Seems to me your trying to fish and cherry pick comments from prior beliefs years ago. People and their beliefs change and grow overtime, it should be allowed. Not to mention the policies Elizabeth Warren wanted in the past were to be used for good, not to be twisted around and have loopholes abused by institutions and politicians of disrepute for their personal gain. Plus your title starting with when, implies and is in the past. This was a puff piece meant to divert our attention away from an excellent candidate and the only female front runner. I guess the demonization of Elizabeth Warren has officially begun. thanks a lot for starting it, now let's see you demonize Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders next, I won't hold my breath ...
22
Re-shaping policy proposals into forms that increase their likely acceptance and broaden their appeal is not wrong. That’s why politics used to be called, “the art of the compromise”.
11
Talk about "boilerplate." Talk about "predictable."
"The 2003 book is intellectually unpredictable and alive. The new introduction is paint-by-numbers progressive boilerplate."
It's just like you, David, to be in love with a book published 16 years ago, and even more like you to resort to hackneyed phrases with no evidence to prove that Warren's well-researched policy initiatives would not be successful. Your reckless, unsupported remark that she blames all our problems on "greedy bankers" is Exhibit A. Why does the NYT let you get away with such groundless assertions? Enjoy your conservative nostalgia, but times have changed drastically since 2003. Thankfully, Elizabeth Warren--unlike you--has continued to evolve and the evidence she cites every day of her campaign (she is the most knowledgeable and best prepared candidate) supports that. Do your homework and don't get left behind.
18
Oh Paul Brooks is at it again. Cultivating a tone of reasonableness, but trying desperately to find something, anything, with which to throw shade on Elizabeth Warren.
10
@Guy
Oops, it's David, sorry.
2
Sounds to me as though you are looking for ways to disparage Elizabeth Warren, who is the one candidate who has involved herself in thought, teamwork, and action, to come up with action plans for many of the significant problems in the United States today.
Rather than attempting to poke holes in a person's rhetoric, quoting things out of context, or acknowledging we all change with time, why don't you come up with some productive ideas to promote the welfare of Americans, yourself ? We can all take quotes out of context to try to prove a point, that's very, very easy, and available for lazy guys at a whim. I know this: you have come up with way fewer plans to help the American public than Elizabeth Warren has come up with.
And you know what -- unfortunately your essay assumes results toward one of the ideas that Republicans have been taking advantage of for the past 30 years -- "Well, if she's no different from the rest, then I might as well vote for whom I am told to vote for, the guy who is already in office, etc...." Bogus, my friend, bogus. And Anti-Democracy.
Elizabeth Warren is a hard worker, and is the only candidate who has multiple plans to address significant problems that are faced by citizens of the United States of America today.
I will listen to you when you match her in intellect and plans to improve our country.
19
The school voucher thing is tricky and I would be curious to see Warren's views on this. Vouchers can be done only if there is an agreement on the part of participating schools to accept any student with voucher in hand without additional tuition. If this is not done then private schools will raise the tuition the approximate amount of the voucher. Why? Many private schools are desirable because of the people they keep out. If you let these students in with vouchers, there is no palpable difference between the private and the public. Private schools, generally speaking, exist for the convenience of those who can afford them. Warren knows this of course but her reasoning doesn't appear in today's column. Can we blame this on public or private schools or perhaps clever rhetoric? Ah education, where would we be without you?
2
Exactly which facts, Mr Brooks, have gone out the window as Elizabeth Warren became slave to leftist orthodoxy (in your eyes) If Ms Warren has changed her thinking on housing regulation since 2003, we need more information on what specific regulations she opposed. Maybe she was being a softie on the NIMBYs, who have to stop pretending it's 1963 and they're entitled to apartment free neigborhoods.in Or maybe her thinking has changed as it has become clearer that allowing huge corporate developers to build whatever they like ( which means factually high end housing = bigger profits) has resulted in horrible housing squeezes for those with low and middle level incomes in so many urban areas. Frankly you generalize too much with too few facts.
12
Right, banks. the ones her Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fought and won back money for. So, Mr. Brooks?
