941 - Sister Number One feat. Aída Chávez (6/9/25)
We’re joined by The Nation’s Aída Chávez for her report from WelcomeFest, the abundapalooza dedicated to staking the technocratic claim for the future of the Democratic party. We review the fairly directionless and unenthusiastic vibes of the centrist shindig, but also discuss the explosion of police violence during protests against ICE in Los Angeles over the weekend. All leading us to ask, what exactly do these people think “power” is, and when is it “right” to exercise it?
Read Aída’s dispatch from WelcomeFest for The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/welcomefest-dispatch-centrism-abundance/
Donate to the Jordan Breen sports journalism scholarship fund - https://gofund.me/837f326c
New merch for the summer up at https://chapotraphouse.store/
Comments (173)
Was "Hey Guys" at the start an On Cinema at the Cinema reference?
Democratic Leadership Council 2.
I've been listening to the Oregon legislature sessions and some doofus recently invoked Ezra Klein's Abundance book in his grandstanding against a proposed vacancy tax. It really crystalized to me where all this is coming from.
500 dollars for the song of the summer? That’s a robbery
Looking up photos of Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and I've never been so irritated by someone's bangs before
Khmer Rube
great song great guest thanks for posting fellas
the "abundance" democrats' theory of power sounds like they read Carl Schmidt's critique of Liberalism and were like "I agree with everything he says about liberalism except that i think all the things he thinks are bad about it are good actually" which is the most alien and inhuman possible conclusion to come away from Schmidt with. His beliefs were repellant, but at least they came honestly from the worst impulses of humanity. This abundance shit is so alienated and phantasmagorical. It makes humans the objects of history, not the subjects. Its an abject surrender of human agency, not to a Great Leader, not to a God, not even to an abstract notion of historical inevitability, but to a series of gestures and empty signifiers. To a Vibe. Its like someone heard a christian describe atheism as a religion and then decided to make a cargo cult based on that description.
MGP 's trash stance sounds like me when I don't buy a bus pass so that I'll bike to work more, but then I take the bus anyways and waste a bunch of money
Fyi I should not be in charge of anything
Good podcast, but y'all should've let her speak a little more imo
She is from South western Washington, so Vancouver Washington a suburb of Portland, but also a large portion of her district is the Olympic Penisula Rainforests.
if one of his zoomer staffers shows him the song i think he would just respond with "this is antisemetic. october 7th" then walk along the wall like an oblivion character
Loves me an old-school Chapo episode of non-stop ridicule of freakish democrats (aka democrats).
That’s… her favorite candy… psychotic
Also, that's what she *publicly announces* is her favorite food.
i feel like john fettywapman
Aella is ‘we have Liv Tyler at home’.
MY favorite MGP factoid is how she constantly talks about how her and her husband are small business owners that own an "auto body shop" to appear blue collar, then you dig a little it turns out really he mods those little hipster japanese micro vans
also as noted elsewhere, her going to Reed College is the explanation for everything, it churns out people like this
Gluesenkamp hive stand back and stand by
MGP is so fucking weird irl
Am I wrong or was it not even ten years ago that “optics” in its current usage was merely obnoxious PR-speak. It drives me crazy to hear everybody using it earnestly now
this girl sounds nice but also like 10 years old
Good news tho, she's really cute and looks 16.
‘There is nothing to believe in’ is perfect summary
song slaps
The new American Stasi
Reeling from the fact that the welcomefest people don’t realize the SCOTUS is already packed and basically has no power over Trump
Maybe worth mentioning the zoning permits?
The song is so unreal bravo
Rare MGP win on the garbage collection issue, at least from the standpoint of it being unambiguously good to be faced with your trash etc.
