Abundance in the Age of Trump

Viewed on its own, a Republican-controlled Congress wouldn't necessarily spell disaster for the abundance agenda. Some elements of abundance policy enjoy a degree of bipartisan support, particularly when it comes to pro-housing policy: the Congressional YIMBY Caucus includes members of both parties, and the YIMBY Act has a bipartisan list of sponsors. But the Trump administration's entire governing philosophy—to the extent that it has a coherent governing philosophy—is hostile to the positive-sum mentality that underlies abundance thought. The White House's theory of the housing shortage is a case in point: Whereas YIMBYs and abundance-minded people would argue that we can fix the shortage and make everyone better off by building more homes, the Trump administration appears to be more focused on rationing a fixed housing supply by deporting immigrants en masse.

Despite this obvious conflict in values, some abundance-aligned intellectuals initially urged cooperation with the administration's semiofficial Department of Government Efficiency. Better to be inside the tent than outside the tent, they reasoned. "We can wish that the government efficiency agenda were in the hands of someone else, but let’s not pretend that change was going to come from Democrats if they’d only had another term," government reform advocate Jennifer Pahlka wrote in December, "and let’s not delude ourselves that change was ever going to happen politely, neatly, carefully."

One month into the Trump administration, it should be clear that the give-DOGE-a-chance strategy was a failure. (Pahlka tacitly admitted as much in a recent piece for The New York Times, where she said Musk "seems to be trying to destroy" government capacity.) But abundance liberals have yet to reach consensus regarding an alternative approach.

Because the abundance movement is decentralized and ideologically diverse, that consensus might never emerge. But however various abundance-aligned groups and policymakers choose to approach their work under the second Trump administration, they should be mindful of the new facts on the ground. The movement's future success—in fact, its very survival—depends on how well it adapts to the political economy of the second Trump era. The new facts on the ground are as follows.