President Trump achieved something Democrats only talk about: he actually removed the regulatory barriers choking American productivity. While blue-state governors workshopped slogans and published manifestos, Trump signed executive orders, cut NEPA red tape, and delivered record oil production, record LNG exports, and 6,000 new drilling permits.
The abundance movement started as a Democrat diagnosis of why California and New York can’t build anything. Liberal authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson published their book Abundance in March 2025, arguing that Democrat governments excel at blocking harm but fail at enabling good. Their case studies? High-speed rail that never arrives, housing permits taking years, clean-energy projects strangled by the very environmental laws liberals wrote.
Their prescription: legalize housing through YIMBY zoning reform, speed permits for infrastructure, rebuild state capacity, and stop adding costly conditions to every public project. Klein summarized the political stakes plainly: voters fear “that the government will run things badly.”
“The left must become one that people don’t fear because voters’ real worry is that the government will run things badly.”
That candor is both the movement’s strength and its vulnerability. It’s an admission that Democrat government has under-delivered in the places Democrats control most completely.
The abundance faction won Democrat donors and moderate governors but split the party. Open Philanthropy committed $120 million over three years to an “Abundance and Growth Fund.” LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman pledged to back pro-abundance candidates. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the broadest rollback of CEQA environmental review in the law’s history last June. Govs. Kathy Hochul, Tim Walz, Jared Polis, and Wes Moore adopted abundance language.
But the progressive and socialist wings rejected the premise. Sen. Bernie Sanders argues regulation “is not the fundamental problem facing America” — income inequality is. Jacobin called it “recycled incrementalism.” The Democratic Socialists of America remain broadly hostile.
Democrats talk. Republicans legislate.
Virtually every federal abundance measure with a real chance of passage was proposed by Republicans. There is no Democrat “Abundance Act.”
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act? Written by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott and Rep. French Hill — both Republicans. Forty-one Senate Democrats voted for it when it became law July 11, but they didn’t write it. The bill created NEPA shortcuts for infill homes, grants for pre-approved designs, and repealed rules adding thousands of dollars to manufactured home costs.
Federal permitting reform through the SPEED Act? Led by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman — another Republican. The bill narrows environmental review, tightens litigation deadlines, and speeds approvals for all energy sources. Only eleven House Democrats voted for it when it passed 221-196 last December. Most Democrats opposed it unless wind and solar received guaranteed treatment.
The pattern is clear: Democrats joined Republicans on housing bills in large numbers. When the subject turned to faster permits for oil, gas, and pipelines, most Democrats balked. Democrat abundance remains a book, a theory, a caucus — and votes on other people’s bills.
Trump delivered what Democrats diagnosed.
On his first day back in office, President Trump declared a national energy emergency and ordered agencies to clear the path for production. He governed by executive action while Democrats workshopped slogans.
The Trump administration’s Council on Environmental Quality rescinded NEPA regulations — the exact proceduralism Klein and Thompson spent a book attacking. The Supreme Court unanimously backed the administration in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County on May 29, 2025, ruling that courts owe “substantial deference” to agency environmental reviews. Litigation hurdles for project opponents rose.
Klein and Thompson argued proceduralism strangles progress. The Trump administration, with a unanimous Supreme Court behind it, dismantled that proceduralism in eighteen months.
U.S. crude oil production set a record of 13.7 million barrels per day in 2025, with a new record of 13.8 million forecast for 2026.
The abundance test is physical supply. Trump passed it. The U.S. exported more than 100 million metric tons of LNG in 2025 — a first. Operating LNG export capacity now exceeds 19 billion cubic feet per day. The administration approved nearly 6,000 drilling permits on federal land in 2025, a 55% increase over the prior year.
Trump applied the same logic to housing. His March 2026 executive order directed agencies to curtail green energy building mandates, ease Clean Water Act wetlands permitting, lighten historic-preservation review, and create NEPA categorical exclusions for housing. His January 2026 order restricted federal support for large institutional purchases of single-family homes, favoring sales to owner-occupants. The home builders’ trade association called his orders a remedy for the affordability crisis.
Trump reframed scarcity itself. Abundance liberals locate scarcity entirely in supply-side processes. Trump’s argument adds demand. The post-2021 surge in illegal immigration increased demand for housing faster than supply could respond. Trump administration enforcement of U.S. immigration laws relieves pressure on rents.
Democrats offer slogans. Republicans expand supply and reduce demand.
The Democrat version of abundance is selective — faster permits for solar and wind, but most Senate Democrats opposed a technology-neutral permitting bill unless renewables received guarantees. Trump’s version bets on the sources supplying most of the country’s energy today: more electrons and more molecules now, not a managed transition restricting supply while promising future plenty.
President Trump achieved a political inversion. Democrats produced the most influential critique of Democrat governance in a generation. A Republican president acted on it. The book diagnosed why California and blue jurisdictions cannot build. The Trump administration used federal power to build in the places it controls and let free enterprise deliver.
The irony writes itself: Trump is the abundance president Democrats said they wanted to be.
