It was the enfant terrible of American progressive journalism, with twenty -seven years and a column in The Washington Post. Now an opinion on The New York Times And author of a popular left -wing podcast, Ezra Klein, 41, won the wrath of the Democratic hierarchy to be one of the first to ask for the withdrawal of President Joe Biden as a candidate and the celebration of primaries to choose a substitute who faced Donald Trump. After the Democratic Electoral Debacle last November, that call gives him an almost prophet aura. An aura that grows: his book Abundance (Abundance), Written in collaboration with the reporter Derek Thompson, he has made him since his publication in March in the author of the opposition’s head, which in full journey of the desert desperately seeks formulas to reconnect with the electorate who turned his back on him.
In AbundanceKlein and Thompson claim that the US system of government is so weighed by the regulation and ankylosing that can barely implement ambitious projects. This paralysis prevents him from fulfilling his promises to improve the quality of life of his citizens, something that especially harms progressives, defenders of the State as a tool for the common benefit. As an alternative, the two authors propose the cut of bureaucracy and the resource to new technologies and public initiatives to achieve optimal use of resources, trigger prosperity and abundance and stimulate optimism. The thesis has touched a sensitive fiber within the Democratic Party, where the book is discussed in talks and corrillos; His premises have already jumped to the platforms of some of his politicians.
“In politics, to succeed, you have to appeal to the future, not the past,” explains Klein, forceful, in a videoconference interview. In his opinion, that was the great Biden ruling and the candidate who ended up replacing her, vice president Kamala Harris, in the last elections. “I would not have known what their proposals were for the following mandate … neither I, nor the Democratic legislators who supported them,” he added. Instead, the current president, Donald Trump “focused much more on a vision of the future. His alliances with people such as (technological oligarchs) Elon Musk or David Sacks, or even Robert F. Kennedy associated him with people who build rockets, who develops internet, and who has a very different vision of how to be healthy. And that gave him an energy that he had not had in his first mandate. past.
Klein believes that to compete with what the current Republican president represents, the only solution for Democrats is also to embody in turn a vision of what the future will be: “Putting technology and reforms in the core of progressive policies. Admitting that the legislative architecture of the seventies is delaying us in this decade and that we have to build something new, that the ideas of the middle of the last century cannot be what dominates in the next century”.
Ask. Since his investiture, Trump has been talking about the return of a new era of prosperity. How do you see these first months of mandate from the prism of abundance and scarcity?
Answer. It is something interesting: Trump is a man who has the bathroom with gold, who puts his name in gigantic buildings. It is the example of excessive materialism. But now, to defend their tariff policies and the effect they will have, it goes out to say that maybe American children do not need to have dozens of dolls, which perhaps with a stop. It is interesting to see that the right ends up defending the arguments in favor of scarcity, because they have chosen policies that will give scarcity as a result. And that has opened a rhetorical and political opportunity for the Democratic opposition to present itself as the abundance party.
At the same time, the right, through the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) that has headed Elon Musk, has led to the first line the debate about what is needed to reform the government and make it more efficient and capable. Democrats understand that although Doge is very destructive, it works from an impulse that many Americans have – to reduce the role of the State – and that they must offer something that responds to that impulse, even if they criticize what Donald Musk and Musk have done.
P. Democrats have very low approval levels right now, do they have any route to create this message of abundance?
R. Nationally, not yet. But because until the primary ones begin, after the medium mandate elections, they will not focus on a national message. Until then they will not emerge as a powerful alternative vision. Right now they are unpopular because they are the losers, nobody likes losers. Their problem is not the message, they have plenty of messages. His problem is that they have no power right now. But the panorama that was presented in 2005, after the re -election of George W. Bush and the Republicans, was not flattering for them, and Barack Obama emerged.
P. What if the Democrats do not react, and they are not successful when it comes to Trump face?
R. The explicit and declared intention of many in the Trump administration is that we go back to what is known as competitive authoritarianism, where the party in the government uses the power of the State to incline the institutions in their favor, to destroy alternative centers of power, to make the elections basically cease to be clean. We have seen it in other places in modern times and in the past, there is no reason to think that this could not happen here. Right of institutional health and strength of the United States are beginning to recover. I think the fact that Harvard University has faced the Trump administration is very important.
But we must understand that what is happening within Trumpism is a full and sustained attack not only against government institutions, but about what they understand as progressive centers. And they do not believe that these places must be neutral, and they will use all the weapons in the power of the federal government to try to weaken them and create fear about what could happen to you if you would lift your head and face them. At the moment they have not reached so much. But it is what they want to do. And if they won in the medium mandate elections, in the presidential ones of 2028, if they remain in power a long time and become more popular it is possible that we see it.
P. Populism is climbing positions worldwide, also in Europe, partly because of this disappointment about prosperity promises. Are there similarities between Trump’s choice and the rise of extreme right populism in the old continent?
R. Material prosperity does not seem to be the variable that best explains the rise of right -wing populism. It is usually more fed by immigration and a feeling of change in national identity, which is perceived as threatened. The left -wing populist matches win when the cows are fat and when they are skinny. In 2024, the economy in the United States did not go through a bad time. I believe that parties that can respond to problems through only material prosperity tend to fail, because there are also concerns about what type of country we are, who we let in. The political scientist Larry Bartels argues that there are no populist waves, but a deposit of populism. That there are many people who want this is, no matter if the economy is right or bad. The question is whether they are presented in an attractive enough to buy it.
P. And what can moderate games do to fight this?
R. You have to be compliant at the most basic level, or you will open the door to all types of opposition. The administration of Biden did not comply: at home, inflation created this sense of internal instability, and abroad the wars in Gaza and Ukraine created this feeling of global instability. Biden was a very weak candidate at 82 years. He should not have appeared to a second term. If there had been some competitive primaries it is very possible that the Democrats had had a solid candidate and won the elections, which were quite tight. That was a mistake: if you think the threat is right -wing populism, you have to be tireless and rigorous when offering a narrative that counteract it. And the Democrats were not. For too long, Joe Biden were more loyal than his own possibilities of winning the elections.
P. The vision of the abundance that he describes in his book is something that Europeans would love to see not only in the United States, but in the rest of the world. But geopolitical events are occurring that complicate that countries share their technologies, their innovation, as in the past. In Europe, efforts are being seen to build a sovereign digital infrastructure, because we think it will no longer be able to depend on American technology as in the past. Do you think that geopolitical impediments can complicate this vision?
R. It would be good if Europe was more abundant. That Europe presented a competitor for Starlink (Elon Musk’s satellite internet network). That had technological giants, leading companies in artificial intelligence. In my opinion, it is not good that Europe has been so weak in so many types of these things. That has harmed liberal democracy and the attractiveness of the liberal system. On the other hand, China’s competition has created pressure on the United States, has forced the United States to face its inability to build, do things, manufacture. There will always be tension between cooperation, which is very important, and competition, which is very stimulating. I think it would be good for Europe to stimulate a little more. I think he has become too dependent on American technology and companies, and perceives his role mainly as their regulator. That is not the energy we need: the world should not depend so much on Starlink, for example. I think Donald Trump is lousy for the United States, but I wonder if (forcing her to face her deficiencies) it will be good for Europe.
For more updates, visit our homepage: NewsTimesWire