14
Elizabeth Warren is the best of the candidates by a mile. Perfect, no. But the best easily. Read her books, folks.
18
I hope the Warren campaign responds in writing to correct the record and lay waste to this drivel from Brooks. Warren is so far and away superior in intellect and morality than DeVos. Brooks is being disingenuous and just wants to make noise now that Warren is making gains in the polls.
25
More than drivel, I say. Brooks has a clever way of arguing that, behind it all, has supported the conservative right and undermines the center and liberals for years.
When in a pinch, he reverts to some form of ‘erudite’ discourse on some arcane philosophical topic to woe unsuspecting others into to his ‘fair-minded’ opinion approach. He has knocked Trump, but only late in the game. But watch as he attempts to dismantle other true and honorable Americans like Warren.
15
David, I know you are not resposible for what the headline writer writes, but you should weigh in where, as here, it is misleading. The fact that Ms. Warren and Ms. DeVos both approved vouchers at one time does not mean that Ms. Warren "agreed with Betsy DeVos." "Vouchers" can work in diffferent ways in different contexts. If I actually "agree" with you I'll say "I agree with David Brooks about [whatever]." Until then, we may be saying something similar, but I'm not actually "agreeing" with you.
9
David, I'm better informed now than I was in 2003. Sometimes, better information leads me to change my mind. What do you do?
16
Mr. Brooks is quite right. The main thing is not to blame those so-called "greedy bankers"--whose fraudulent and lucrative speculations triggered the 2008 global economic collapse. No banker went to jail. Instead, they were rewarded with trillions of the workers taxes, pumping the financial markets in "quantitative easing," while the workers in 2019 still get a $7.25 an hour . . . Now the billionaires are choosing which candidates we will be allowed to choose as "our" elected leader in 2020. Opportunistic politicians like Warren still think they can doubletalk the people. But young voters understand there is no reforming capitalism. They will vote for Socialism and Sanders.
3
Since the book, the charter schools have been proven to be worse than many public schools in many places. They continue to try to get public money and avoid the regulations and standards that public schools must follow. This is true in Michigan where DeVoss is from. The best charter schools cherry pick the best students and do not accept children with special needs. They are closed to all comers, but still want public funding. It is unfair for tax money to support them. In addition, they close without notice due to poor profits and in areas with few choices stay open even though they do not meet standards. So yes, Warren is smart to change what she supports based on the current reality.
15
Motives matter, and Warren's couldn't be more different from DeVos's.
"The Two Income Trap" is (still) a wonderful book in which Warren goes behind reflexive applause for the NEED for two incomes, and uncovers the dramatic effect this has had on asset prices, especially housing prices.
She is in deep and informed sympathy with the vast majority of American families in suggesting ways to detach high quality public education from high housing prices. Warren attended public school! She wants access to good public schools not to depend on zip code. She is not trying to use public monies to fund an alternate system of private education, as De Vos would like to see.
10
By the way, David, providing loans for college also bid-up the cost of college. So what do we do?
3
The problem with Elizabeth Warren is that she's a phony. If the democrats want to nominate that, good luck then. Everyone considering her should take a look at her instagram video shortly after she announced her candidacy, it's a real treat. I loved it when she said "I'm gonna get me a beer!"
Is that what she thinks of the everyday voter? I was embarrassed for her.
8
Dear Mr. Brooks: Spend your time and talent on things other than the presidential horse race, which is beneath you, I presume. My goodness, the scope and breadth and depth of change are (almost) unimaginable. Write about that! Write to enlighten.
1
In 2003 David Brooks was writing columns for Bill Kristol's Weekly Standard. In one Brooks celebrated GWB's awesome adventure in Iraq while lambasting liberal Iraq War critics as "Bush haters" who he said occupy "dream palaces" as fanciful as those of Saddam.
Brooks rigid and continued adherence to the dream palaces of rigid right wing ideology brought us DeVos and the Trump administration.
18
If the families move to less costly neighborhoods, how will the kids get to and get in the better schools that are no longer close by?
Are public "servants" not permitted to change their minds or policies over time? Didn't someone once say "When circumstances change, I change"?
