Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson: Less Obstruction, More Government

On with Kara Swisher

New York Magazine

News Commentary, News, Society & Culture

4.2 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Scarcity is a policy choice — one liberals need to reject and replace with abundance, according to journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their new book, Abundance. They say that by building a wall of bureaucracy in front of growth, Democrats have created an affordability crisis, hindering their own progressive goals and leading voters to flee blue cities and states. Kara talks to Klein and Thompson about concerns around equity and access; the tech industry’s culpability in all of this; which Dems are best positioned to pursue an abundance agenda; and how pursuing abundance can help fight the Trump-Musk agenda of cruelty. Klein hosts the popular New York Times podcast The Ezra Klein Show and writes an accompanying column on the intersection of politics, policy and society. Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, writes the weekly Work in Progress Newsletter, and hosts the Plain English podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm sorry I don't look so good today. I just got back from a long trip.
0:02.5	For coming from Australia, you're...
0:04.5	No, then I went to South by Southwest.
0:06.3	Oh, Jesus Christ, Kara.
0:07.5	Yeah.
0:07.8	You have extraordinary energy out there.
0:10.4	It's on.
0:24.6	Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:27.0	This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher.
0:32.4	My guests today are Esra Klein and Derek Thompson, authors of the new book called Abundance that reconsiders the effects of liberal policies in blue states.
0:36.5	Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of the Work in blue states. Derek Thompson is a staff writer at the Atlantic
0:38.5	and the author of The Work in Progress newsletter. He also is a podcast plain English and is the
0:43.7	author of books, hitmakers and on work, money meaning identity. Ezra and I used to be colleagues
0:50.5	at New York Times Opinion. I was recently on his Times podcast or Ezra Klein
0:54.6	Show talking about Elon Musk. He's also the author of the 2020 book, Why We're Polarized. We go back a long
1:01.3	way. I actually got him into podcasting when we worked at Fox Media. Ezra and Derek are both
1:07.8	prominent writers and thinkers on the left who have a history of offering provocative takes and criticisms of the Democratic Party.
1:14.2	You may remember that last year, Ezra was an early voice calling on then-President Joe Biden to step out of the 2024 election.
1:21.6	But in the end, it happened and he was right.
1:24.2	That caught the ire of many Democrats, and this book will likely be no different. In it, they
1:29.5	claim that the democratic, well-meaning policies of one generation have created an affordability crisis
1:35.3	that's leading voters to flee blue cities and states. They argue in order to create a world they want
	...

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