created by wiz28ultra on 10/03/2025 at 00:15 UTC
0 upvotes, 8 top-level comments (showing 8)
There's been this noticeable trend online for the past 2 years regarding certain "liberals" who are definitely on the Anti-Progressive side of political affair[1]s that spend a significant part of their output criticizing Democrats in general for favoring paper forms and bureaucracy over getting things done. [2]
1: https://x.com/lxeagle17/status/1897886022475850148
2: https://x.com/lxeagle17/status/1898140824330027490
Noted as a form of "Abundance Agenda" by Ezra Klein[3] who seems to argue that such problems in the Democratic Party as noted specifically in California & New York are greater issues than the current GOP[4].
3: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/opinion/musk-trump-doge-abundance-agenda.html
4: https://x.com/ezraklein/status/1855986156455788553
At the same time, these YIMBY activists sympathetic to Klein share an unending praise of Texas[5] as this borderline Elysian paradise to the Hell that his California[6], where everything is cheap and plentiful[7] and nothing bad ever happens. Constant praise be it of their housing being the greatest in the wealthy world(outside of Japan[8]), there is this very strong sense that these individuals are also very socially conservative if not sympathetic to modern GOP cultural talking points as well.[9]
5: https://x.com/SukritGanesh/status/1897040448751067404
6: https://x.com/JosephPolitano/status/1681751079539601409
7: https://www.threads.net/@maxdubler/post/C9fchmRPvTZ?hl=en
8: https://x.com/Noahpinion/status/1897446027059507507
9: https://x.com/Noahpinion/status/1897709666379194813
The question I have then is, why keep complaining about the Democratic Party instead of just the Republican Party? Many of these same individuals who love the bleeding Red state of Texas also love people like Doug Burgum[10] and are devoutly Anti-Idpo[11]l, while also making very toothless critiques[12] of Trump through minor policy wonkery [13]that most people really don't give a darn about. If the Democratic Party is as bad as many of these people say it is and red states are proving their points correctly, then why not just join the Republican Party instead of trying to reform the Democrats?
10: https://x.com/AlecStapp/status/1857482478438724063
11: https://x.com/Noahpinion/status/1897887033122787765
12: https://x.com/Noahpinion/status/1898540482483114320
13: https://x.com/Noahpinion/status/1897987092300677407
Comment by AutoModerator at 10/03/2025 at 00:15 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
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Comment by sunshine_is_hot at 10/03/2025 at 01:08 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Liberals agree with the vast majority of the democratic platform, and critiques on the party’s housing strategy doesn’t somehow make them more similar to the republicans. Liberals disagree with republicans on nearly every single issue, thinking that the housing policy in Texas is good doesn’t somehow make them agree with republicans on everything.
Comment by tayste5001 at 10/03/2025 at 01:07 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
After living in socal for 10 years I’ve definitely become YIMBY myself. First off I would say that I encounter very little YIMBYs who are socially conservative and I’m certainly not, so I’m not sure where you get that idea from. Second as someone who previously lived in a red state for many years, I’ve experienced first hand republicans tend to absolutely hate non-housing related YIMBY agenda items such as building transit, which I think is really important. While socal has huge problems with getting much needed housing built, it is the best region of the US for public transit expansion currently.
Comment by siberianmi at 10/03/2025 at 01:13 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I can answer this because I’m securely in the abundance agenda camp.
I believe in active government involvement, including targeted spending and regulatory carve-outs for specific industries like clean energy and housing. But that government involvement needs to work - if we pass EV chargers as an initiative they need to be in operation two years later. The GOP would never pass anything like that in the first place.
I think that is what you are missing in the criticism of California vs Texas. Texas is effectively building homes, California can’t build affordable homes - much less significant infrastructure projects. Ezra’s big take away is California has spent billions on high speed rail and delivered nothing.
So what I want is effective government that can deliver results. Not just big government. Progressive voices seem happy with big ineffective government - as exemplified by California and New York. But I also don’t want to burn it all down.
Comment by Outrageous-Pay535 at 10/03/2025 at 00:59 UTC
1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Because when Republicans get into power, the policy they enact is overwhelmingly against what these people want. Abundance agenda is the opposite of DOGE. While they're praising Texas for zoning reform, they're not enthused about the way the state is run
Comment by ttown2011 at 10/03/2025 at 10:30 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If you’re framing Ezra Klein as a crypto Republican… your perspective might be a bit biased
Comment by getawarrantfedboi at 10/03/2025 at 02:49 UTC
1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Because Progressive assholes don't own the Democratic Party and have only dominated discourse in it for like the last 10 years. There is a reason that despite 2020 being the height of progressive influence, Biden still won the primary by a lot. They are an assortment of a very loud minority in the party that party leadership got scared of in 2018 and stopped standing up to.
Most of the well-known "Abundance Agenda" types are former members of the Obama and Clinton administrations. It's basically full of people who actually give a shit about good government policy and not devotion to ideological dogma.
The republican party isn't interested in good government. To them, the only good government is an ineffective one. Progressives seem to only care if the government meets their ever expanding moral dogma. The only ones seemingly interested in good government are the "abundance agenda" folks.
Comment by link3945 at 10/03/2025 at 13:09 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Is calling Trump a "two-bit Mao" really just "minor policy wonkery" to you?
I can't speak as much to Noah Smith, but Klein fundamentally disagrees with most of the Republican party. If you have the opinion that he's more Republican than Democrat, then I'm kinda doubting that you've read much of his work at all. I doubt that he would even say that it is the Texas State GOP that is responsible for the cheap housing there, instead talking more about the local YIMBY organizations and city leadership. The narrative always struck me as not a Republican success but a Democratic failure.