Of all Trump's enablers, hangers-on and lackeys, DeVos is probably the worst.
13
Mark, we call them either grifters or rent seekers.
4
A column almost all about the well-known positions of Sen. Warren is headlined to generate click bait without substance.
The Times should be above such disingenuousness, but apparently is not.
Pretty weak stuff.
7
So what's your point, Mr. Brooks? Politics is the art of the possible. Duh!
5
This just seems unhelpful. Is it really surprising that as Elizabeth Warren has become a more experienced and worldly politician, her views have changed? You cite a book that she published 16 years ago. I would be alarmed if her views had NOT changed at all. Luckily, they have changed for the better.
16
Thank you for getting me to read the new introduction to “The Two- Income Trap.” You say it "describes a comic book world, in which everything bad can be blamed on greedy bankers." First response: that is a fairly standard Republican reaction to anything even mildly progressive. Second response: book was originally published in 2003. New intro seems a rational response to 2008 greedy-bankers' recession. That didn't cause everything bad, but certainly enough to justify Warren's demand for fundamental change.
15
An all vouches system means the end of church and state regarding education. In the past if a family wanted the teacher to teach religion you paid, if the voucher system is it your public money to send as you wish, separation ends, and soon or later employers will be able to demand religious loyalty of employees.
4
I have been reading your column for years,with amusement on how you and your kind view the world of racism. The GOP spread the myth that the financial crisis was based on poor people buying homes they couldn't afford etc etc. Anything poor people especially minorities did created the Wall Street melt down. Not the entitled white hedge fund managers and there kind.
Elizabeth set the white story straight. Wall Street the banks were upset because a white person was telling everyone the truth. The next melt down is going to be because of the regulations thrown out the window by the white boys and by this administration of greed.
Betsy, if her family wasn't rich she would never have gotten thru high school because she certainly is dumb and thinks Americans are dumb. However she is doing a bang up job with making sure girls cant cry racism, Veterans who sacrificed their lives for this country have to pay their debt before they die, religion needs to be in every classroom. Another bigot with blond hair.
Ms. Warren needs a concrete policy to restore faith back in public schools not based on Betsy or Randi Weingarten who are in love with the status quo. Both Betsy and Randi especially Randi has done noting to address the intrusion of Betsy corporate America on education and both dont intend to do anything.
How do you control the minority population? make sure they get an inferior education. Betsy and Randi have ensured the success of that program over decade
8
As to be expected…however few and far between…whenever The New York Times publishes an intellectually honest, politically impartial and “arm’s-length” OPINION on whatever subject, those on the so-called “progressive left” go berserk.
Now all of a sudden the long-time progressive columnist, David Brooks, is a “regressive”, a “pusillanimous hack” and his opinion “rings false and hollow”...simply because he dares to reflect on Elizabeth Warren’s earlier more “heterodox” beliefs (a-la Betsy DeVos, school vouchers, etc.) to her current, hardline “progressive” stand on education. Oh, really?
With that kind of resounding endorsement, I’d say that The New York Times Opinion Section has finally got it right!
5
Poor David Brooks, he is like Diogenes, always searching for an honest Republican.
9
David you wrote, “conforms to rigid ideology”. Is that not your middle name. You are still awash at a
Sea looking for party to conform to your failed rigid ideology
5
Oh, David. You tut-tut over the orthodoxy of the vibrant left meanwhile the alt-right & RINO carpetbaggers burn the house down with their do-or-die rhetoric.
Get your story straight here. Are we supposed to be shocked that the solution space of 2020 looks nothing like years prior?
5
This is quintessential David Brooks, seeing the rest of as needing repair, smugly critical of the absurdity of having a worldview different from David Brook's.
Elizabeth Warren for president. Betsy DeVos for banishment to oblivion with the rest of her ignoramus, white nationalist cohorts.
11
Is David Brooks tipping his hat to the neo-cons in the American Enterprise Institute?
