Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson are the two most important liberal journalists working in the legacy press today—Ezra at The New York Times, and Derek at The Atlantic.

Although they insist they’ll never go into politics themselves, they are offering Democrats a path back to power.

To see their way out of the political wilderness, the Democrats need a vision—one that goes beyond resistance to Trump. A vision that can bring back the disaffected Democrats who stayed home, or voted red for the first time, this past November.

While other liberals and progressives are doubling down on zombie ideas, afraid to come face to face with a country that has moved decisively to the right, Ezra and Derek are willing to face reality. They see that blue states are functioning—as Bari likes to say—similarly to the DMV. And as a result, people are fleeing to places like Texas and Florida.

If you’ve lived in a city like L.A. or San Francisco in the past decade, it’s pretty difficult to sell the idea that the government is working effectively. It’s why so many people are cheering for DOGE.

But while DOGE is taking a chain saw to the federal bureaucracy, Ezra and Derek are reformers who believe it can be fixed. They want to rein in the laws, regulations, and liberal thinking that have made it nearly impossible to do anything in this country.

They just wrote a new book about all of this called Abundance. Their thesis is simple: To have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need.

While conservatives and libertarians might say: Yes, exactly, let the free market do its thing, Ezra and Derek think the government can play a crucial role—if liberals will let it.

So how do we build a government that’s less like the DMV and more like the Apple Store? How will this government actually deliver for Americans and solve our most pressing problems—in housing, energy, transportation, and healthcare? And, how do we reverse our government’s long march into total incompetence?

Ezra and Derek have a lot of ideas on how we can get there. Today on Honestly, we hear them. This conversation challenged us, and we hope it challenges and surprises you too.

Header 6: The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.

If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today.

Listen to Unpacking Israeli History: https://link.chtbl.com/DmS_bFpl

Go to groundnews.com/Honestly to get 40% off the unlimited access Vantage plan and stay fully informed on today’s biggest news stories.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI Tools of 2025: The Hits and Misses"

AI Applied: Covering AI News, Interviews and Tools - ChatGPT, Midjourney, Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic

Claude's coding and writing utility

The AI-powered Podcast Player