The theme of “abundance” is being adopted by leading Democrats across the nation as a counter to Trump and MAGA.
The theme comes from a best-selling book by the same name: “Abundance,” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
The authors contend that government is broken. But instead of wanting to drastically shrink it, as they claim that Trump wants, they want government to be a catalyst for abundance by shedding the red tape and inefficiencies propagated by Democrat policies.
It is not my purpose here to review the book, but I can’t let the claim pass that Trump wants to drastically shrink government. Despite his rhetoric and DOGE initiative, Trump is actually a statist. He wants the federal government to have centralized control over social and economic affairs, but for different ends than Democrats want. Moreover, his “big and beautiful” spending bill will continue to grow the big and ugly federal deficit to an unsustainable level.
Anyway, when my wife and I moved to Tucson seven years ago for family reasons, I tried to start an organization with a similar theme as abundance, but I called it “prosperity” instead of “abundance.” The idea was to establish a nonpartisan, apolitical think tank to detail why Tucson was operating way below its potential and to recommend what could be done about it.
What drove me to that point were the socioeconomic conditions in the city: the poverty, low wages, crime, homelessness, low K-12 test scores, widespread seediness and shabbiness, and lack of economic dynamism compared to other Sunbelt cities.
The Arizona Daily Star published an op-ed of mine on a couple of these points. It struck a nerve and led to me being on local radio, making contact with likeminded citizens, and getting to know some local leaders and influencers.
Having lived in Southern Arizona for 25 years, I understood that Democrats had held a political monopoly in the City of Tucson and surrounding county for decades, that the city had an election system that made political diversity almost impossible, and that local Republicans felt disenfranchised and frustrated as a result. Accordingly, a theme was needed that both Democrats and Republicans could get behind.
Who could be against prosperity?
Perhaps egotistically, I thought that I was qualified to take this on, considering my political and media experience as an activist leader in the political minefield of metro
New York, my experience in healthcare reform, my corporate experience, and my authorship of a book on how to eliminate bureaucracy and subsequent consulting on the subject.
Was I ever mistaken.
The blame is mine. I underestimated the extent of the local partisan divide; the extent of the Tucson culture of apathy, provincialism and acceptance of substandard government services; the extent of the influence on local political thinking of the left-leaning University of Arizona; and the extent of the resistance from the entrenched political establishment to the idea of prosperity, which they saw as a threat to their monopoly by making residents less dependent on them.
For sure, it was naivety on my part.
Will the new theme of abundance succeed in getting Tucson to achieve its full potential? It would be naïve to think so.
Mr. Cantoni can be reached at craigcantoni@gmail.com.
Abundance…. of taxes, fees, utility raises, idiots in positions of power, idiot drivers; yeah… abundance.
well there is NO republican party in pima co, and if there is they have no backbone. This town does not offer anything of real value as you stated. Cant even say it has the same view points as it did years ago. No Santa Rita hotel where the movie people used to stay, the duke. gonzalez gonzalez the list could go on but the point is they drove everyone awaay, same with the cleveland indians, used to get bottle caps with the names on them, no more. There is no economy here and they are trying to keep it that way. They used to say we dont need one that the service industries will provide. well guess what they dont. they drove out burr-brown, several nationally know gunsmiths, they cant even attract business like the mexican bean cannery, they rant about DMAFB but it does provide some jobs which is more than the democraps can say they do. They now claim they will oppose trumps agenda and keep him from destroying the ‘economy’ but guess what, they already did that and more. The democraps/leftists have nothing to offer but poverty and despair. I was born and raised here but my dad was in the AF and we lived all over the country so we saw what others have and what we didnt. Just drive around and see all the new construction of buildings that will never be occupied as they are the same type which are all boarded up now. roads are bad and getting worse and they say this is a welcoming town, to who the illegals? My mexican neighbors voted for trump as they cannot compete for jobs with the illegals. the other idiot is claiming he survived the princesses shooting, only ting I remember is he tried some 1st aid on here and he is using the turds daughter talking points to ensure the dependent stay the same without a chance of improvement.
some years back I arrived to Tucson on a flight from.. someplace else – think it was Frontier Airline 🙂 bout this time of year – in early afternoonish 1400 hrs +/- as we pulled up to the terminal – the pilot announced “Welcome to Tucson – Temperature 103 and the time is 1972.. How accurate could he be! That is the time TUCSON IS STUCK IN.. still is – wear some flowers in your hair, smile, smoke a joint.. do nothing – think nothing – wait for the Dims to mismanage it! But we got Tacos! The GOOD OL BOY monopoly remains in good standing some 50 + years later! Buck O – TEP – PUBLIC slums – mismanagement – computers that operate on F2 buttons on them (Nogales School District) But we got TACOS! Drive – Tucson… who’s at the corner – what we have is “LOCKED DOWN ICE CREAM”! and closed buildings..
What drove me to that point were the socioeconomic conditions in the city: the poverty, low wages, crime, homelessness, low K-12 test scores, widespread seediness and shabbiness, and lack of economic dynamism compared to other Sunbelt cities.
And yet here we are 2025 and what has changed in your 7 years? When I left in 2018 it was almost identical to the Tucson I arrived in when I moved west in 1996. Nothing changed. Schools sucked and social promotion was celebrated and the norm. Services were pathetic and the moniker Dirty T was well deserved. The CofC loved them some ILLEGALS so that their members could make millions by paying cheap labor an gaming the system. What has changed you say…..I say absolutely nothing and nothing will. Tucson will lead the state down the toilet as it becomes more blue by the year. What a beautiful setting for a city but with liberal leadership there is no future of many except wash, rinse and repeat. Tucson on 20 years will look the same as it did when I moved in 96 as it does today.