. The Biden administration made their ent morning in America 2024 bet on the idea that these big spending projects would happen, be built up, would be realized, and this would be so obvious that they were going to do the Morning America like it was 1984 and 2024 thing. Like this was their entire political. It was like their mix of policy with a political strategy and things just didn't get built. It wasn't obvious, it was hard to send money out there. So that's actually my real articulation of, once again, if you talk to people in 2021 and people have said this to me in private, people who work programs, we find abundance to be a useful framework because, hey, at a state capacity level, is this thing that you're doing actually going to happen? And this is probably an indictment of the modern Democratic Party and public policy schools and law schools and all the institutions that people have gone through. But now that we're fighting with the army we have, not the one we want, you know, to sort of quote Donald Rumsfeld there. This is the sort of set of leaders and people we have and they find it useful in the Biden administration and the EV Chargers and the factories that actually speaks to that sort of cohort.

[B]

So there's two, there's two sort of parts of that. One is that the Biden folks attempting to do things and not getting it done right. There was a lot of big promises about what they're going to be able to build and didn't do. They also did build some things, right. They did roll out some, some things did not get the amount of credit that they felt like they should have gotten deserved, deserved for those things. Part of that is branding and selling it to the American public of we built this thing and and you therefore should re elect us to keep building those things. So I do, I mean, I'm curious in sort of like an alternate reality where you are the mayor of Portland, what how do you convince, how do you speak to people, your constituents about like I have a vision of the world and it is X, right. How do you sell the above if abundance, if we can concede that maybe abundance isn't the sort of like most, you know, sort of doesn't get the soul stirred. How do you speak to constituents about I have this vision of the world that, you know, produces is you're going to have access to more stuff and a better life in a way that they would find compelling. Like how do you translate abundance to a political, you know, political messaging which is at the end of the day going to be how you get to keep doing more abundance.

[A]

And the thing is like well people, people think it's cope when people like me say I don't care about the polls that show that populism is more popular on the campaign trove and abundance is because just a quick side note, I do actually want to say this, a thing I really want to put push the abundance folks who listen to the show on is I think the thing that the populist left gets right about abundance is that abundance too often not only sounds but is deeply comfortable with the status quo. So like a famous like abundance versus populist debate that always comes up is like the is blackrock buying everyone's housing thing. Right? Which like sorry, the neoliberals are right about this. It is just not true outside of maybe some very, very specific like housing market markets that BlackRock has just bought all the houses. And that's why people in like my generation of cohort can't get housing. I think too often though neoliberals or abundance people in that category just spend their time like debunking everything in a Vox explainer circa 2015 sense. And what they don't do is what an actual politician should do, which is say hey I we could get into a whole debate and this isn't me perfectly like this isn't perfectly rotested but like to in an idea sense. I totally get why you blame blackrock and Wall street about this housing thing. Because guess what, like when I talk to any of my 30something peers in Austin, they have as they're even. These are even like successful people. Some of these people work in big tech. They have as a normative assumption about their life that they're just not gonna be able to get a house in a traditional sense.

[B]

And so harness that discontent and redirected.

[A]

And that is what the BlackRock thing is actually about. Cause you have something, there's this big conservative influencer who's like BlackRock has bought 20% of America's houses. Like okay, let's chill down. Facts do actually matter. But what abundance to do a better job of doing. And this is how you make this more politically compelling is abundance should be understood as. And this is why I was focusing so much on the supply thing. I want abundance to be a sort of gateway drug for central left politicians to be comfortable with anti status quo politics. Because abundance gives you a language to say oh wait, actually there's a major housing crisis and there's not enough housing for people. And most people who I meet are going to feel like they don't have, they don't actually have a house. So what I need to do is talk about that issue. And abundance just gets you comfortable thinking that way. Because you're not gonna if you're center left, you're not gonna get there by reading Matt Stoller's like blog. Like you're not gonna get there through reading Jacobin. But what abundance could be used to do in the right sense is basically say, hey, why like America doesn't do these things anymore in a way that it used to do and now that it says stopped doing these things for the past 30 or 40 years, the bill is due and now there's not enough housing, people can't get childcare, everything's crazy expensive. We saw the inflation stuff during the election. We saw Zoran Mandani actually win the center by talking about the cost of living crisis. Let me put it this way. A Democrat who'd read abundance would not have fallen into the trap that Andrew Cuomo fell into. And Andrew Cuomo had other issues too. But it's just crazy to me that in the era of the abundance book book, a left populist DSA person made cost of living their entire thing. Because once again abundance as a book exists to basically say hey Dems, here's how you talk about this issue. Here's how you like demonstrate empathy.

[B]

I'm sorry but it does seem like part of the reason that the anti monopoly folks got some traction was the idea of people are, you know, there's, you're assuming in politics some level of discontent, right? That's people are unhappy about something and people are searching. Why I do what I do is people are constantly searching for stories to make them better equipped to understand the world around them. And the anti monopoly folks said the reason why you can't buy a house, the reason why you're unhappy when you go to the mall, whatever it is, is because corporate concentration, the abundance folks, it's the diagnosing the that there's not enough housing. And therefore what are you giving the that that voter or that that that person is searching for some explanation of how the world works. Is it, is it then you can't find housing, you know, whatever the the scarcity is because government or is that not is isn't isn't enough to say we're not building enough stuff. Let's get to work building more stuff.

