Is "Abundance" Creflo Dollar's latest book? A follow-up to his volume on The Holy Spirit, Your Financial Advisor?
Nope. The author isn't the televangelist, preaching a prosperity gospel. The writers are two libs: New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson of The Atlantic.
The duo offers a simultaneous critique and path forward for Dems coming off their 2024 defeat. The notion is that over-regulation by liberal administrations has stifled growth and wealth, and that by reducing regulatory barriers, there'd be "abundance" ahead for all.
There's only one little problem. The lefties hate anything pro-growth or pro-wealth. You might as well ask a vegan to go on an all-ribeye diet. Try convincing those folks that the path forward is to make life easier for . . . the oligarchs!
On Monday's CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish played skeptic from the get-go, joking to Ashley Allison: "Look at your face, the resignation about abundance discourse." CNN.com writer Stephen Collinson proclaimed it was no way to combat Trumpism:
COLLINSON: This is an intellectual exercise. The Democrats really looking for an intellectual exercise? Everything we're seeing is emotional.
CORNISH: Please cut to Ashley's face.
COLLINSON: No, it's emotional, not intellectual.
CORNISH: I know, and that's a good point, because when I think of, uh, who has the crowds right now, it's Bernie Sanders, AOC, actually drawing physical people, actual people, uh, not, uh, Substack readers.
Substack readers aren't "actual people"? That's a weird flex, like Cornish saying her old fans at NPR aren't "actual people."
Allison, an aide on the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign, claimed: "The thing that Donald Trump is so good at, is telling people There is only a certain amount of abundance. That's why you have to deport all these immigrants." Cornish chimed in: "It's a zero sum game."
In fact, Trump is implementing the kind of change that Klein-Thompson recommend. A key goal of the DOGE initiative is not just to reduce the size and cost of government, but to reduce its regulatory overload on the economy, thereby helping all Americans.
Never-Trumper CNN analyst Jonah Goldberg didn't want to insult Klein and Thompson -- although he called their approach "very utopian" -- but he cited two new books by Yoni Appelbaum and Marc Dunkelman that he felt were better vessels for this argument. "The Dunkelman and Appelbaum books are much more aimed at the simple fact that starting at the local level, but also at the national level, the progressives have screwed things up by gunking up the works with all sorts of red tape that makes it impossible to get things done."
CNN liberals don't see over-regulation as their problem. They believe an all-wise government can and must tightly regulate the economy, to prevent those greedy, unscrupulous capitalists from exploiting workers and ruining the environment. If we ease regulations, who will benefit? Those diabolical developers and their ilk! The very ones who need to be kept on a tight leash! Therefore, it's an illusion to imagine that letting the capitalist class make more money will benefit the proletariat!
Collinson repeated his line that Democrats should try to beat Trump with personality: "What you most often see is parties change direction when you have a personality that leads the party in a certain direction, which is what happened with Trump."
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
3/24/25
6:37 am EDTAUDIE CORNISH: I want to turn to domestic politics, because here Democrats are still struggling to find a new strategy.
There's a new book people are talking about called Abundance that argues that Democrats need to focus less on red tape, more on results.
And I want to bring it to the group chat because it has been all over the -- Look at your face, the resignation about abundance discourse.
Who can explain abundance? Ashley, can you? Oh, not you? Okay. Who can actually explain Abundance 101?
STEPHEN COLLINSON: It seems to be what it is all about. is this idea that Democrats have created so many regulations, they're stifling growth.
CORNISH: Your environmental reviews, your worker protections, your DEI. Yeah.
COLLINSON: Zoning stuff for building new homes, et cetera. They're making it more difficult for people to afford homes. And this seems to be some attempt, and there's some other attempts too, to, like, shift the party a little bit towards the center, a bit like the DLC, the Democratic Leadership Council in the early 1990s.
The question I have is, you know, this is an intellectual exercise. The Democrats really looking for an intellectual exercise? Everything we're seeing is emotional.
CORNISH: Please cut to Ashley's face.
COLLINSON: No, it's emotional, not intellectual.
CORNISH: I know, and that's a good point, because when I think of, uh, who has the crowds right now, it's Bernie Sanders, AOC, actually drawing physical people, actual people, uh, not, uh, Substack readers.
. . .
ASHLEY ALLISON: The thing that Donald Trump is so good at, is telling people There is only a certain amount of abundance. That's why you have to deport all these immigrants.
CORNISH: It's a zero sum game.
ALLISON: Right. So I just, I'm not, I'm not, I'm going to take a different approach.
CORNISH: Jonah, have you had thoughts on this?
JONAH GOLDBERG: So Yoni Appelbaum of The Atlantic has a fantastic book called Stuck, which gets at a lot of this. Marc Dunkelman, professor at Brown, has a book called Why Nothing Works, which also gets at this.
I think those are better books and better arguments than the abundance argument.
CORNISH: Which is from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
GOLDGERG: Which, I'm not trying to denigrate too much the Klein book, but my point is that the abundance argument is very utopian and it's very much aimed at really hardcore ideological progressives and say, hey, there's a better way. That's a useful argument to have.
The Dunkelman and Appelbaum books are much more aimed at the simple fact that starting at the local level, but also at the national level, the progressives have screwed things up by gunking up the works with all sorts of red tape that makes it impossible to get things done.
. . .
COLLINSON: I don't really think that a lot of these reviews and examinations after elections end up really contributing an awful lot. There was the Republican review after 2012.
CORNISH: That's still in a drawer somewhere.
GOLDBERG: The party went the opposite way of the autopsy, and Trump won.
COLLINSON: And I think parties go where their supporters want to go. And what you most often see is parties change direction when you have a personality that leads the party in a certain direction, which is what happened with Trump.