But maybe that is a sign that I should interrogate my own Year Zero leanings
A favorite website of mine had a Jonathan Chait piece last week, garbage as one would expect, he was previewing the DimmieCrap "Abundance" agenda and reminded everyone they should just luuuurv their "private health care" plan, Medical Debt is good for the economy. The Dimmie "Abundance" grift is just recycled Newt Gingrich slop grafted off of Jack Kemp "Enterprise Zones" in poor neighborhoods. Hey, those darkies don't need safety regulations, child labor laws, throw them some dangerous jobs and they will work for peanuts (or watermelons?) and be grateful. Race to the bottom, stupid American peasants, we'll give you feudalism and you'll be grateful. The Kamala Kumbaya Genocide Dimmie Convention last year was just a recycled version of Joe Lieberman at the (R) convention in 2008, mansplaining that you need to love that boot that is kicking you in the face for all eternity from 1984. Big Brother is Uncle Donald's (rolling around on his gold pile while eating a Big Mac) admin, and they win bigly. Thus the DimmieCraps can only envy and emulate, never resist. Bush Jr. tanked his 2nd admin early by trying to convince the R's that taking away their Social Security and Medicare would create an "Opportunity Society" they could invest in the Stock Market and become Gajillionaires in no time!! Even the R. Base knew better. Donald wants to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for millionaire tax cuts, and the Dimmiecraps don't say a word in opposition, just create their own absurd debt peonage scam. Alan Colmes never won a single debate on the Hannity show as he was only hired to be a punching bag. The Dimmies play the same role in the Duopoly Owners Political Economy System (DOPES).
Also, Bush Jr. tanked his 2nd term by trying to convince the R's that destroying Social Security and Medicare would let them invest in the Stock Market and become gajillionaires. Even the R. base had more brains than to buy that. Notice the D's aren't saying a word while Mafia Don wants to gut Social Security and Medicare to give a giant tax break to the billionaire donors. They could WIN an election by saying they'd fight that (and then just as Joe Biden did 2021-25 with the promised $15 minimum wage letting a "Parliamentarian" firebomb that idea), but those suckers don't want to win, they only want NOT to offend the Donors or the Zionist state.
How on earth was that track only $500
post the rxk song as a separate ep chris im begging
It's on RXK's YouTube channel
Glutenkampf is what you become if you read Wendell Berry in installments in the first hour after a concussion or on the drugs from the dentist
I do lament that she's dumb as shit because there are exactly zero people with serious ecological concern or understanding in positions of real power.
They obsess over "populism" so much because they can't get around the fact that they are terminally unpopular
the inner torment of the nerd is one of the beefier pillars holding up our shitty politics
Holy shit I actually used the exact same Cas Mudde definition in the introductory paragraph of a freshman year paper on populism.
Even I knew not to use “Webster’s defines” from Lionel Hutz
Always keep crayons in your pocket, when a marine runs up on you throw the crayons on the ground. They should snack long enough for you to get away.
rxknephew is dope wow
Did 6 million groups really die? If they did, it wasn’t enough.
Mein Glusenkamph
hell yeah neph
Felix mentioned a “Welbutrin trip” and that shit is not something you can sleep through.
What’s even the point of having a guest on if you don’t even try to engage for most of the episode? When she does speak, you guys immediately interrupt her.
Trump won. Women know their place now.
I hate the environment, and the sea. It all should burn up, nuclear style.
I think the point you're all missing here is that Gluesenkamp Perez might suck ass, but she's also an autistic baddie. The hottest thing a woman can be is lame as hell, and she's gotta be the only sitting member of Congress that watches Bluey and Hazbin Hotel. Love her Congress photo in her Dr. Doofenshmirtz turtleneck and leather jacket. She's like if a girl that got rejected at the Saddie Hawkins dance in high school for being too weird grew up to be in a position of national authority. I would do Abundance Year Zero for her.
She's just like me for real; lame.
The democrats are less Gil and more Hans Moleman
Delightful episode.