[A]

So here's the key thing and this is where my politician side comes in. It's obviously not enough to say we're not building enough housing. We need to build more housing. I think what that means though is you should embody the not superficial reality of being a person who builds things. I think something the Republican party is incredibly good at is symbolic politics in the sense that the reason why Maha and Maga RFK Jr are such like a perfect mix together. And I say this out of love. Like people sort of like laugh. I talk about my in laws who are in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and they're you know, very maga. I, I mean this totally out of love. When I came from Texas for fourth of July, the thing everyone wanted to talk with me about and not just but their friends and is just like RFK Jr. What's he doing in D.C. i bet this is what everyone is focused on. I'm sort of like I actually work on foreign policy. Actually that's not quite like my policy here. But. But my point is like RFK Jr is a perfect symbol for the idea that our institutions are broken. And there's this big aggressive personality who symbolically represents what Maha Maha is. He's a class trader, he's a familial trader. He just sort of like embodies these things that then are going to really translate into policy. So the type of thing I actually think a lot if I were sort of like central casting, like the Democratic Party right now we're kind of getting into this little bit of a trap where like good for, you know, like glam pastor in, in Maine for saying I'm a Democrat who like wears a hoodie and like I'm an oyster person. And I think party reform has to go. Because the thing that's ironic about this is I still think the big project for Democrats is figuring out what actually is the Democratic Party, what actually is liberalism. And the problem with the Dan Osbornes and like the independent runs is if they're successful, it's because they are not Democrats and you need some not Democrats. But there still is this thing that you have to sort of build out. So I don't want people to focus enough to stop focusing attention there. But like my actual takeaway is like, hey, like in my version of the Biden administration, if you were obsessed with telling people that you build things and illustrating that you build things, they should have found someone. It didn't have to be Elon, but they should have found someone from the private sector or from the public sector who had a vibe level like this, could work with, who should have been the face of what the actual thing was. It could not just be a bunch of Yale law educated lucky people who are working in offices because Biden couldn't represent that. What I would have done if I were in the Biden administration is like, so, okay, so perfect example. So there's this guy who came on my show a few weeks ago, Sam d' Amico loves Sam. I worship Sam. What he's done is he's created a. So Sam, if you're listening, this is me trying to get a job opportunity for you in the future. What Sam is focused on electrification and battery technology. What he's doing that's really interesting, he's built a battery powered stove that because, and this is the science part, because we've actually gotten to where we need to get when it comes to electrification. Just as your Tesla could drive just as fast if not faster than your combustion powered car, we're also sort of getting there with stuff stoves. But his whole pitch is what's cool about this company, why this is actually a unicorn opportunity is the battery that we have in the stove is way overpowered relative to your need to actually cook things. So in the future you're going to have a house, hopefully if his vision comes true, where your stove battery could power your entire house and you could plug your other appliances into it. So it's like this really interesting story of electrification that is the definition of a person. If Democrats come back into power. I should note Sam was very, he wants this to be seen as a bipartisan topic. So I'm not saying that Sam is a Democrat for people who are listening, but like, if I'm a Democrat who's coming into office and I'm saying like, hey, like Trump cut all of the renewable energy funding, he cut the EV stuff, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make Sam a dollar a year man, and put him out front as an actual builder and doer and not just have like a Yale law grad or a Rhodes scholar type. Just read a bunch of books and talk about how this is the era of a bunch of abundance and in the era of abundance, we're going to build things. Thank you very much. Right. That is what symbolic politics looks like. And abundance is so. And this is where the centrists are like wrong and the populists are right. Like the centrists are so I think because this is the. And this is where once again, why the realignment is like a weirdly set. We're the most like populist centrist show. This way. If I sort of put this is like at the end of the day, the problem is it's easy for me as the University of Oregon graduate who didn't get great, didn't get great grades to say there are too many Yale law people. Enough of you Rhodes scholars, like, obviously see, like I'm sort of in these rooms, but I don't come from those rooms. But if you're actually like, if that's actually the world where you like went to, you know, like, it's hard to actually do that. So centrists have to be much more comfortable. And this is why one other thing, I'll just say that, like, I've gotten a bit of like audience, like feedback and some sort of skepticism from sort of abundance people with how much time I spend engaging left populous on these topics. And I think that's just, I think that's a really mistaken Instinct because like I think my actual take is the center and the establishment, quote unquote, has a serious trust issue. And I think think that it's not so Steve Telly's. You know, I love Steve. Steve got me on my job at Nisan and he's kind of my co host. Steve said on the previous episode, I'm just like not really interested in Lina Khan and sorry, I don't think you can do that during a moment where the center is under attack and we basically have no credibility. I'll be sure to bring this up with Steve next episode. So I don't just seem like I'm talking cop out, but I actually think the center when we're losing on every single front, you regain trust by talking to people, people and engaging seriously with people, even if you don't want to. So yeah, that's my. Those are a variety of beefs. Thank you for letting me rant. No, no, this is my various.

