Derek Thompson: Democrats Must Change

Derek Thompson of The Atlantic urges Democrats to embrace pro-growth policies in his new book.

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Text and links to sources available here: https://reason.com/podcast/2025/04/11/derek-thompson-democrats-must-change/

Is the Democratic Party ready to embrace growth, innovation, and building? In this episode of Just Asking Questions, Reason’s Liz Wolfe and Zach Weissmueller sit down with Atlantic writer and Abundance co-author Derek Thompson to talk about why the left needs a course correction. Thompson makes the case that Democrats must move beyond redistribution and regulation, and instead champion policies that increase housing, clean energy, infrastructure, and scientific progress.

We dive into why liberal states like California struggle to build, how union politics and environmental red tape stall progress, and whether it’s possible for Democrats to become the party of abundance. Thompson explains how Donald Trump’s populism has ironically made free trade more popular—and why liberalism must rebrand itself around growth, not scarcity.

Chapters
00:00 Coming up...
00:17 Introduction and framing the abundance agenda
05:00 Free trade, Trump, and economic polarization
10:00 Elevator pitch for the book Abundance
15:00 California's failure to deliver liberal abundance
20:00 The housing crisis and how liberals should fix it
25:00 Suburbanization, urban decline, and market logic
30:00 California High-Speed Rail: what went wrong?
35:00 Is high-speed rail a true public good?
40:00 Clean energy progress in Texas vs California
45:00 Solar, wind, and battery breakthroughs
50:00 Carbon externalities and the path to clean energy
55:00 Can abundance work within the Democratic Party?
01:00:00 Elon Musk, Doge, and ideological contradictions
01:05:00 Should Operation Warp Speed should be a model for other stuff?