A GOOD START
OK, enough moping around. Here is a story about a speech Elizabeth Warren gave yesterday that I take to be a call to action. The simple fact is that she is a better messenger than Bernie and has a richer and more complex understanding of what is needed. Why not Warren in 2020?
Some Bernie supporters are quite mad she 1. failed to support Bernie during the Mass primary (which honestly could have given him the win if you look at the numbers), 2. Endorsed Hillary within seconds of Bernie losing, 3. is far too pro-Israel.
ReplyDeleteThis year I was glad Warren didn't run, because I think we need her too badly in the Senate, but by 2020, I have a feeling we'll definitely need her in the White House.
ReplyDeleteSince you mentioned Bernie, based on his interview with Colbert last night, he's going to seriously try to reform the Democratic party so that it is once again the party of the workers, the poor, and the elderly. Also, his book, "Our Revolution" comes out today.
(If only the "liberal elite", as Bernie called them, hadn't been such damn fools, Bernie might have gotten the nomination and been able to garner enough popular support to beat Trump; of course we'll never know, but why anyone thought a Hillary campaign was more likely to beat Trump is a mystery to me.)
Going to get Bernie's book in an hour! Hope it's not just pasted campaign speeches though....
ReplyDeleteI am proud of Warren for her work on economic issues affecting students and working-class people, and I voted for her. But must agree with Chris that Warren's foreign policy experience is lacking (and, where Israel is concerned, is awful). She has Ted Kennedy's old seat and this is who she is: an old-timey Hubert Humphrey Democrat.
ReplyDeleteAll the Democrats who supported Hillary, Netanyahu, al Sisi, the Saudis, voted for wars, supported the Patriot Act and pretended to conduct CIA investigations (I'm talking about you, Diane Feinstein) must stay in the Sinai desert for the next 40 years and may not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. Only a new generation of Democrats who have rehabilitated the party need apply.
If Warren stands with these New Democrats -- say, Keith Ellison -- then let her start making election noises in 2018. Otherwise it's just going to be the same old disappointing DNC.
I don't know, I don't know. At this point, an old timey Hubert Humphrey Democrat sounds pretty good! But it is early days. My mind is focused on Steve Bannon and the neo-Nazis in the White House nect door to the oval office. When the pogroms start, I hope Jared Kushner and Ivanka are hauled off in the first freight car! Maybe William Styron can come back from the grave to write a new version of Sophie's Choice in which Donald Trump is told he can save his daughter or his brand but not both.
ReplyDeleteFor your readers who don't also follow Brian Leiter's blog, here is what he has to say about Bannon and what we should do.
DeleteDespite Warren's apparently dodgy record on Israel/FP (about which I know nothing), I think she does stand with the more left wing of the party, against the monied interest wing of the party, despite endorsing Hillary and not Bernie. I can't make sense of her attacks on banks, her work on student loans, and the linked article about her recent speech, except if she truly is a leftist Democrat and not a corporate one.
ReplyDeleteProf, do you know enough about Dem party politics to offer an opinion on Ellison as DNC chair? What little I know of him makes me cautiously optimistic about that idea.
Just another FYI, Warren was a Republican throughout the 90s.
ReplyDeleteHere's Bernie on Steven Colbert:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-stephen-colbert_us_582acab1e4b02d21bbca7830
I think he not only hits it out of the park, he has the audience on their feet. If you watch the clip above (there are two segments), I think you would be hard pressed to find someone delivering the message, while taking Trumpism into account, in a more energizing and uplifting fashion. Both are great and maybe now Warren will stop calculating.
I would enthusiastically support Elizabeth Warren if she were to run for POTUS in 2020. But she'll be 71 by then. She knows that if she were to run, 2016 was the year. She chose the Senate seat.
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