[B]

No, this is it actually, you know, going back a little bit to the like the, the symbolic politics and actually putting, you know, we used to call shovels in the ground that they. The Biden administration did attempt to do this in, in some ways through Pete Buttigieg, right. At the Department of Transportation. He had a whole bunch of money from the infrastructure bill and they sent him out and said, you know, go build things, go build things and talk. Talk about building things and people Judge is particularly skilled, I think everyone can admit, at talking about the things, you know, talking about sort of real world things. And then he ran into trouble with the, the EV networks and some of the EV stuff because Elon Musk was sort of person on God in the Trump administration, in the, excuse me, Biden administration. Because whatever, you know, the various explanations you get from folks in part because Tesla's not unionized and President Biden didn't enjoy that. So it does seem to be. That could be an example of you have a politician who's pretty good at talking about building stuff. He's actually building something things. And then you run into the. No, no, we can't talk about it because it conflicts with our politics. You know, sort of these lines, here's my thing.

[A]

And this is no offense to Pete Buttigieg, but Pete's obviously very smart. But the way that I would put this, maybe risking any future jobs I could get in the Pete Buttigieg administration never happens. There's a difference between being the Michael Jordan press secretary level skill of your generation and being a successful figure who could convince working Class people that you're building things. I'm sorry, Pete Buttigieg, I'm not here to sort of argue that like, hey, like politicians just sort of like recite the Ezra Klein canon and you're going to activate voters. I don't think that's true. I don't think there's any credibility. I think my point though is Pete or you needed someone in that for, for what you're describing here in terms of like him going. Well, actually let me put it this way. Like the working class, like black and Hispanic voters and no offense, Pete, we see this in your polls. Who the Biden administration needed to convince to support them, were not convinced by Pete. And if we look at those South Carolina and other polls, he's not convincing them. Now, at the end of the day, the problem with the Democratic Party, I.

[B]

Don'T know if that grabbed you, I don't know if that was because of the EV network.

[A]

But you were saying like their strategy, they sent him out, but you were sort of citing him as an example of like a symbolic politician. I think, I don't think that's what, what a symbolic politician is like a symbolic politician. You just look. And that's why I brought up RFK Jr. RFK Jr. Doesn't have to say a single word. He clearly communicates something that grabs people viscerally about what we're actually like doing here. That is why I was talking like, that is why I'm talking about like Sam d' Amico as an example. And my other. And this is, I love bringing this one up because I've yet to hear anyone rebut this. Do you know who Ryan Peterson is?

[B]

No.

[A]

So Ryan Peterson is the CEO of Flexport. So it's a major supply chain, unicorn level startup. He is really. He always goes on Joe Wiesenthal's podcast. He's basically, he's in that founder, CEO sweet spot of actually because he's actually smart. People like Joe Weisenthal actually like to talk about him. So during the pandemic, Flexport had some problems, but he just was like tweeting out amazing threads about what was going wrong in the port of la. Remember like when we were leading up into Christmas Christmas. So he's live tweeting threads. He got on a boat with like the, with, with the mayor of like, with the Long beach mayor. And they were literally like, right, this is frankly, this is what an abundance politician looks like. For my pov. He was, they were literally taking notes of bottlenecks. They were finding in the process and making on the fly changes. And this was just all being live tweeted. I remember thinking, why is Pete Buttigieg not on that boat to too?

[B]

Well, I mean that's.

[A]

But I, I did that is that, that is what. That is what symbolic politics looks like.

[B]

But I think, I think maybe it's not breaking through because he spent a good amount of time going to airports that had received funding and were rebuilding their terminals and walking through the construction and asking questions about how, you know, how many gates were going to be allocated to which airline or not. Like he did attempt to do that. And when he first ran for president, he was the, you know, Mayor Pete who had redesigned the traffic patterns in, in South Bend, right? Like he, he did. That was his sort of orientation to the world was like, I see this physical problem that actually exists out in the world. How do I insert myself into that situation and, and make the outcome different? So he, I totally appreciate it didn't break through. And I'm not, I don't know, you know, no dog in the fight. And the Mayor Pete question. But he, he is sort of. He, he. That is his background, right? That is his sort of orientation to the world. He very much appreciates the idea that you sometimes hear be seen doing, right. Like you do the thing, but also be seen doing the thing. So he did attempt to do that. I get that it might not resonate with, you know, some voters in South Carolina, that sort of thing, but I think for certain cohort of American voters and potentially if, if he can articulate the sort of we've built this thing, here's how we made it happen when we couldn't have made it happen in the past, right? High speed rail. If it was Governor Pete of California and he managed to pull off high speed rail, like I think he would sit down and explain to voters, like, here's how we were able to get this done. And when, you know, my predecessor, Governor Newsom wasn't able to do it. So I totally appreciate didn't break through, but it's not, not as if he didn't attempt to do that.

