Digest of r/ezraklein

https://www.axios.com/2025/11/16/ezra-klein-power-play-democrats

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TL;DR: Ezra Klein is actively influencing Democratic strategy and policy and 2028 elites, sparking a debate inside the Times over journalistic ethics and raising concerns among Democrats about his elite persona

Relevance- Thompson is the co-author of Abundance and this podcast discusses topics like housing and AI that the EKS has covered recently.

In this episode Derek Thompson talked with the cohosts of the financial podcast Animal Spirits about the challenges facing young people today, and if they’re being overblown. What does everyone here think? A few standouts from the episode and thoughts of my own:

• the median first time home buyer is now 40
• young people are increasingly investing in stocks as real estate is out of reach
• the youth unemployment rate is up from the COVID hiring frenzy, but is still around the historical norm
• there’s been a ton of discussion around Trump’s increased share of the youth vote, especially young men in 2024. However, afaik Trumps support among young voters has cratered since the election. Personally, I think most of the right’s gains among young people were simply based on anger at inflation and cost of living, and with Republicans failure to make any progress on those issues, they’re losing most of their gains among Gen Z.

I am a conservative, but I like to try and get media from all sides (mainly ignoring places like CNN, MSNBC, FOX).

Listening to the episode is my reminder how appreciative I am for Ezra as my go to the liberal side for news. It is very easy, but yet very unintelligent for people to say "Tucker Carlson is the most influential person on the right, he was friendly with Fuentes, therefore all Republicans are Nazis." Ezra does not do this. He digs into the issue, and even concedes at times that he can understand certain points that are being made (and that is what makes some of these radicals like Fuentes popular. Fuentes can make coherent points, but in between those points he will utter out abhorrent garbage). We need more people like Ezra on the left and the right (someone who doesn't just trash on the other side, but tries to understand it and provide a counterfactual argument)

Quick example from the episode of what I think makes Ezra different: I always roll my eyes when those in the liberal media say things like: "When Trump says 'I love America', well that is actually a dog whistle for racists." That is obviously an exaggerated example, but there are definitely examples out there that are really not too far away from this exaggeration. Ezra mad a dog whistle claim when referring to Onlyfans and that being a dog whistle for Anti-Semites. However, he actually is able to provide evidence on why this is, but more importantly he is not being absolute about it. He states it like, well, this COULD be a dog whistle, but Ezra is too honest to be definitive in saying it.

I really haven't found anyone I like as much as Ezra on the left. I have found Charlamagne to be ok. Bill Maher for a comedic take. I am always up to expanding my horizons if there is someone else out there similar to Ezra.

TL/DR: Conservative who thinks Ezra is amazing. The Groyper episode was a reminder of his journalistic integrity. Curious if there is anyone else out there that you can recommend for a conservative to get another level-headed liberal perspective

“The environmental group gave up its singular focus on climate change for a broader agenda. The ensuing internal strife left it weakened as it takes on the Trump administration.”

I think this is a worthy read and discussion for the subreddit. I believe its relevant especially due to the groups and even Ezra’s article on the professional political class.

This article goes into depth about the backlash Sierra from membership and donors to the actions of pushing the scope of the organization into this omnicausal entity. This caused a huge drop in membership, and organizational leadership dug in their heels instead of recognizing their decisions have caused harm to the goal of the organization.

I think this is especially relevant due to a lot of the ongoing discussions here.

I remember reading about CA High Speed Rail and thinking it was great after it passed in 2008... that was 17 years ago.

Job's not done, it's just started.

I was just served up another Mamdani video by the algorithm, and it's been making me reflect a bit on him and his campaign, and how I think the central lesson of it is getting missed by those who are slotting it into the "go left" or "moderate" strategies. I'll speak solely for myself here--I'm a pretty moderate Democratic voter, who doesn't necessarily think any of Mamdani's most discussed policy proposals are actually all that good. But I find him profoundly likable, and probably would have voted for him over Cuomo if I lived in NYC. I wanted to share what I thought were some of the reasons why:

Most Democratic candidates who are billed as "centrist" or "establishment" candidates aren't really unpopular because of their policy positions, but rather their milquetoast soullessness. Their responses seem inauthentic and canned, focus-grouped to hell, and carefully calibrated to be aligned with the median voter in their coalition. To me (and I imagine many others) they fail the smell test all too often: are you saying this thing because it's what you truly believe, or are you saying this thing because you think it's what everyone else wants you to say?

Mamdani, on the other hand, always said what he believed forthrightly and clearly. Even when what he believed was controversial or perhaps a minority position--e.g., his position on Israel--he was able to clearly articulate his views and how they might differ from other people's, and how that disagreement is actually OK. When you hear him talk, it's very clearly his opinions and his views that are coming through, not some focus-grouped, field-tested messaging machine.

So the first lesson from Mamdani: be yourself.

The second lesson I take from this is about tone and rhetoric. A common puzzle you'll find here on reddit is: leftist policies, in isolation, poll with clear majorities, but for some reason can never get enacted. To me, there's a clear answer as to why: leftists act like assholes.

Mamdani's electoral success here should be a bright beacon of how leftists can get their preferred policies enacted at a local and national level: be nice.

