I think you definitely have a good handle on the issue, but it's still hard to concede that these things can work as a binary. I think we need to discuss an order of operations to these two ideas, because Neo-libearalism is already leading the democratic party.

If you slot abundance in under Neo-liberalism you get a stripmined country with luxury infrastructure benefitting the top while the working class are left with decaying districts and landscapes.

If you start by replacing Neo-liberalism by taxing wealth not work as Populist redistribution, you get an empowered working and middle class. After five or ten years slot in an abundance agenda and you have created a fertile ground for equitable prosperity.

Instead of a housing development of twenty renters under one landlord, you have twenty home owners and the deserved rights that come with that. Most millennials will aim to power their home by solar and run an electric car from that while also powerfully lobbying for public transport. Meanwhile in the neoliberal system, the landlord is running each building off of gas and any lobbying from the renters is completely futile as transient inhabitants.

Pools of wealth will appear in long forgotten communities because with their hard earned wealth people can return back to the places they grew up and communities will develop there, creating jobs funded by local people. Local journalism could even return as more people will have the wealth, power and optimism to be engaged with the community.

It's a cart before the horse scenario where Democrats are backing the cart of abundance, promising the horse of Populism that he'll eventually take the lead. Before they get to that though they're much more likely to shoot the horse and replace it with a new Tesla Cyborg Horse that they're proud to have bankrolled.