[A]

I'll actually answer your question. What would I do if Mayor of Portland as an abundance politician, my quick response is I think the traffic thing and the airport thing is just like a little boring and really should look up what Ryan was doing because like the point is, right, Ryan. Ryan should run for office if he ever wants in terms of this skill set. Because like what was so cool is he was just like live streaming being on the boat saying like, hey, here's the deal. Christmas is about to be totally screwed up if we do not do this. This, this. Actually, you know who should have been given a dollar a year man job? Ryan Peterson should have been given a dollar a year man job during the supply chain crisis. Because this would have. Because the problem is, and this is, I'm really not trying to sound like I'm talking crap about people because I just think what we're actually talking about here is that politicians just credibility. This is the story of post Nixonian politics. But I think this is especially true today. Politicians have a real credibility gap. And I think Republicans have shown themselves during the Trump era much more willing. I think way too far. I don't think cash. I think maybe podcast or FBI directors, there could be too much. Let me put it this way. I'm going to put forth the idea that there is a sweet spot between podcasters taking the number one and number two jobs at the FBI. I think there's a sweet spot where it's like what is a non traditional person who's competent, smart, but also is going to have more credibility with voters and with people who are just sort of in our team thinking about this. But to answer your actual question, like what would I do as an abundance politician? So like a. You have to sort of be ready to meet the moment. I think what's exciting, let's pretend that like the supply chain crisis like happens in 2026 and I'm mayor of Portland in 2024. I would have read abundance. I would have thought about this issue. The key wording in the book about abundance is like the word bottleneck. There are all these bottlenecks that are preventing us from doing these things. So straight up, like Portland has a big port. I would do the Ryan Peterson thing in Portland at a minimum and then I'd also take a day trip down to Long beach and join at the mayor of Long Beach. And I would actually go on every single podcast and talk about this. I would say, look, it's been and I guess I'm mixing around the timeline because this was in 2021, like at the height of COVID So that's what really mattered. The but like people have had the worst two years imaginable and the last things people don't, the last thing that people need is their Christmas getting ruined because decades of buildup and like bottlenecks and different issues. Like I as a politician, if you think of Marshall Kozlov, you're going to think of this is the dude who's making sure I get my Christmas gifts. And this is what he's focused on.

[B]

And where does that differ from example.

[A]

Of like demonstrating abundance in a way that isn't just sort of a reading group. You have to, you have to, you have to find like a moment where you can articulate these ideas and way of it resonates.

[B]

And where does that. So a, A senator, excuse me, a Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey, filling in potholes because this, you know, city government wasn't addressing that particular need. That's different because it's not, it's not an abundance question. It's not like a systemic issue. It is, you know, sort of too small ball.

[A]

So, okay, so you know what's fascinating about that? So a Mayor Cory Booker was Mayor Cory Booker doing a different era for American politics. Right. So, like, the problem was a little different. Right. So. So like during the Cory Booker Newark thing. Okay, Actually, no, here. This is actually why I would put that differently than the Mayor Pete stuff. Because, you know, this, if you're, this, if you're the mayor of a big urban city with crime and poverty issues, you like, there's really no one ever makes it above New York City. And why, if you're mayor of Baltimore, you're going to kind of like struggle in a traditional national politics sense. So I think because Cory. And also remember this, like, Cory Booker had vulnerabilities with his, like, Wall street ties, all these like, different things. So like him just saying, I'm a young, dynamic man of action. Yes, I'm a sort of nerdy Rhodes scholar, vegan, but I also played football at Stanford and that's. And I'm going to demonstrate that by being jacked.

[B]

I'm friends with Rachel Maddow, but I'm shoveling your driveway.

[A]

Yeah. I think the ironic thing about his strategy as mayor, like Transportation Secretary, is better suited to a mayoral context. Right. Like everything you were describing, I think that's what we're sort of. That's what I'm kind of trying to say here.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it does make me think that, you know, President Trump, I think, has gotten a lot of mileage with a lot of voters from being seen as a builder in his, you know, private sector life. He built things. He built. You know, people look at his golf clubs and say, that's a nice golf club. And that, that does go some distance.

[A]

And my thing that I want to push Dems on is obviously it's fair to dunk on the superficiality of that dynamic. But I think too many Dems stop there and don't think think. But no, seriously like let's think about. So like the answer is I tell people is I have a, I have a buddy who's in the Biden administration who told me that like 10% of their I'm using the non gender pronoun in a very straightforward Sense and their 10% of their Yale Law School class was in the Biden administration. That is crazy.

[B]

It goes back to the. Your dislike of Yale Law School.

[A]

No, no, but, but, but here's the thing. I'll tell you something. I would talk to a lot of people on off the record. I'm not the only one. If I'm beefing with Yale Law School, a lot of like up and coming stymied Yale Law School keeps reason like very yo law school for a variety of like you know, Lena came from Yale Law School at a structural level. Jake Sullivan yo law School for whatever reason there was like a, a forcing function of if you wanted to be successful in the Biden administration, you just went to your law school. And my point is I want more Dems to think seriously of. There's a gap between we select like a vapid celebrity as our leader and are we selecting a cohort of leaders who have any degree of credibility, an anti establishment age and can that be a politician politician.

[B]

Can that be a. Or is that somebody necessarily who has a private like this. The poor person you mentioned has a private sector career that they say okay, I built in the real world and I'm going to go build in government. Or could it be somebody who comes.

