Poll: Democratic voters prefer "populism" over "abundance"

[Passages]

Hans Nichols

13 hours ago Politics & Policy

Democratic voters prefer a populist message over one that focuses on an "abundance agenda," according to a new poll by Demand Progress.

Why it matters: Democrats are asking themselves some hard questions as they ponder how they lost the 2024 election — and consider how they might win in 2028.

On the economic front, some elected officials, like Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), want to embrace a version of the "abundance" agenda that liberal writers Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson lay out in a new book titled (ahem) "Abundance."

snip
By the numbers: 55.6% of all voters preferred the populist argument, compared to 43.5% who said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who offered the abundance argument.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/democratic-voters-polling-populism-abundance

Demand Progress
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_Progress


No surprises here.

[Raven123]

1. Everyone wants a specific target

Bottlenecks is just too nebulous.

The cause of those bottlenecks, among other things, is specific and actionable

[bucolic_frolic]

2. You can ponder abundance if your region includes high growth tech like Harvard

[everyonematters]

3. Ok, what the heck is this talking about? What do they mean by abundance?

[Passages]

5. Abundance (Klein and Thompson book)

snip:
They present the abundance agenda both as a Third Way policy alternative and as a way to initiate new economic conditions that will diminish the appeal of the "socialist left" and the "populist-authoritarian right".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_(Klein_and_Thompson_book)

I am not a supporter of the abundance approach, so I recommend conducting your research on the subject.

The Last Abundance Agenda

In the 1980s, Wall Street vowed to make housing more affordable through deregulation of housing finance. The result was the 2008 crisis.
by David Dayen April 1, 2025

I was content to sit out the Abundance™ deliberations. Two years ago, I wrote a long piece about the ways in which adherents to the new paradigm of “a liberalism that builds” neglected any analysis of power, or the need to build coalitions to counteract that power. Ezra Klein engaged with my argument in his New York Times column and I responded. As a journal on the left, we were, I believe, contractually obligated to review Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance book, and we did so. But I personally felt like I said what I wanted to say. (As an aside, I was amused that when the authors saw fit to mention the Prospect in Abundance, they didn’t discuss the aforementioned back-and-forth at all, but instead briefly referenced a Bob Kuttner blog post about the back-and-forth.) https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2025-04-01-last-abundance-agenda/

[Fiendish Thingy]

7. See posts #5&6. Nt

[dutch777]

4. How about we shorten and prioritize the platform and we win elections? Stop with elaborate ideas and ...

...words like oligarch that 90% of the electorate will not read about or get. Start now for 2026.

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. Pay attention to the "abundance" label

That is the buzzword performative centrists will be using this cycle.

“Abundance” sounds good on the surface: removing red tape and government bureaucracy so that government functions more smoothly, and especially much quicker, than before.

Scratch below the surface, however, and you’ll find that “abundance” is a code word for evicerating laws around environmental impact studies, FDA drug testing regimens, and community input requirements for numerous projects, among other things.

“Abundance” is presented as an ideology that foregrounds making government work better for the average citizen, but in reality is tilted much more towards removing obstacles to corporate profits.

Expect to see lots of “abundance” language from the No Labels/Third Way/Problem Solvers folks.

[LearnedHand]

8. What does that even mean?

What exactly is a "populist agenda"? Or an "abundance agenda"? These are more fucking abstractions that sound like they mean something but don't independent of actions, legislation, and real policy. If we're trying to guess what it means, we've already lost.

[Passages]

9. There is more information within the thread.

Post 5 for one, but I encourage people to look into further for themselves...it is a topic regarding policy and political messaging.

[LearnedHand]

10. Clearly I understood that much

I even went to the referred article looking for specifics. There were none. I also read the information above. I still don't see policy specifics. What does a "populist" or an "abundance" agenda look like WRT working people, billionaires, unaccountable corporations, infrastructure, climate action?

[Passages]

11. Abundance is essentially a framework which allows for less regulation.

So almost any policy would be encapsulated in that approach...which is dangerous, IMO.

[LearnedHand]

12. So they mean "abundance," not abundance

I.e., abundance for corporations and billionaires and poverty for everyone else. Typical RW Ministry of Truth bullshit.

[Passages]

13. Yeah, pretty much....I believe they are at best mIsguided and at worst just terrible policy ideas that

we have seen fail miserably in the past and present.

[Uncle Joe]

14. As the Earth and its' resources are only so finite, true populism is the only path to abundance.

Higher standards of living across the board decrease the birth rate whereas poverty has the opposite effect.

However the global pursuit of straight up abundance for the sake of abundance or perceived security can only accelerate and aggravate climate catastrophe while exponentially increasing the chances for global conflict.

The governments of the world will need to WTFU to the new reality, and we most certainly need to set the example.

Thanks for the thread Passages