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The author’s point seems to be that everyone exaggerates in a direction that best serves their desired political outcome. What he misses is the obvious — he exaggerates as well, in the direction of “moderation.” His desired outcome is that we all take a moderate approach, and the rhetorical device used to get there is that ‘crises are all exaggerated.’

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I'm not sure that is a fair characterization of his preferences. This is a guy who just wrote a book called "One Billion Americans" which argues that we should quadruple the US population through both pro-natalist policies and more immigration. I wouldn't really consider that a "moderate" position.

His other shtick though is "popularism" which is just that politicians should focusing on doing things that are broadly popular. It is (on my reading at least) not so much that this is "desirable" in a normative sense, but just that it is the only way to actually make progress.

It's an interesting idea. So much of the US is just uninhabited land. I could see such policies not leading to overcrowding, but rather to increased development and economic growth across the country, particularly if combined with something like the Homestead Act.

Your point is "people try to make compelling arguments". Well duh, but it's not an actual rebuttal.

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