[A]

I've been riffing off of this because I was someone who was caught on the record saying that I'm interested. I didn't say Doge was going to, but I said I'm interested in Doge and obviously like people are sort of like dunking on that because it didn't come go well. But I once again like my whole, my actual area of expertise is in like The World War II arsenal of democracy era. And the key thing with arsenal of democracy era is we went from building 600 planes a year to 50,000. And the way we got that done is we brought in GM's leader and Sears Roebuck's leader as dollar a year men and they own things. But the key thing and this is the difference between Elon and what happened with Elon and Doge and what happened with FDR are is you know in the military there's like the principle of civilian Control. So this is why people want the Secretary of Defense to usually not be a general in terms of. Because like the civilians are in control of the military. I want business leaders aggressively in government. But as FDR did, they have to retain control. And one of the heroes of the arsenal of democracy story is Bill Knudsen. Bill Knudsen was like the person who built gm. He was an early leader at Ford. He's this amazing. He was a Danish immigrant. He's sort of this, he's this like he was a non college educated Danish immigrant who showed up barely speaking English and then few years later is like working of Henry Ford. It's the American dream. And then he goes to like build the arsenal of democracy. But guess what? He actually wasn't good at interfacing with government. So FDR being a good politician didn't fire this really great man. He kicked him upstairs and made him a general. So he made him a general, fired him and reconstituted things. So like, that's an example of what like, like civilian control of the privates, public sector control of the private sector looks like. And if you look at a lot of these disasters during Elon's tenure, they stem from the Trump administration not maintaining public sector control of these private sector people. Elon was just doing things. They were just doing whatever, whatever, whatever. Like Trump didn't sign on to the pep far cuts. He's responsible. But that was not like the Trump thing. That, that was, that was a failure there. So and a presidential level. I am fine with the ideas of, I'm fine with the idea of a business person becoming a president. However, and then like you know, as we're nearing the end of this episode here, I'd love to get like your final thoughts. I will say though, when people ask me about Mark Cuban and these like centrist billionaire types, what I say is the main problem with that them is the reason why Ross Perot worked as like a like centrist, like billionaire is that he was, he was so good at playing against type in the sense of being a populist. Trump was also playing against type. He's a billionaire, he's rich, but he's very, very, very popular. Same thing for him. And I really became a cell. If anyone who's in Mark Cuban world wants to talk about this, please reach out to me on Mark Cuban. When he went on on CNBC and was speaking Ilovelina Khan when he did that, I was like, okay, automatic sell on Mark Cuban as like the type of politician who could come in charge of the Democratic Party. Because the point of me bringing up Ross Perot and Trump is that you might play against type. If you're the billionaire person, you actually make nice with the populace and then you actually wage war with. Because this is what Trump did. Trump made peace with the populace, populists and the social conservatives, and he fought against the George Bush center right. I think that's like the awkward dynamic and I think the problem of businessmen. And also this happened with Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO, when he wanted to run. It happened with Michael Bloomberg when it wanted to run. The type of billionaire who, especially on the center left who sort of emerged over the past decade is just like a little to no labelsy, a little to a sell a quarter, a little to too much. Aspen Ideas Festival and doesn't have a strong grip on how populism without having to agree or disagree with populist policies means they have to shift the things they're sort of thinking about.

[B]

This is going to sound very simplistic, but I wonder sometimes if what they, you know, people talk about Mark Cuban, right? There's a, there's sort of every, every six months people say mark Cuban for president. Then it kind of fades out and comes back that the part of the challenge, I think for his any potential candidacy is what, what does. Is Mark. What did he build? What is Mark Cuban famous for? I think like most Americans, they might know him from Shark Tank, but the idea of what he actually put his stamp on, I think people are a little bit uncertain about that. And I think that's, it's. Again, I admit this is a simple point, but I think if you're running as a business leader, the fact that you can say, I built Starbucks, I was the CEO of Starbucks, I built this, you know, Ross Perot. I, you know, I'm, I'm pretty old, but I'm not old enough to remember. Exactly. But he built like rich for a reason.

[A]

He built like very serious computer stuff.

[B]

Yeah. Bloomberg, Bloomberg Terminal. Right. That's sort of very concrete thing of going back to the idea of being able to sell yourself as somebody, a politician who's capable of building things. I think there's a little bit of appeal of saying I, you know, I'm capable of building things. And look, here's the thing I built.

[A]

I'll push you on that. I think that's a very 2000s, 2010 sort of theory of politics. Because what I would advise, because let me put it this way is the whole point of which, because if you're running as a As a billionaire business person, like you're running as an anti establishment candidate. So you have to find some sort of lane that gets you there. And I think that the obvious, the obvious lane that I would pick is the real lack of Gravitas in the 2020 Democratic Party field, right? Just like the real lack of gravitas. The real, if you sit voters down and if you, if you sit, you know, the people who are out there, people dunk on the no Kings program protest. But in terms of not doing anything but five, that was the five million people showed up. There's a real base there. And I think what that base has not been convinced of is that the set of elected status quo politicians who are on the stage right now have the ability to actually, this is why Gavin Newsom is like surprising every one of his game. Because Gavin's just realized like, hey, actually the Democratic base is really pissed off and thinks most of these people who probably have better political records than I have. So let me put it this way. Like the no Kings protesters in a different era would say, I don't know, Gavin, California is sort of struggling. You can't point to any wins in California. That's not what Gavin's running on. Gavin's running on. I'm the only governor or candidate who you could look in the eyes and know I am going to kick ass and take names in 2020, in 2029, and not shrink the way my competitors are. I'm the only one who's going to rhetorically punch J.D. vance in the face. And that's my pitch, right?