Shout out will for fronting the $500 for the placement
Felix I'm sorry you didn't get a good loud laugh at your glasses joke
"city dwellers don't smell garbage" says person that has obviously never been to NYC
Yea, I didn't understand that at all. She actually reminds me of Jordan Peterson in that I don't know what her point is supposed to be. Like I thought she lived by the dump. She should live in the dump to be connected to the land or whatever. Where did she think the barber should live? Is everyone meant to live on their own farm? I didn't understand anything she said. How does she get yogurt? Only the glass containers? That will also smell like yogurt if you don't wash it, but you can wash the plastic container too. So wtf is she saying? She just doesn't eat yogurt? I can't stand when people talk for 5 minutes and I understand all their words and phrases, but not what they are saying. It's how I imagine stroke survivors must feel(unc Cush shout out).
I love you guys, but why don't you let your guest speak? Aida didn't get a word in edgewise for the last half of the pod..... kinda lame.
I don't think they really interrupted her on the pod, they just didn't really ask many questions. That's the format of the show, conversational, not really an interview. Will and Felix bounced off each other and the guest could have joined in. It sounds like maybe the show could do more to prepare the guests for that conversational format
You’re In My Barber Yhop
Weren’t the party libs just yelling that this whole thing is a coup like right after the inauguration? Now it’s about playing electoral guessing games?
Gotta give credit to Felix for pointing out the groundswell of sentiment against the settler colonial police state bullshit that's been coming home to roost. Been reflecting lately on the fact that Trump 1.0 pushed a lot of people in this country leftward just by bloviating about doing what he's actually doing currently. The iron might be heating up.
That song is incredible. Song of the summer.
Northern Virginia sympathizes! Type "Loudoun _4_Palestine" or "LoCo Falastin" into Instagram and give us a follow ❤️🇵🇸
I’m not on insta but I’m gonna hit you up on my wife’s account bc I’m from NoVa too and we want to stand for Palestine
damn two Wellbutrin checks this epi, feeling very seen
while mayor of Burlington, Bernie setup the land trust system to stabilize (some) property values and it's a magnificient piece of clever technocratic numbers-fucking and it works *great* being a socialist doesn't have to mean being stupid about it. In fact it's probably the only socialist housing policy I've ever heard about besides "behead landlords" or "Red Vienna" two things that are actually against the regulations and not legal
It frustrates me that the American left has no real, coherent housing policy ideas beyond additional rent control and hopes of social housing. Those things are good and I like them. But rent control doesn’t address a lot of problems (and the expensive cities already have some protections) and social housing at any reasonable scale is decades away unfortunately.
Did the participants of the Boston Tea Party do any polling to look at the impact their actions would have on public opinion?
National Guard & the Marines are being sent to LA; let's devote the show to talking about how centrists are out of touch
I guess the centrists should've seen this coming and done literally anything to try win the election then
PLEASE PUT THIS SONG ON STREAMING SERVICES
https://on.soundcloud.com/9insj1lMMydi3X58U5
No reason someone should rap that good for 500 dollars.
The trash is dark and full of terrors
Did Chris just drop a trap/drill type beat at the intermission? Can we please get the next Strokes of Genius set to a trap/drill type beat with Will and Felix on adlibs?
youre not ready for the outro
Holy shit.
❗️❗️WVU MENTIONED❗️❗️ LETS GO MOUNTAINEERS
The things abundance folks say in this reminds me of arguing with my conservative family members back in the day. They just pull things out of their ass to justify some awful thing—not even really supporting their point, just to keep talking. Libs and conservatives are two faces on the same coin so I guess it makes sense but abundance discourse is just gishgalloping with an academic veneer meant to shut your brain down so you just do what they say—even though what they’re saying is obviously wrong.
What struck me is how incoherent it seems like this conference was. The WA Congresswoman seems to be the opposite of the ABUNDANCE! program. They apparently criticized open borders a lot, but Yglesias wrote a book called One Billion Americans.
Yup we can trust the body parts gummy garbage lady.
