In his early twenties — when he had a column with The Washington Post — he was the enfant terrible of American progressive journalism. Nowadays, he’s a commentator for The New York Times and host of a popular liberal podcast.
Last year, 41-year-old Ezra Klein earned the ire of the Democratic establishment: he was one of the first to call for Joe Biden’s withdrawal as a candidate and for primaries to be held to choose a replacement to challenge Donald Trump.
After the Democratic electoral debacle last November, Klein’s early warning gives him an almost prophetic aura. And this aura has been growing. Since its publication this past March, his book Abundance (2025) — written in collaboration with reporter Derek Thompson — has made him the go-to author of the U.S. opposition. Amid the Democrats’ journey through the wilderness, they’re desperately searching for ways to reconnect with the electorate that turned its back on them.
In Abundance, Klein and Thompson argue that the American system of government is so weighed down by regulation and stagnation that it can barely launch ambitious projects. According to them, this gridlock prevented Biden from fulfilling his promise to improve his citizens’ quality of life. This, in turn, particularly harmed progressives, who are defenders of the state as a tool for the common good. As an alternative, the two authors propose cutting bureaucracy and turning to new technologies and public initiatives, so as to achieve optimal use of resources and boost prosperity and abundance, all while stimulating optimism.
This thesis has struck a chord within the Democratic Party, where the book is being discussed in panels and public forums. In fact, its premises have already made their way onto the platforms of some Democratic politicians.
“In politics — to be successful — you have to appeal to the future, not the past,” Klein explains forcefully, in a video interview with EL PAÍS. In his opinion, this was the great failure of Biden and the candidate who eventually replaced him, former vice president Kamala Harris, in the last election. “I wouldn’t have been able to say what their proposals were for the next term… neither I, nor the Democratic legislators who supported them,” he adds.
In contrast, the current president, Donald Trump, has “focused much more on a vision of the future. His alliances with people like [tech oligarchs] Elon Musk or David Sacks, or even Robert F. Kennedy, associated him with people who build rockets, who develop the internet, and who have a very different vision about how to be healthy. And that gave him an energy he didn’t have in his first term. In 2017, Trump represented the past. In 2025, he at least represents a vision of the future.”
Klein believes that, to compete with what the current Republican president represents, the only solution for Democrats is to also embody a vision of what the future will be: “[They must] put technology and reform at the core of progressive policies. Admit that the legislative architecture of the 1970s is holding us back in this decade and that we have to build something new… the ideas of the [mid-20th century] cannot be what dominates the next quarter-century.”
Question. Since his inauguration, Trump has been talking about the return of a new era of prosperity. How do these first months of his presidency look from the perspective of abundance and scarcity?
Answer. It’s interesting: Trump is a man with gold plating, who puts his name on gigantic buildings. He’s the epitome of excessive materialism. But now, to defend his tariff policies and the effect they will have, he comes out and says that maybe American children don’t need dozens of dolls… that maybe a couple will suffice. It’s interesting to see that the right has ended up defending the arguments in favor of scarcity, because they have chosen policies that will result in scarcity. And this has opened a rhetorical and political opportunity for the Democratic opposition to present itself as the party of abundance.
At the same time, the right — through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk — has brought the debate to the forefront about what it takes to reform the government and make it more efficient and capable. Democrats understand that while DOGE is very destructive, it operates from an impulse that many Americans have: to reduce the role of government. [In turn], they must offer something that responds to that impulse, even if they criticize what Donald Trump and Musk have done.
Q. Democrats have extremely low approval ratings right now. Do they have a path to creating this message of abundance?
A. On a national scale, not yet. But until the primaries begin, after the midterm elections [in 2026], they won’t focus on a national message. Until then, they won’t emerge [with] a powerful alternative vision. Right now, they’re unpopular because they’re the losers… and nobody likes losers.