[B]

That's, that's Gavin. I mean, that's Gavin Newsom. That's the appeal of Gavin Newsom. He's great at being Gavin Newsome, right? Like, he's a compelling, charming character who, I mean, he has actually a real command in policy, but sort of unpopular to say that. But the, the, the, the thinking being like, and maybe it is simplistic. You're, you're the idea that like, you know, we used to say after Donald Trump the, the most likely Democratic candidate was going to be a general right. Because there's always sort of the swing back. Like what's the, the most opposite thing you can be from Donald Trump. But the, I think, I do think the idea of the business, especially with some amount of skepticism of business leaders, if Democrats are going to look for a business leader to sort of be the, you know, the next step after the, the Trump era, it does, I don't know, maybe it's not, maybe it's not you. But it seems like I'd be easier for me if I were a political consultant, which I'm very much not. But like to sell a candidate who had built the thing could go and present that, you know, I mean, Mayor Bloomberg, I don't know if we talked about, you know, you could point to like the Bloomberg News Bloomberg tournament. Okay, I get it. That's a little bit more compelling. Then I'm a hedge fund. Hedge fund manager, which like, you know, they run for and get elected to the Senate, you know, all the time. But going further than that, I think is a little bit tough in part because people don't like hedge fund managers. But also what is a hedge fund people aren't completely clear about. So I don't know. If I were looking for a candidate, I might look for somebody who's built the thing and you can point to and say that's the thing I built.

[A]

I think there is. It's not just cope to say but abundance is nascent. But I think abundance in terms of tweet basically saying you were struggling to sort of find like the big main takeaways here. I think think the awkward position abundance is moving forward. Is that the questions and the skepticism you have and not skepticism in my. I get what you're saying in the skeptical sort of reporter sense is going to be answered by making like tough coalitional storytelling ideological choices. So something I noted about the anti monopoly conference in the past, you know this, you've written some of these profiles. The whole thing is antitrust is this horseshoe issue where you have everyone from Josh Hawley to Lena Khan, Josh Hawley law school. You know, I'm gonna keep. Now you point out this take. I'm gonna keep. I'm gonna keep talking about this. But the point is like they would frame this like Sora Bomari and Lena Khan and Josh Hawley, the most interesting people. It's this bipartisan thing. It's not a very bipartisan conference this year. Like Sagar and Jetty was there, but like he was interviewing a Democrat in a very sort of traditional, like newsy sense. My sort of read on what's happened with the anti monopoly crowd is given the direction the Trump administration's gone, given the sort of corporate stuff they've had to say, it's really nice to tell the horseshoe we are in this new progressive era, we're all working together story. But they've had to make the tough choice. If anyone wants to see this exposed, look at Matt Stoller's Twitter feed. Matt's been very explicit about these tough choices and I think Abundance is going to have to say to itself if we want to make this more specific, making the same norm, an enormous massive tent that's held together by the statement America needs to build more things that's going to have a limited ability to actually take things versus hey, hey guys, we're on the right. And MAGA has some trouble because think about the difference between like I told the center left abundance story, what Dark Abundance like really needs to be. But I think what Dark Abundance needs to do at an inside baseball level is that hey guys, like we really screwed up the Hyundai Batteries thing with balancing our immigration policy with our desire to re industrialize. And hey, obviously the tech industry is a part of our coalition now. But that brings our coalition to a really awkward the social cons and Elon and Mark Ess. So basically Dark Abundance has their own MAGA specific 2028 story that they're telling that is totally different than the Ezra Klein story. So it's sort of I basically just, I want us to all get together because there's a banner here, but I also want us to also do things apart and be comfortable with that. When people would get mad at me because some people in the abundance world got mad at me when I would toot when I would like poo poo. The abundance is bipartisan thing. I get why they're mad about that because we want to tell ourselves a comfortable story of we're all just coming together, we're all getting this thing done. But I think we should be comfortable with disagreement and not always being all in the same tent. And I'm frankly I'm because the realignment I have everyone on, so I'm just very used to that. But I don't think people are used to the idea of yeah, actually this person is just not on my team or is aligned in kind of different ways, but we're doing different things and people should be okay with that.

[B]

Then why keep the tent? Why keep the tent so big for the next. You mentioned there's probably a few more years to keep it sort of a bipartisan project. And then, and then, and then Cleave. Why not?

[A]

Why not Cleave now the reason why is that abundance 20245 was an incredibly 6 was. Was. It was genuine, like an incredibly successful conference. I'm doing like my, my editorial nitpicks but like oh, and another thing to note too is that there were plenty of Republicans there, especially like on the on the on the yimby issues. So just like when I put it this way, there are a bunch of different organizations and this is, this was Steve Tallies is varieties of abundance piece that I'll link in the show notes. Like there are a variety of people, people left, right and center who like make claim to the title abundance. So frankly the sort of intellectual pivot that I would make on next year would be not framing abundance as this unified movement. I would really frame it as this topic where there's a lot of debate. There was no debate at the conference. Where there's a lot of debate and conflict on like I would love to have a debate between someone center left like me, me and someone concerned. I've had these debates in private. I got a big argument for the bun right with a right wing abundance person about whether or not abundance was a better fit for the center left than the center right. Right. Like that was a really interesting conversation that like should have been platformed on stage.

[B]

That was not the panels that were. I would have been there with my notepad out. But that's.

