Last Wednesday I mentioned an interview with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in which they made the case for a new approach to progressive politics. They are calling it "abundance" which is the title of their forthcoming book, but it could be called other things including basic competence. Here's a bit of what Thompson had to say:

The problem we have, and especially a problem that we have in Democratic-run places, is not just that we can’t invent things we don’t have yet, we also can’t build what we understand. The apartment building is a very ancient technology. Elisha Otis came up with the elevator about 170 years ago. But somehow we can’t build apartment buildings in San Francisco and Los Angeles and many Democratic-run cities.

I think we went from a world where liberalism was a liberalism of building, between the 1930s and 1960s, and then there was a turn in the 1960s and 1970s, and for the last half century, liberalism has too often meant a liberalism of blocking.

Ruy Teixeira is a Democrat who long ago wrote a book predicting that demographics meant Democrats had the future firmly in hand, i.e. as the country became less white it would become less Republican. But in the past few years he has been warning his party that demography is not destiny and that the party was setting themselves up to lose by moving too far left on too many issues. 

Today, Teixeira takes a look at the "abundance" proposal put forward by Klein and Thompson and concludes two things: One, they have a point about a lack of competence in many progressive places.

More and more, liberal analysts now lament Why Nothing Works, as the title of Marc J. Dunkelman’s new book puts it, and elicit widespread nods of agreement, rather than howls of denial. Brian Deese, Joe Biden’s director of the National Economic Council and a paid-up member of the Democratic economic establishment, just published a lengthy essay in Foreign Affairs on “Why America Struggles to Build”—the clear implication being that the Biden administration failed to do so...

One infamous example—and one the new Abundance book focuses on—is California’s failure to build a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles. “Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America,” said then–President Obama the year after Californians voted in favor of the new line. It was supposed to cost $33 billion and be up and running by 2020. The cost is now expected to be more than triple that figure. The first tracks were laid only this January, and the first third of the line is not projected to open any sooner than 2030.

Contrast that failure with what Gov. DeSantis has done in Florida. This used to be a major swing state but it's not anymore. DeSantis competence has led to a surge in voters registering for the Republican party.

Continuing to add to its lead, the Republican Party of Florida held a nearly 1.2 million voter-registration edge at the end of February.

The GOP had 5,635,743 active registered voters as of Feb. 28, while the Florida Democratic Party had 4,437,884, according to newly posted data on the state Division of Elections website.

That 1,197,859-voter edge was up from a 1,179,508-voter advantage at the end of January.

Competence works. It's what most voters want. 

But after acknowledging that Klein and Thompson are on to something, Teixeira then moves on to his second point. He's not convinced Democrats are willing to change to become the party of abundance. It would mean uprooting much of the party's current foundation, the NGOs and activist groups that are anti-development and anti-capitalism.

While the abundance agenda is badly needed, how likely is the actually existing Democratic Party to embrace it? In some alternative universe there may be a Democratic Party for whom this would be an easy sell. But this Democratic Party in this universe? I have my serious doubts...

The culprit is a Democratic Party that puts ideology and special interests ahead of good governance. It is committed to ensuring that development is not socially harmful in any way, and does not transgress the interests of any “stakeholders.” In reality, that amounts to a promise that nothing will get done. The result is endless paperwork and litigation by those stakeholders—or, more accurately, interest groups that claim to represent those stakeholders. This includes countless environmental and “social justice” NGOs, local NIMBY groups and, of course, the army of lawyers who make their living from this sort of thing. Costs balloon and projects are delayed...

And what do progressives have to say about fixing this issue? Nothing. Their ideology, “the groups,” the nonprofit-industrial complex, and the priorities of liberal, educated voters to whom so many Democratic politicians are beholden all make it close to impossible for the party to tackle this kind of problem—or embrace other parts of the abundance agenda.

These environmental roadblocks to building things are a core part of the Democratic Party, from the environmental groups who want to "keep it in the ground" to the local people who abuse environmental review to block anything and everything in places like San Francisco. This is true even in cases where the city itself is behind the project in question. Basic competence just is not on the agenda. What is on the agenda is stopping development and $1.7 million to install a single bathroom in a site where the underground plumbing is already in place.

As he often is, Teixeira is right. And if you follow some of those links, he's been saying for months that "the groups" need to go. He quotes Adam Jentleson to that effect.

Democrats cannot [achieve electoral dominance] as long as they remain crippled by a fetish for putting coalition management over a real desire for power…Democrats remain stuck trying to please all of their interest groups while watching voters of all races desert them over the very stances that these groups impose on the party.

Achieving a supermajority means declaring independence from liberal and progressive interest groups that prevent Democrats from thinking clearly about how to win. Collectively, these groups impose the rigid mores and vocabulary of college-educated elites, placing a hard ceiling on Democrats’ appeal and fatally wounding them in the places they need to win not just to take back the White House, but to have a prayer in the Senate.

So you have lack of competence and woke extremism which are both driving people out of the Democratic party and the party itself seems unable to do anything about it. On the contrary, the recent targeting of Tesla and Elon Musk suggests the far left is once again getting into the driver's seat (pun intended). Sen. Chuck Schumer is persona non grata at this moment within his party because he refused to shut down the government in a pointless act of defiance. He chose competency over posturing and he is paying a price. 

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders and AOC barnstorm the country to speak to adoring crowds. The far left cost Democrats the last election and now they're presenting themselves as the only path forward. That's not change. They are doubling down on stupid. It's a bold strategy. Let's see if it works for them.