If you're even vaguely into politics, there's a lot to read right now. The sheer volume of political news is tremendous before you even start to read the smart columnists trying to help us make sense of it. While there's reason enough to read journalism and opinion pieces about those on the right currently in power, I think the more interesting stories are about the left. We're in such a seesaw of election cycles that reading about the politicians in their out-of-power wilderness is a preview of the folks who'll be running things in two or four years. (This is probably why the writing about right's internecine years after 2020 was so riveting.) There left has two distinct things going on: abundance and vibes. Both are worth watching and which wins may predict where we're headed.In March, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's new book Abundance exploded onto my podcast feeds. Even the trusty old sports guy, Bill Simmons, had Thompson on to talk about an agenda of abundance and how it could (should?) be the left's ticket back to popularity and to power. (They also talked about how the NBA instant replays take far too long.) Klein's and Thompson's policies broadly line up with lefty cranks like Scott Galloway, who is trying to break progressives free of their status quo stranglehold to offer something more dynamic and more popular. The idea of a concrete set of policies aiming to do something new and big is the most potentially positive trend on the left. Imagine if we were to have a national debate and election cycle or two about some concrete policies—perhaps one side may even win an electoral mandate to do something lasting!
There are a ton of constraints on Democrats' ability to unify around a positive agenda, not the least of which are their traditional sources of power—the coalition of groups that form their base. There's a reason the rallies and protests and lawsuits the left is currently focused on are so narrow and so negative: the most unifying thing in the Democratic diaspora is opposition to the right's frenetic exercise of power and resumption of a recent status quo. When it comes time to do something positive, they end up with perhaps big dollars proposed to spend or long legislative texts, but so with many oft-opposing stakeholders to make and keep whole, the efforts fizzle before doing much in the real world. Ezra Klein has the receipts: millions per additional housing unit in southern California; billions for railways that don't run; you-name-it scuttled by activist lawsuits or the threat thereof. Perhaps there's a case where the abundance agenda becomes the left's Project 2025; while that sounds good, I have a hard time seeing how it could effectively unify the left.
The other path back to power is vibes. This is a continuation of the campaign mode we saw last year ("Kamala is brat") and, I think, a big factor in their 2020 and subsequent wins. Vibes allow you to win the votes of the people who already agree with you and give you a shot at capturing enough convincible swing voters to regain power. The political pages of any center to center-left publication shows that the left is spending a fair number of calories on better vibes. It's sure easier than uniting on a real agenda.
Some of the usual suspects are gesturing at a vibes-only path back to power. I think that's why, while the NYC anti-Trump protests focused mostly on defending the status quo of government workers and services, many of the more individualized signs were somewhat hilarious personal attacks on the president. For the vibe believers, to win back power, the left first needs to recapture the vibe of opposition to Trump, then it needs to project a sort of "I could support this" vibe to some of the cohorts it lost. That's why, for every story about protects led by Senator Sanders, we're seeing a story about how young lefties are going on "manosphere" podcasts or sharpening new efforts to speak "bro." The California governor seems to be leading this charge: opposing Trump, perhaps less loudly than before, and aiming to build broader popularity.
To win, you need both. Trump's victory probably required both Project 2025 (his agenda, roughly) and his "I am your retribution" vibe. But I think the more a set of policies based on a clear worldview is the dominant contributor to a political movement, the more it is built to last. Whether the left opts more for vibes or more for abundance will tell us a lot about where they (and likely us all) are heading.
Young men have gone MAGA. Can the left win them back?
I’ve got my doubts.