Reply to Can we talk about Abundance, Ezra Klein’s book

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That has always been the conservative critique:  that  technocratic governance, no matter how laudable the intent, almost always fails when it hits reality.   Klein is skirting around that. He’s also avoiding the fact that he was one of biggest cheerleaders and proponents of the very policies he now recognizes as having failed to deliver the goods.

Finally, the politicians are part of the problem. Obamacare COULD have been single payer. There would have been a massive electoral price to pay, but there was a once in fifty year opportunity to achieve a longstanding goal and 
Obama and Dems chose to try to thread the needle with incrementalism that they hoped would preserve their control of government. They got neither. 
[/quote]

Yes - this.  I like Ezra Kelvin’s podcast and the concept of his book. But I think he and others are wrong that Dems went “too far”. I think the problem is they didn’t go far enough. For example: healthcare.  While Obamacare increased insurance coverage it hasn’t helped health outcomes or costs.  But bc it was healthcare reform under Obama now Dems don’t want to touch that issue bc it’s “fixed”.  Dems need to be strong to own up to past errors and fix them.

NIMBY-ism is another example.  My town did some reason to allow more multi family housing: who is crying the loudest but the “liberals” who signed on to pledges promote diversity/equity/inclusion in all policies. They cite the fact that the new housing will result in “million dollar condos” but they ignore the fact that with no rezoning all we have gotten are $3-4 million single family houses (yes, I live in a pretty wealthy suburb).  Our local elections this spring were pretty heated with a ton of finger pointing and misrepresentations and calls to “preserve the historical character of our town”. My town votes 90% Dem btw.  [/quote]

Does the book explain why building housing requires rezoning?  Why can single family home areas not exist?

I don’t think that we are out of space, at all.  It’s an idealogical argument, and a bad one.  So, people oppose it.  This doesn’t hurt Democratic messaging. There can be abundance for all.

We could instead focus efforts elsewhere on winning arguments.[/quote]

I also think the timing of the book is terrible. People don’t care about “housing abundance” when they are worried about US citizens being deported to El Salvador. [/quote]

That’s not actually true.  The two are related.  Housing scarcity is one reason that people are scapegoating immigrants.  We  need to care about all of this.[/quote]

This is something that upper middle class people don’t see. You’re not the ones dealing with housing scarcity. I wasn’t even going to try to discuss it here. It’s a conversation better had with other poors. Immigrants actually do increase demand for housing, but I can’t say that here without being called a racist.

Don’t call me a Trump voter for saying it. I wouldn’t vote for that clown under any circumstances. Dems need to pay attention to working class Americans again. Hillary Clinton changed the tone, and it’s been a downward spiral ever since. [/quote]

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