Lex sits down with Ezra Klein, a NY Times columnist, and Derek Thompson from The Atlantic dive into the evolving political landscape in America. They discuss the influence of figures like Trump and Elon Musk on political ideologies. The duo also highlights the challenges within the Democratic Party and advocates for a progressive shift towards abundance. They critique the current bureaucratic system and the impact of technology on intelligence, calling for innovation in policy and governance to tackle socio-economic issues.
Attention Over Money: The New Political Alchemy:
Klein and Thompson claim that there has been a tectonic shift in political power: attention has dethroned money. Obviously, this is an area where Trump reigns and Democrats stumble, making ridiculous, redundant instagram songs and posts. Lets not forget, Harris blew through a billion dollars in months. They argue that since his 2015 escalator ride, Trump has wielded attention like a sledgehammer, smashing GOP taboos—Bush, Romney, NAFTA—while Biden’s 2023 refusal of a Super Bowl interview signaled the left’s fatal timidity (and his incompetence). Thompson underscores Trump’s “agenda control,” a chaotic authenticity that people like Musk and Ramaswamy echo on X, dwarfing the Democrats’ sterile “cool meme” machinery. They leave out the concept of authenticity…which is really what this success is rooted in.
So, we’ll stop at this moment and remind you both of these guys are extremely left wing and they didn’t didn’t spend the whole episode trashing Trump but certainly they spin things and leave things out, like you see in the above.
The Democratic Party’s Leadership Abyss:
The trio paints a grim portrait of the Democratic Party, a theme Klein distills with chilling clarity: “In my lifetime, the Democratic Party has never been as internally fragmented and weak, leaderless rudderless as it is right now.” By March 2025, after 2024’s “crushing defeat” stripped them of Congress, the White House, and any coherent voice, the party is a “husk”—Biden too brittle, Harris too vague, and no galvanizing figure like Obama in sight. Thompson pins Biden’s flop on his inability to “be the product” in an attention-driven age, retreating behind staff while Trump is well, Trump. The Obama coalition’s collapse, fueled by post-COVID inflation’s global anti-incumbent tide, left Democrats defenseless, their refusal to reckon with past failures amplifying the void. Klein contrasts this with Trump’s iron-fisted GOP remake, urging the left to unearth “standard-bearers” bold enough to defy sacred cows—think slashing bloated entitlements—or risk fading into irrelevance. We agree, it seems this is a party not just beaten, but broken, adrift in a storm it can’t name.
Abundance: Liberalism’s Lost Art of Building:
Abundance (the name of their new book) stands as Klein and Thompson’s clarion call to resurrect liberalism by building more—housing, clean energy, governance—rather obsessing about process and “rules”. Klein mourns the left’s fall from the New Deal’s bridges to a “politics of blocking,” where $30 billion for California’s high-speed rail buys nothing but headlines. Thompson’s awakening came in 2022, waiting for a COVID test: “We’re manufacturing scarcity” in homes, power, even masks, a realization driving their push for supply-side progressivism. They demand deregulated zoning—San Francisco’s “gated city” must open—faster clean energy permits, and an end to the 14-stage farce that choked $42 billion in rural broadband. Klein’s mantra, “You have to deregulate government itself,” fuses redistribution with plenty, aiming to rebuild faith with roofs and watts, not rhetoric. The interesting part about the majority of this podcast is they spend most of the time not giving the Republicans any credit but also blaming regulation for ALMOST EVERYTHING. Well, they are both democrats, where have they been. The million dollar toilets, inability to build affordable housing and actually BUILDING high school rail requires free markets to operate, yet these guys still want government guiding dollars and they still want “climate-friendly” solutions. They are incoherent.
DOGE: Efficiency’s Mask or Power’s Hammer?
There was a long segment on DOGE. Thompson’s steelman is pragmatic (as is he throughout the podcast, at least relative to Klien): “Government’s inefficient… this sounds like an organization that’s needed,” dovetailing with Abundance’s efficiency gospel.Klein is more combative: DOGE could be a unitary executive’s dream, razing bureaucracy to bend government to Trump’s whim, a “bulldoze and rebuild” approach. Klein warns, “Efficiency only makes sense when yoked to a goal,” and without one, DOGE’s cuts (like gutting FDA drug approvals) are blind havoc. Thompson sees a power play, with Musk’s $50-100 million threats to primary GOP dissenters by March 2025 signaling control, not competence. Against Abundance’s disciplined reform, DOGE looks like a sledgehammer swung by showmen, its opacity—lacking even a clear X-thread mandate—casting it as chaos masquerading as cure. What they fail to realize is that it is, in fact, a revolution. They don’t want to rebuild those things that don’t NEED to rebuild. Once again, they miss the plot.
Housing: The Frontier That’s Closing:
Housing is the center of their argument (which again, is laughable because they and their party have stood in the way of building for decades). Thompson talks about “the housing theory of everything,” tying affordability to innovation, family life, and trust. In Los Angeles, Measure HHH’s $600,000-$700,000 per affordable unit—bloated by prevailing wage laws and green codes—exemplifies Klein’s “everything bagel liberalism,” piling rules until nothing gets built. Klein warns: “If you gate the cities, you’ve closed the American frontier,” as San Francisco’s zoning fetish turns it into a billionaire enclave, exiling teachers and cooks. Since the 1960s, NIMBYism has strangled supply, reversing decades of income convergence—janitors once lived near lawyers; now they’re hours away. Listening to this was astounding. These guys act like deregulation and the freeing of capital is a new idea. It’s not, they’ve just never listened. We can only believe that their new found “religion” is possibly a “new idea” for the 27% of people that still actually believe in the democratic party.
Hope: A Fight, Not a Gift:
Klein and Thompson close with hope—not blind, but battled-for. Thompson’s optimism rests in AI, genomics, and clean energy. As with everything, he believe that through government….there is the promise a “golden age” of health and liberty. Klein’s is grittier, a “liquid moment” where speed change the trajectory we are on, “Optimism isn’t the belief things will be fine—it’s fighting for them.” Again, at the risk of being redundant, sure they believe there is hope…supposedly they believe it lies in less government regulation.
To this reviewer, these are two guys desperate to sound enlightened, to sound moderate. They are admitting that deregulation and efficient government are the solution…but they don’t really believe it..its just…the best way to sell their new book. Trust me, in 5 years time, if Trumpism goes off the rails, they’ll be calling for government oversight all over again. Long listen but good to listen to the spin, to understand where these guys are coming from. Laughable, in so many ways.
THE PODSCORE: 2 (out of 5) MICS