Krystal and Kyle made this point and I think it's a good one: You can tell the true ideological abundance guys from the opportunistic freaks by whether or not they hate Zohran Mamdani despite him campaigning on like 75% of their priorities plus a little socialism
Lol thank you for making the sound at the beginning of the theme song quieter
between the pure people and the corrupt elite ezra knows which side he's on
It’s so great that the Dems takeaway from the failure of the Biden administration is “real centrism has never been tried.”
oh yeah?? if centrism is so great name one successful centrist country 😤 i'll wait
46 minutes in, shout out to Speed Queen!
That is a jam and a half!
We love RXK don't we folks?
who's ayela?
Aella. Famous for organizing an orgy on herself and making graphs of who nutted inside her or in a fluffer
Can't believe the Fetterman song slapped THAT hard
The Democratic party never has any sense of direction as such until there’s a front runner in the Primary. This is always a rudderless time, as I remember. I guess Hillary was a regrettable exception. Peaceful protest…
Welcomefest brought to you by the people putting gray vinyl floors and brushed gold fixtures in every apartment
The grey vinyl makes me want to kms
I mean, the countryside does surround the city...
My skin was crawling when they were reading quotes from the body parts gummy lady. Democrats are lower than robots, at least AI has humanitarian guardrails in place, these freaks are heartless souless mechanical black holes.
Fetter Mang Lives!!
Pass the ban single guys amendment!!!
I'm going insane. I hate these abundance fuckers so much.
Felix begins speaking at 3 minutes and 15 seconds
Amazing Fetterman Song. Just pure gold
Dems gotta go. Unreformable
I don't believe they even care about zoning. What real person, even what *evil* person, wants to trade genocide for zoning? Evil people just support the genocide. These people would have us believe they are the fucking undead, gnawing on building permits instead of brains. More likely zoning is just a filler topic that no one else knows anything about, so the Ab-undead can use it to sound smart & wonkish to stupid rube liberals. They're Republicans but instead of playing "church" they play "science"!
I spent two years as a full time zoning researcher and I can confidently say that actual planning research is entirely disconnected from “the abundance movement”. I don’t think any of the welcome fest guys would be able to summarize a single paper in the field from the last 5 years
The Welcomfest freaks don't care about "data" at all, as you consistently point out, no amount of data will convince them to be on the right side of any issue. They pretend to be "smart" just like child-raping Republicans pretend to be "moral," because they are the exact same fucking people. It's Republicans all the way down. They're just fucking Republicans.
theyre republicans who like to lie to themselves about how racist they are
I had that cas mudde guy as a professor he was such a rude dickhead personally loll. Inspired my long-term hatred of the Dutch
Who is the girl that deeply hurt Felix who also takes a glass of water to bed. She has caught countless strays over the past couple years
He just hates her for not drinking soda
Welcomefest the prequel to Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go."
I DONT GOT A BALD HEAD JOHN FETTERMAN
Absolutely lost it at ‘body part gummies’
The only reason the convention was in a shitty hotel is because every donor was throwing a coin in the collection plate and then pulling it back on a little string tied to their finger like Scrooge McDuck
Lib gummies whose sole effect is making you do the Macarena 💀
That BBL stank
The Abundist Party “Being a Collaborator just means you’re reaching across the aisle!”
This Mud 'theory' of power sounds like a lot of other lib-centrist 'theories' - they can't avoid or admit that Marx was very accurate in his assessments, so they try to find some niche verbiage to make it sound different and avoid class analysis. 'pure people' and 'corrupt elites' allow them to sidestep Marxist ideas in a way that makes them comfortable, because the alternative is just right wing narratives about how people who look weird are destroying everything - and terminology like 'pure' and 'corrupt' can easily be interpreted for right wing narratives but libs can pretend it's not. It's this very weird tightrope act for an audience of like 5 people.
Man, they weren't kidding about MGP, she has a weird-ass voice kind of like Hailey Stevens here in MI
We need that track on youtube immediately!!!
