Rep. Jake Auchincloss and Derek Thompson at WelcomeFest 2025
Abundance comes to WelcomeFest!
The largest public gathering of centrist Democrats, WelcomeFest showcases the array of ideas, policy, and leadership hailing from the centrist faction of the Democratic Party. It’s also our way of bringing to life the posts on this Substack. Along with our partners, we’re creating an in-person space for all of us that features many of the elected leaders and centrist ecosystem influencers we write about on WelcomeStack and feature on The Depolarizers podcast.
In today’s post, we’re excited to share that Rep. Jake Auchincloss and Derek Thompson are speaking at WelcomeFest 2025 on June 4 in Washington, DC. RSVP to join us, and invite a friend!
Derek Thompson
It’s rare for a public intellectual to so dramatically disrupt a Party’s policy positions, but with his recent book, Abundance, Derek Thompson (along with his co-author Ezra Klein) has given other liberal opiners a run for their money.
Politicians from Gov. Gavin Newsom to Rep. Ritchie Torres have praised Abundance and cited its influence on their policy vision. The abundance agenda is a direct call for Democrats to confront what ails them: an inability to turn big, complex ideas into tangible policy wins for the voters who need them.
Take climate change. While Democrats are happy to blame oil companies for the damage they’ve created and call for more clean energy, when it’s actually time to build a zero emissions nuclear power plant or a transmission line to connect utility scale solar to the grid, it’s often Democrats and the regulations they support in the way.
While Democrats care deeply about homeless people, they’ll protest the construction of new housing in their neighborhoods that could give people affordable homes.
The reality is that Democrats aren’t struggling with voters because of misinformation. They’re struggling with voters because the cities and states that have their leaders in power are often poorly governed, with wasteful spending and too many broken promises.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss
Joining Derek Thompson in conversation about Abundance will be Rep. Jake Auchincloss.
Auchincloss eloquently articulates and espouses many ideals behind Abundance. A policy wonk who’s built a reputation for sharp, intelligent, and unique approaches to legislation, Auchincloss wrote on X, “Democrats must merge the ideas of the abundance agenda with the energy of the Fight Oligarchy rallies. A program that builds housing, builds wealth, and builds trust would be a fusion agenda.”
Auchincloss lives in Massachusetts, a state that has seen rising housing costs and residents fleeing to lower-cost states. The state government estimates they need to build 220,000 new homes over the next 10 years.
In a recent interview, Auchincloss explained the problem of housing and his view on a solution:
We totally have to do land-use reform. We gotta make it easier to build. I'm here in Massachusetts, and it’s impossible to build in this state with our zoning code. But we also have to figure out how to turn housing construction from a very service-intensive endeavor into a product. And we actually know how to do that: offsite construction.
One way to break through is for us to get serious about building new cities in this country that just totally bypassed the local zoning issue, right? Americans used to build new cities every time we ran into a river. We stopped building new cities, but they're very important ways to foment economic dynamism and mobility. We've got lots of decommissioned military bases that are not locally zoned, federal land that's not locally zoned. Let's invest in building new cities there, and it’ll open up lots of opportunities.
Auchincloss has a safe seat. He could do what many other safe seat Democrats tend to do: pull political stunts and use rhetoric that weakens the Democratic brand but boosts his own personal fundraising.
Instead, Auchincloss is fighting to build a Democratic Party that’s able to achieve durable victories through policy agendas that lead to shared prosperity.
Voters won’t pull the lever for Democrats until we prove we’re the better option. And Auchincloss’d ideas are part of building a party that can win.
Join us to hear from Derek and Jake at WelcomeFest June 4 in DC. Check out a recap of last year’s WelcomeFest.