[A]

Yeah, that didn't happen because once again though that's awkward. Like that debate is going to make certain people who are invested in that not been. But this is where meeting where it's just sort of of like another example, right? Like the abundance elected. This is an awkward thing. When Axios Axios did a piece on abundance electeds, they used a Democratic donkey as the banner headline. Obviously the right abundance people are not happy about that. But guess what? That is a tough conversation. So this is me pitching panels for next year using my platform. Okay. If you're a right wing abundance person and you're unhappy that like Dems elected like local level Dems, when you're moving beyond yimbyism are signing into the abundance thing, like bring me some, bring me some right wing abundance people. Bring me some like right wing Republicans who say okay, aside from just yimbyism, actually this dark abundance thing is freaking awesome. And right now I'm just a county supervisor. But like eventually I'm gonna be state rep and now I'll be a member of Congress and then I'm governor. Like these are who the abundance electeds are and I want the right wing abundance people people to actually show that they aren't just like very just like, you know, you just wrote a profile of fai. I've worked at fai. Like FAI is an incredible organization and if you are right of center or even if you're on the center of center enough like you need to be reading fai's work on tech policy. Like genuinely like incredible. Like what Zach and that crew have done since it transitioned from the sort of cringe Lincoln network days is like genuinely like incredible. And I like cannot shout them out enough. But there's a gap between that type of. But. But to be frank, that type of work is just not activating the local level people in a way that Derek and Ezra's vision can. That's the thing. So that's a real. So I'm really. Thank you. Really thank you for asking me these questions because you're helping me articulate these things for the first time in a way, if it's going to hold me to account.

[B]

There's a record.

[A]

I would love this conference, which would just be so interesting if we could actually get real and say we all have. We all. We're all claiming this title. But where are they? Right wing Abundance elected? Where's a local official? I don't care what members of Congress. It's. It's. If you're a member of Congress and you're showing up and you. It's easy to say, I believe in energy permitting. We are going to have American energy dominance. That doesn't impress me and frankly doesn't impress attendees. What actually impresses me is when I meet a really small, smart 29 year old. Like for example, like I'll tell this story real quick. I know it keeps saying we're end, but I'm just, I'm so excited here. They're one of the Abundance elected is a person who runs their local DMV as part of their job responsibility. And they're sort of like really interested in this. They're really interested in the state capacity idea because I love how metrics driven it was. And they looked at the data and they found that like on average it was taking like an hour. I'm not saying this like exactly perfectly, but basically for the purpose of our anecdote because I made the mistake of like quoting something that I wasn't actually at last week on a previous episode about Charles Layman. So I just want to make clear of it like I'm transmitting this secondhand. But the point of the story was they came in and they saw that there was like a 60 minute like wait time on the DMV. It was just like a terribly run DMV and they were just sort of like, you know what? I'm gonna aggressively just fix that. And they brought this down from like 60 minutes to 3 minutes. I'm pretty sure it was like to get served or to meet or whatever. So they like really got into the nitty gritty of redesigning the process and they were sort of this my job, this is my duty. That may seem like small stakes, but that sounds a whole of a lot more competent than a lot of members of Congress who I know right now. And like I'm really in what. When we do an Abundance Elected episode next week. I think part of the pitch for these elected is I want there to be a system politically where that person is going to be rewarded for doing that. Where someone is going to hear that story and say hey, maybe there's like something to you instead of just sort of like. So I don't know that's. But the point of like where the argument is is I want to see a center right or conservative example of that story. And right now the right of center abundance groups are too think tanky to find, identify or attract those people. They are optimized for think tank panels and for congressional testimony. Abundance Network, despite being center left, has done a great job of actually meeting people like the person I just talked about.

[B]

And I just want that, that sort of work on the local level. The sort of how do we improve services and, and processes and state capacity and local level. That's code for America, right? That's just people are not familiar with her story. They've been, yeah, co hosted the conference. That was her, that was, that was her whole trajectory there. But the one thing I wanted to ask, I know we need to wrap this up is when you mentioned the awkward conversations that you'd love to have at abundance 2026 and that might actually further it as a political project. Right. That's how you kind of get, you know, a little bit of momentum is saying like where do we agree, where do we don't. Let's like move this thing forward. Can you not have that? Because I'm going to put this gently. It is a well funded, a very well funded space very early on in its evolution. Right. There are a lot of, there's a lot of big money involved at a stage that a lot of other political ideas didn't have big money involved is that you can't have those conversations because funders are going to look at that and say we're not, we're not, you know, putting millions into this effort so you all can bicker up on stage.

[A]

That is such a good question. And I could actually like speak very frankly about this. So here's the good news and I get Actually very frustrated when people go after the fund funders of abundance because I always just say I'm not just sort of being spokesperson here. I worked on the programming. I've done this event. Like the funders were very like, do this work? Like whatever it was that, that what's so funny is when I was thinking of these awkward conversations, it was never like, oh, Arnold Ventures is going to spank me if I say like that. That was never the issue. The issue was always. And this is. And this is the diff. And this. And there's a version of this following conversation is. It's just very difficult. This is why Jerusalem demises, you know, national conservatism. FAI piece created a lot of controversy on Twitter because her saying that FAI and natconism are fascist has real implications for the bipartisan story for us working together story. And once again, it's not even the thunderstorm, but it's like, it's like the leaders of these, these orgs rightfully so if you're so that's what I just want to make very clear which is, and once again like no one ever told me off. I'm not like doing a tell all this person. It was really just a very good faith and very polite and like the side of me that's polite that's stopping me is oh yeah. Be like super awkward for me to put together a panel that's sorry rite of center groups. The Trump administration. Ooh ooh, panel. That would be amazing. But we wouldn't have done this here Is the Trump administration, the most anti abundance administration in American history. History debate this.