Their problem isn’t the message; [the Democrats have] plenty of messages. Their problem is that they have no power right now. But the outlook that emerged in 2005 — after the reelection of George W. Bush and the Republicans — wasn’t so rosy for them, either. And then Barack Obama emerged.
Q. What if the Democrats don’t react and don’t succeed in standing up to Trump?
A. The explicit and stated intention of many in the Trump administration is for us to regress to what is known as “competitive authoritarianism” — where the ruling party uses state power to tilt institutions in its favor, to destroy alternative centers of power [and] to make elections basically unfair. We’ve seen it elsewhere in modern times and in the past; there’s no reason to think it couldn’t happen here.
Right now, the institutional health and strength of the United States are beginning to recover. I think the fact that Harvard University stood up to the Trump administration is very important.
We must understand that what’s happening within Trumpism is a full and sustained attack not only on government institutions, but also on what [the Republicans consider to be] progressive centers of power. And they don’t believe that these places should be neutral. They will use every weapon in the federal government’s power to try to weaken them and create fear about what could happen to you if you stand up and confront them. So far, they haven’t gone that far. But it’s what they want to do. And, if they win the [2026] midterm elections [and] the 2028 presidential elections — if they stay in power for a long time and become more popular — we might see it happen.
Q. Populism is gaining strength around the world, including in Europe. This is partly due to widespread disillusionment with the promises of prosperity. Are there similarities between Trump’s election and the rise of far-right populism in the Old Continent?
A. Material prosperity doesn’t seem to be the variable that best explains the rise of right-wing populism. It’s often fueled more by immigration and a sense of change in national identity, which is perceived as being under threat. Left-wing populist parties win when the cows are fat and when they’re lean.
In 2024, the economy in the United States wasn’t doing badly. I think parties that respond to problems [with] material prosperity alone tend to fail, because there are also concerns about what kind of country we are, who we let in. Political scientist Larry Bartels argues that there are no populist waves: rather, there’s a reservoir of populism. Many people [want populist measures], regardless of whether the economy is doing well or badly.
Q. And what can moderate parties do to combat this?
A. You have to deliver at the most basic level, or you’ll open the door to all kinds of opposition. The Biden administration failed to deliver. At home, inflation created this sense of internal instability. Abroad, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine created this sense of global instability. Biden was a very weak candidate at 82 years old. He shouldn’t have run for a second term. Had there been a competitive primary, it’s quite possible the Democrats would have had a strong candidate and won the election, which was quite close.
[Sticking with Biden] was a mistake: if you believe the threat is right-wing populism, you have to be tireless and rigorous in offering a counter-narrative. And the Democrats weren’t. For too long, they were more loyal to Joe Biden than to their own chances of winning the election.
Q. The vision of abundance you describe in your book is something we Europeans would love to see not only in the United States, but in the rest of the world. But geopolitical developments are occurring that make it difficult for countries to share their technologies and their innovation. In Europe, we’re seeing efforts to build a sovereign digital infrastructure, because we believe we’ll no longer be able to rely on American technology as in the past. Do you think geopolitical impediments could complicate the realization of this vision?
A. It would be good if Europe [had more abundance]. [It would be good if] Europe presented a competitor to Starlink (Musk’s satellite internet network), if it had tech giants, [or if it had] leading companies in artificial intelligence. In my opinion, it’s not good that Europe has been so weak in so many of these types of things. This has harmed liberal democracy and the appeal of the liberal system.
On the other hand, competition from China has put pressure on the United States, forcing the country to confront its inability to build, to make things, to manufacture. There will always be tension between cooperation — which is very important — and competition, which is very stimulating. I think it would be good for Europe to be a little more stimulated. I think it has become too dependent on American technology and companies. [Europe] sees its role, primarily, as their regulator. That’s not the energy we need: the world shouldn’t be so dependent on Starlink, for example. I think Donald Trump is terrible for the United States, but I wonder if — by forcing it to confront its shortcomings — he will be good for Europe.
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