Good morning, your boy was just published in the Atlantic.

For months now, I’ve watched the center left “lib out” over “abundance” with a mix of hopefulness, as I’m glad they’re finally embracing the concept, and anxiety, as I understand this is America in 2025, and we are not allowed to have nice things. The movement is pushing for material progress (infrastructure, energy, education, healthcare), while critiquing left-wing regulatory impediments to what are framed as left-wing goals (they aren’t, but more on that in a minute).

Now right there on the ground floor, the problem with the movement is it is explicitly a left-wing project, or so it is explained in the book Abundance, and the “left” in this country includes a wide range of people, from thoughtful, sensitive Atlantic writers to Luigi Mangione fetishists. This was always, eventually, going to be a problem for earnest libs. But this summer Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor, the “center left” began a slow and cautious dance with him, and it was time for me to address the subject.

The Atlantic offered me the great opportunity to write for them, which I accepted. There is no better place for a piece like this, as the Atlantic is the actual home of the abundance movement. I’m also just personally a great fan of their specific brand of lib. These are generally kind, thoughtful people I only sometimes disagree with, and when I do they meet that disagreement with openness. In this case, they literally reached out to me and asked for the disagreement. So, that’s pretty cool. And rare. And I’m proud of the collaboration.