"Conservatives like to claim Elizabeth’s ideas in The Two-Income Trap line up with their private school voucher proposals. America Rising and the American Enterprise Institute claim Elizabeth and Betsy DeVos’ voucher proposals were the same, but this isn’t true."
https://facts.elizabethwarren.com/elizabeth-warren-never-supported-private-school-vouchers/
I think that Mr. Brooks is perhaps following a bit of "Party Line" here as part of his balancing act to remain a serious "Conservative" NYTimes columnist.
2
Yet another bizarre column by David Brooks. He accuses Sen. Warren of changing from being openminded and evidence based to being an orthodox ideologue. This, when in reality Mr. Brooks is the inflexible ideologue who has adhered lockstep to right wing Republican principles despite the four decades of evidence of their failure. Brooks abhors Donald Trumps boorish behavior but he agrees with the vast majority of his policies. He has tried to rebrand himself as a 'moralist' despite his questionable personal behavior and ideological advocacy. Brooks still upholds the cause of privatizing public education despite the fact that it has mostly been a scam to profit pirates. Perhaps one day David will look in the mirror and see a true hypocrite.
8
David,
I have been reading your columns for over 15 yrs. You, yourself have evolved in your thinking. What are you saying? That we should believe in what we believed in rigidly 15 or 20 yrs ago? That growing with the dictates and needs of times is a negative mark? Times have changed. Our country's needs have changed, the disparity between haves and have nots is greater now than it has ever been (a lot different than 15 years ago). And so, isn't it crucial that we update our thinking and solutions to meet these challenges.
I think you are worried that she may get the nomination. She is super smart, super qualified, can relate like no other politician and very likeable (a requirement far more stringent for a woman than a man). Please help, not destroy qualified candidates. Otherwise, you will help re-elect the liar in chief.
7
I like the phrase David Brooks uses: "The new introduction is paint-by-numbers progressive boilerplate."
The same could be said about his columns: paint-by-numbers conservative boilerplate.
9
Good Sir, have you ever even listened to Betsy DeVoss!? The contrast of that bird brain to the well educated, well informed, well thought through arguments of Professor Warren is like night and day! Even if they have happened to say something at some point their motives are vastly different so the implementation would not be the same.
8
David,
You have zero to add to the political discourse. You won't keep quiet until you have Trump re-elected, which you helped him the first time.
I don't even know what you are, a conservative who blankets your thoughts with furtive analysis of liberal thought, but you don't really believe any of it.
4
Shorter Bobo: I used to agree w the Professor, but now that she has grown and matured, I remain a petulant little sniffle.
4
Juxtaposing Elizabeth Warren’s name with Betsy Devos’ in the same sentence reveals either a desire to provoke or a incredible shallowness of thought after a supposed lifetime of learning.
5
I guess in David Brooks’s world, no one ever changes their opinion when they receive new evidence.
2
David Brooks: always straining to create a false equivalency between Democrats and Republicans, because he knows Republicans are the real criminals in this country.
6
The headline led me to expect David Brooks to compare Warren’s published ideas to De Vos’s published ideas. Instead, we get a book report on Warren’s 2003 book, and a single assertion in the 9th paragraph about De Vos.
Come on, NYT! You used to do better!
3
"Electability" just means "I like her, but I expect those misogynist bigots won't."
Can we finally stop tiptoeing around the bigot vote?
4
Brooks--you must really be threatened by what Warren brings to the table--for you to create this false equivalency.
6
Mr. Brooks should move to Grand Rapids, Michigan. We have thousands upon thousands copies of Betsy DeVos. They come both in female and male versions.
2
It seems to me that Warren is only interested in getting elected. When something doesn’t work she just changes direction, and what she’s to the public is not necessarily what she conveys to the Democratic leadership. She maybe the penultimate politician of all.
3
Warren looked at the results from charter schools (which were novel in 2003) and found that those schools do not accomplish what she's hoped they'd accomplish. Instead of creating better outcomes for children, they create roughly the same outcomes, but for much more money.
She then changed her position on them.
I can see how Mr. Brooks might find all this confusing, having never once changed his mind based on new evidence. (Is he still cheering on the Iraq War? How 'bout trickle-down economics? No?)
9
I'm so thankful that there is a candidate that learns.
