Warren's clout

Warren's clout

by digby

My piece for Salon this morning is about Elizabeth Warren being called the "Ted Cruz of the left."  And why that's actually a good thing:

It was, perhaps, inevitable that at the first sign of progressive life in the congress, the beltway wags would seize the chance to declare that the left had formed itself into a destructive, partisan insurrection force within the Democratic Party. It’s been very uncomfortable for them these past couple of years to be unable to say “both sides do it” as the right wing took a swan dive into the rabbit hole, particularly in the face of GOP media companies that hold many purse strings. It’s not hard to imagine that many members of the establishment media have been fervently hoping for a return of the hippie left so they could relax a little bit, secure in the knowledge that they don’t have to take a side.

And so, one of the first things we saw from the political media were declarations that Elizabeth Warren is the Ted Cruz of the left. (Dana Milbank of the Washington Post patiently demurred, explaining that she isn’t the Ted Cruz of the left, she the equivalent of the equally daft extremist Jim DeMint. Whatever.) And progressives rushed to explain why that simply wasn’t so. How could it be? She isn’t insane!


The extent of Warren’s extremism is that she agrees with the vast majority of Americans of all political stripes that Wall Street has been behaving as a malign force in our society. And her allegedly shocking tactic was to try to persuade a bipartisan coalition of Senators who objected to a bill to vote against it. Why she might as well have worn a Che t-shirt and declared her fealty to Mother Russia. Comparing it to shutting down the government out of pique over Obamacare is just a little bit ridiculous. And insulting Citi-group is hardly comparable to Cruz comparing those who doubt the congress’ ability to overturn Obamacare to Hitler appeasers:

“Look, we saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain, who told the British people, ‘Accept the Nazis. Yes, they’ll dominate the continent of Europe but that’s not our problem. Let’s appease them. Why? Because it can’t be done. We can’t possibly stand against them.’ And in America there were voices that listened to that. I suspect those same pundits who say it can’t be done, if it had been in the 1940s we would have been listening to them. Then they would have made television. They would have gotten beyond carrier pigeons and beyond letters and they would have been on tv and they would have been saying, ‘You cannot defeat the Germans.’”

However, it’s a mistake for progressives to get defensive over this ... read on.

I go on to explain why the beltway wags, once again, have no understanding of the source of the Tea Party/far right's power --- and why Elizabeth Warren being seen as having that sort of power might be good for progressives.

In any case, progressives need to stop being defensive about everything. Warren's political style is different that what we've seen in recent years and needless to say, the Villagers are clueless about how to interpret it. This needs to play out before everyone starts running around protesting that Warren isn't really a threatening force. Right now it would be helpful if certain people understand that she is one.

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