It's been up for days, the algo was recommending it to me the other day but I didn't know what the hell it was
Nobody’s passionate about zoning laws? Okay buddy… speak for yourself. Shit’s HOT! Zoning, zones, zoners, the whole thing. That’s my bag
Why do all the foreigners need to go again? I thought it was wages... Now it's crime? Deport all the jaywalkers!
so dems and republicans have the exact same policies and opinions on immigrants got it…
it's like pitting Slate Star Codex as a moderate against the Moldbug extremists
I highly recommend reading SSC/Astral Codex Ten comments. A very very strange world. Steve Sailer (!) often comes across as the voice of reason only because he’s not completely detached from reality and vaguely understand how human beings operate.
The rare woman ep
What do you mean? Felix is on almost every episode.
Thinking back to when Ezra used the phrase “unproductive left-punching” when referencing himself and the abundance dorks
The irony of all this is that “normal people” hate zoning abolition, luxury apartment construction, and hand outs to developers. I’m a town official in NJ. 90% of the complaints people make around here are about overdevelopment, traffic, and rents. Curiously, nobody ever brings up hating trans people or supporting our partners in the Middle East.
The marines activated are 2/7 (2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st MarDiv) and are from 29 palms also known as the stumps. most line companies have a non-lethal platoon (consistently trains on crowd control, its leaders go to pertinent courses). But thats like 36 dudes. If 700 are going its the whole Battalion and its adjacent/supporting units. Maybe some MPs like will said but probs some motor t and ammo techs and engineers and arty, huge mix of combat arms and non-combat MOSs.
Also you can use marines.mil to look up who the senior enlisted and commanding officers for 2/7 are and you could probably find them on social media
Gonna need that RXK track available for download.
I saw at least one completely insane take that the Democrats were behind the riots and that this was just USAID style soft power inside American borders Like motherfucker do you know how long the LAPD has been at war with the city? You think Chuck Schumer is under NORAD waiting for the right moment to fire Woke Missiles?
There should be a standard heavy binder documenting the embedded cointelpro gladio nazi gangs peppered thru every major LEO org that could be thrown at any given shitass
The high point for MAGA was during the Great Depression and world wars? 😭😭
I don’t think Felix is supposed to have a high quality mic, it feels wrong. He should sound like he’s speaking from under a pile of blankets
Needs more phlegm
We have such abundance to show you
This sounds like spooks all the way down
Interviewer: “Ezra, I think we’re all wondering, what is ‘Abundance’ and what does it mean for me?” Ezra Klein: “You get too much Mudde you’re gonna need a Fawcett!”
Great now I'll have a song about fetterman in my head all day. Thanks
"We need to get conservatives on our side, so we need to act 'normal' and not make qanon theories about us. Now, where are my edible body parts?"
Farm to table barbershop
Please commission a song about the Liberal Driller.
chris im begging you please dont let will rant. why even have a guest lmao
Chris! I command you to rein in your ranting rabid dog!
Abundantly stupid if you ask me am I right!
Also Glutenkampf is playing off those rural WA voters but shes so annoying.
Coming from a rural WA listener.
Washington dems wants Glutenkampf gone. Trust me we all hate her.
Democrats are so bleak and depressing. Just a black hole with a tepid smile, so comfortable in their nothingness as reality screams muffled in the background
Fetterman track had me in tears, the line near the end about "you like 6'8" / white men can't jump to this day" killed me
groups
I like the episode overall. But please Boys! You really need a rolling pin intervention! Let a lady talk!
What a weird thing to write. I think her voice is fine.
I'm glad Matt's old tin can isn't going to waste
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez looks and sounds like she's trapped inside INLAND EMPIRE
she can only take her trash out every 3 months because she spends the rest of her time talking backwards into Bill Pullman's security cameras
Hot slop!
God I hate the dummyrats
just got finished listening to matt and felix talk about the sopranos again, heh, shit's classic. and also matt and felix and will and matt and felix and matt and will and will but matt and felix and felix.
TA and the House both coming up with bangers on Welxxxcum Fest lfg
I tried to go to WelcomeFest but the Chad wonk on the door said my lanyard was too short, called me a pussy and added my wife to his polycule 😩
Sloppy second
I’m not first
Girst and I’m fay
First and I’m gay