[B]

Yes. And you get, you get people, smart people on both sides. Right? That would be like it's not a faux debate.

[A]

It's a, it's not a, it's, it's a real debate. But I, but I also think it's a debate where like we still couldn't but, but, but even, even under the current structure, I don't think we could be, I don't think everyone could just be totally honest. It's still just sort of, it's, it's.

[B]

Just really why what stops that from being an idea in Marshall's head to.

[A]

A point panel and I'm speaking as producer, I wear too many hats. But this is like producer Marshall. I, I, I'm, when I say things don't go as when. So whenever I go. I hated this thing. It's like it's producer Marshall talking. So I'm like the, the home run versus you're gonna see the Base and like my, my my. My point is I would not be comfortable sitting and I think most people center left, center right centrist would not be comfortable sitting on a pan channel and making it the most compelling useful thing and saying hey guys, center right org. It's time to put up or shut if we're going to include you. Here's an awkward statement that can't be said and this would be a great debate. I'm not sure what I actually, I'm not sure what I actually believe on this question but some taking a cop out. But like this is an actual thing. If we are going to a center left like right now the abundance energy at a networking and funder and on the ground level level is was on the. Is on the center last. So if the center left is going to coalition with right of center groups on this conference. Right. So if we're going to have stand together FAI like these different groups there actually is like a cost. Like there are people who are uncomfortable with the right of center presence of these places. Especially people who are not used because you know how D.C. is like very like bipartisan in the right sense. In the right form sense. This was like really different for a lot of people from the states. It was like it was, it was a new thing for a lot of people. So I think a really interesting debate is basically hey, dark abundance. If you, you if you care about abundance, you need to prove that you actually have sway in the Trump administration and not oh like we have these people come to our party or like hey everyone retweets Santi Ruiz and like everyone thinks that, you know, you know, Hawkman is Thomas Hockman's really based in like the generational leader on permitting reform on the right, which he is like I'm. I really mean that. But you have to actually prove it. It's CR that like that. Secretary Chris Wright the day of the abundance conference is tweeting about how we can't have solar energy because the lights go off at night because of the sun in the dark. And that's just like dark. But that's such an awkward conversation because what if the dark abundance people wanted to book him to speak in abundance. It's awkward, it's difficult.

[B]

This is the cost of admission to Washington. Be able to have these, you know, people you disagree with and where you find common ground. You work on that. Like that's. I don't know.

[A]

But what's.

[B]

We're being so sensitive now that we can't.

[A]

It's not about sensitivity. It's about, it's about actually thinking through the problem because to your point you're these should actually lead somewhere and thinking really hard. The abundance, right needs to think really, really, really hard about the implications of the Trump administration for their project and for the 2028 like open primary and those different dynamics. Dynamics. There's a real thing there. I want the, the dark abundance, right to think really hard about why despite the abundance in B story primarily being a red state story, why we don't have like right wing based chads for abundance. And maybe that could be because Derek and you know, Ezra have taken all the attention but that's a problem. But like this I, I just the side of me, it's an event producer rather than sort of a you know, movement like figurehead person. Just, I just want it to get just like aggressive. And by the way this is why populists do better in the center because the populist would have no problem just being way more aggressive this way. But we're so self selective.

[B]

That's why they throw good conferences, right?

[A]

Because we're just sort of. I am dispos. I'm like I will tell you Nancy, like as we actually close out I have. This is me just people have said I need to get more personal on the podcast. I am so uncomfortable with the past 20 minutes of this podcast just because I dispositionally, I'm just like don't put people on the spot or don't make things awkward. I dispositionally, I'm a diplomat by personality. I just want everyone to get along and it's sort of like it's really awkward for me to say hey, there's actually this real problem and hey implication we were cowardly at how we programmed this event. So just like in terms of part of our podcast is to explain how D.C. works and I think something that like makes the reason why Breaking Points does way more compelling content than any centrist coded podcast is just that the centrist personality is just not well suited to just like just say like sometimes I'll see Sagar and sometimes Saga will just say things. And I'm man, you just said that. And it's not just me personally like most people I think who tend to run organizations and do conferences and event plan. That's not our personality. So that's a sort of structure. So my point is like it was less the donors and more self selection personality reality. But this is why I wanted, this is why next year I want to get more, more populists on. It was great that Orin was there. Orin was an attempt at this. But Orin is like the most populist member of the establishment, not a populist. So I want to actually next year get populists like really engaged even if it makes people uncomfortable.

[B]

So it does seem like if you had issue specific panels, it's not hey, come and fight about how you all fundamentalists disagree, you know, at a sort of very, you know, at a like a prior I don't know exactly I'm trying to say but let's discuss permitting reform and then have two people who fundamentally disagree about permitting reform have it have them hash that out. I mean the world sort of needs that, right? We don't need one more panel about everyone agreeing about everything.

[A]

Nancy, this has been really great. Thank you so much for coming on the realignment and genuinely forcing me to get uncomfortable with my 1990s liberal sensibilities.

[B]

So I appreciate it. Zero. Part of my job is to make people uncomfortable. So I've done it. Thank you, Marshall. Thanks for having me.