To drill down on that a bit, here are some things that I saw Mamdani doing rhetorically and tonally that really worked for me:

1) His tone was always upbeat and positive - He spent a lot more talking about the positive solutions he wanted to present to New Yorkers than he spent talking about the problems he saw. It's not that NYC is a late-stage-capitalist hellscape, or that we're living in the midst of a trans genocide. He focused clearly on solutions, on smiling a lot, on having fun, on engaging directly with people. All good stuff.

2) His language was always inclusive - Whenever he talked about people who might oppose him--e.g., this video--he is always careful to make sure that even his opposition is rhetorically under the same umbrella as everyone else. His language here isn't "tax the rich who aren't paying their fair share," it's "When I talk to wealthy New Yorkers..." His language is always aimed at building bridges, at creating superstructures that include every one of his constituents, not just the ones on his side.

3) He engages with people productively - His social media video where he interviews Trump supporters in NYC was truly a master class in how a leader can listen and engage with opposition. He demonstrates clear empathy, and only after carefully listening to what people's concerns are does he deliver his own view, often tailored to what they said previously.

To me, these are the real lessons that every person who wants to run for office (or even help Democrats successfully run for office going forward) should take from this campaign. Mamdani ran a great campaign, and I hope he'll have all the success in the world as mayor.

A lot of people have argued that the shutdown ending in the way that it did was inevitable and foreseeable. To which I say: Fine! but this just begs the question, why didn't Schumer concoct an exit strategy that helped the party look like winners rather than total fucking losers?

The point of the shutdown, as originally stated, was to "grab the microphone" and break through to ordinary Americans. And it worked. The problem is, once Democrats grabbed the mic, they promptly used it to remind everyone how weak and feckless they are.

Even though Schumer knew this was going to happen, he did jack all to help the party position it as a win. No media appearances, no tweets, nothing! All we got was Angus King on CNN declaring that "standing up to Trump didn't work", further cementing the message that Democrats are weak losers. Have we learned nothing from Trump? Find a way to declare victory even when you lose!

The failure to craft a message and exit strategy for this extremely foreseeable situation is an unforgivable failure for a minority leader. He was AWOL, he is totally inadequate for the moment, and he has to go.

The fundamental flaw, as I see it, of Ezra's understanding of how to win right now is that he seemingly has no vision whatsoever of how "winning" would then translate into governing.

Like, you can certainly imagine a scenario where you just say "run who can win in every jurisdiction, regardless of what they believe!"

But, then...what happens if they win? How do they hang together? How do they have an agenda? How do they not endlessly splinter and doom themselves to endless losses?

Imagine a Democratic Senate with 15 people like this group of cowards now capitulating. Is that a Senate that is preferable to the one we have now? Sure it is. For the 2 years it exists. But it will completely collapse into a heap of nothingness because it has no cohesion, nothing to hold it together, no sense of purpose or unity.

It's not a party.

You can't just win elections. You need to actually do something once you win them. And that requires a party to actually believe things.

And if your answer is "well, maybe we just X, Y and Z as the things you need to believe and the rest is negotiable" then you don't have a political strategy. You're just one of many, many factions all with different X's and Y's and Z's.

The capitulation tonight is just a microcosm of the problem of having a party without sufficient ideological commitment or discipline to achieve any long term goals.

It might win *an election*. But it won't win the future.

I see two possibilities as to how certain Senate Democrats are voting for this ludicrous 'deal', and neither of them redound well for Schumer. Either:

• a) He has given these Democratic defectors tacit - or explicit - permission to vote for the CR, without taking the heat for directly voting 'yes' himself; or,
• b) He personally opposes voting for the CR, does not want it to happen, but has completely lost control of 20% of his caucus.

Either way, it's unacceptable and disqualifying.

Fresh off a week of hope for Democrats - the first glimmer of light we have experienced in the last 11 months - we should have expected Schumer to tamp down any enthusiasm in the direction of this party with his typical wet blanket of cowardice and defeat.

I suspect Ezra believes this internally, but he needs to come out loudly in his next columns and podcasts and demand a Senate leadership change. No more sacred cows. If we go into the 2026 midterm season with this political has-been as one of our party leaders, slouching into the camera and shuffling across the Capitol Rotunda in his penny loafers, we will regret it.

When Americans look back with the benefit of hindsight, and we wonder how various societies of the past could have slipped into authoritarianism, and how those in power either (a) chose to not wield their power to stop it, (b) could have stopped it but were motivated more by their own position and status or (c) grossly misjudged the moment they found themselves; we now have our answer in Chuck Schumer. We know exactly how this can happen, because we're witnessing it play out with our very eyes.

Progressive v moderate. Move left v move center. Abundance v anti-oligarchy. Do trans issues matter?(unequivocally NO).

Biden and Harris had bad vibes in 2024 due to three years of inflation and immigrants bussed up from Texas and Florida to blue suburbs.

Now Trump is in office and the economy isn’t any better (is actually worse) and while Trump is deporting many many people, the viciousness turns off normies. He and the GOP have the bad vibes now such that these races aren’t particularly close. Even Georgia flipped two GOP statewide seats.

Mamdani, Sherril, and Spanberger are going to win by double digits. Jay Jones survived his scandal.

I would agree that relying on vibe backlash is not a sound electoral strategy, but in the meantime it explains things much more than anything else.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/04/rollout-throttled-biden-big-clean-energy-00634316

A little late but sounds like confirmation of the ideas from Abundance on simplifying requirements and goals to get things done quickly so people can see and experience the benefits before some takes over and either gets credit or demolishes the plan.

Relevance: NYT Opinion

Seems to me that moving away from what makes Democrats Democrats because Trump won a freak election in 2024 due to inflation that Republicans have failed to match without him seems like a mistake. Especially when you consider the Republican pipeline of Nazis, White Supremacists, and Groypers. Maybe Ezra Douthglesias spent too much time soul searching for Democrats when what they needed was just...younger, charismatic candidates that...excite the base.

M. Gesen's "The beautiful danger of life during an autocratic rise" is a really nice companion piece to EK'S how the Democratic Party beat Trump. I’ll post a longer quote in the comments, but in general, I think Gesen‘s vision about an anti-Trump pairs nicely with some of Ezra's‘s handwringing. We don’t necessarily need a unified strategy. But a unified philosophy or set of values I think would serve us really well.

Ezra Klein’s NYT colleague Ross Douthat interviews the CTO of Palantir.

Stasticician who previously worked at 538 goes over the statistical mistakes they made in their analysis. Also a response since they linked to a bunch of pieces critical of his work including by people who self-admittedly never read it.

Israeli forces still occupy half of Gaza. In the cease-fire deal, Israel agreed to fully withdraw its presence there once Hamas fully demilitarized. But Amit Segal thinks that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. Instead, he believes Gaza will end up divided. So what does that really mean? What are the implications?

Segal is the chief political analyst for Channel 12 News in Israel and is known to be quite close to the Netanyahu government. He writes the newsletter It’s Noon in Israel and is the author of the book “A Call at 4 a.m.: Thirteen Prime Ministers and the Crucial Decisions That Shaped Israeli Politics,” which was recently published in English.

In this conversation, he talks about why most Israelis don’t see the cease-fire as the end of the war between Israel and Hamas and how this conflict is mapping onto Israeli politics — both at present and as the country looks toward its next elections.

Tying together two of Ezra’s big recent themes - abundance and winning back the working class - I can’t help but feel like K-12 education doesn’t get enough attention here.

I spent a lot of my career overseas in developing countries, and we used to joke that a lot of African countries were basically libertarian dreams - low taxes, limited government - and that the problems this produces were obvious: Government can’t build roads? Rich people can buy giant SUVs. Government can’t fund schools? Rich people all send their kids to private schools that cost $20k+ a year.

But the more I look at Blue cities, the more I think that Dems policies have actually created these problems more reliably than the GOP. And no where does that seem more obvious than schooling.

I went to public schools in a rust belt city that had seen better days. The schools were notorious for being mismanaged and dangerous. A lot of my parents’ peers moved districts or sent their kids to parochial schools before the end of primary school. But my parents believed deeply in public education and I valued my experience.

But I now see my own peers in big cities facing the same choice and opting for private schools or moving away. And I can’t really blame them. I’m lucky enough to live a place with good public schools but I know that’s a rarity these days.

And I think that this phenomenon leads more to educational and class polarization than many other factors.

But what’s the answer here? It seems like a harder problem than housing in many respects. And I feel like every education policy discussion gets bogged down in questions over curriculum.

I’m definitely not an education expert but my impression is that throwing money at the problem hasn’t helped much. I know Ezra has never been an education wonk so I’m not blaming him, but this seems like an urgent area for policy proposals.

https://youtu.be/i2Y8al_Pkv0

A video that introduces the concept of Context Collapse. The creator uses the video to understand the conversation between Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates and modern media in general.

This seems to be a different angle than most of the discussion on here about Klein's take on Charlie Kirk and the later conversation about his NYT piece with Coates.

I would love to have Ezra dedicate a podcast to viable actions US citizens can take now in response to the Trump administration. I find all of Ezra's pods on the democratic party's path forward to be insightful, but 2028 is a long way off. What does the democractic party do now, as well as concerned citizens. What's the viability of a general strike if 3.5% of the population participates? Would love for this type of discussion to dominate airways. There must be more to do than the NO Kings protests.

Interesting idea. Definitely makes one think. Lots of downsides though. My biggest question:

Is it worth it to continue making big tech our enemies?

I'm a PhD student researching agriculture, and feel somewhat conflicted about the abundance framework.

As a thought exercise, I wanted to ask: what are the implications of abundance from American agriculture? The industry produces an absurd abundance of corn and soybeans in particular. Based on some rough calculations, it's perhaps enough to feed two billion people every year, around 6x the US population. But we use 30-40% of that corn to make fuel for cars, and ~40 million Americans still face food insecurity.

To me, this is what abundance without redistribution looks like. EK and DT do acknowledge that both are important, but I think the distributional question maybe deserves more emphasis than it's received.

I wrote in more detail about the ag angle here.