5
Elizabeth, I love you. I hope you lead my neighbor country to real human values, away from the religious views of politics.
5
I just read the new introduction that Sen. Warren wrote and David Brooks disparages, I believe Mr. Brooks has badly mischaracterized it.
To start with, from the new intro it is not clear Warren has abandoned her views on K-12 education. Her current proposals focus on college and college debt. Yet Mr. Brooks makes it sound as if the new intro takes a pencil eraser to her former public education policies. Not so.
Yes, the "Two income Trap" advocates vouchers, but only as part of a universal public-education system. Quite different than DeVos' support of for-profit schools. Warren was teacher before she was a lawyer, and is a defender of public education. The headline to the Brooks piece is badly out of synch with this reality.
At any rate, Warren's book was published in 2003, the new intro in 2016. A 13-year gap can hardly be called a "flip-flop" (and anyway I don't notice a flip, much less a flop).
Nearly all of Warren's new introduction deals with the 2007 Great Recession. I think it is pretty clear by now that, yes, the largest financial calamity since the Great Depression was largely the fault of "greedy bankers." That's mostly what Warren writes about in the new intro. Appropriately so.
I just can't believe that Mr. Brooks would take Warren's comments about our banking system completely out of context to make her seem like she is a former fellow-traveler of Besty Devos.
5
“When facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” (Attributed most often to J.M. Keynes.)
It would seem Warren’s views on education have evolved and deVos’s haven’t.
3
Thank you for input, David Brooks. I am certain Elizabeth Warren is, without your help, too dense, ignorant and self-centered to take anything into account, whether it's someone else's perception of her political image or her campaign strategy. There can be no question either she or her staff have ever considered the idea someone might disagree with her. And it is unfathomable to think she might not be willing to bend herself like putty to accommodate every possible point of view.
Surely, she appreciates your invaluable advice, regarding things which never would have occurred to her without your column.
Now, about that Alaskan waterfront property...
2
Most teachers and education professionals are fine with the principle of charter schools.Many public school districts have created their own charters as laboratories for experimentation and choice.
But they are adamantly opposed to the DeVos model of throwing public money at any bucket shop which submits a hope-based proposal. That led to chaos and fraud in Betsy's Michigan.
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/06/22/michigan-spends-1b-on-charter-schools-but-fails-to-hold/77155074/
Tear yourself away from the Applebees' salad bar and do a little more research than dueling quotes dropped in your lap by some friendly free market paper mill.
(Did it have a Mackinac Center letterhead, by any chance?)
2
Scratch the oh-so-self-righteous Warren, find a “government is the answer” academic supported by the moonie or wing of the party.
She’s:
McGovern
Dukakis
Rolled into one. She’ll be a big hit in Ohio. But Massachusetts will love her. She and her far left cohorts value ideological purity over electability. Four more years of deranged Trump.
1
Such a shallow last two paragraphs...there was an event
between '03 and '16 that, of course, goes unmentioned
in this op-ed of astonishing superficiality. The crash of '08 the author might recall? The crash of '08 was caused by what? and by whom?
Perhaps the op-ed author might be able to recall the few
basic structural issues?
Perhaps Warren's vision of our contemporary miseries,
afflicting far too many, has something to do with
her understanding how they were created
by those culprits of the '08 crash?
You know...those "greedy bankers".
That is not a mere comic book story. That was real life, inhabited by many who did really bad things, due to greed,
that were, perhaps, not necessarily "illegal". But I'm not
a criminal lawyer either...
Warren has thought rigorously and deeply about that big nightmarish event in the middle of this 15 year period. To reduce her analysis, whose partial overview was the basis for the second introduction, to "progressive boilerplate" is as insulting as it is insipid and devoid of any critical thought.
5
Reliable Brooks.
The firehouse is on fire, because his Republican firemen of choice fired up the grill next to the pile of oily rags by the oil tank - many put there by Republican apologists like himself.
But David is mostly concerned because the water being thrown onto the flames is tap water, not Evian, demonstrating flawed character in the person actually trying to put the fire out, as the Republican firemen stand around, saying "Wow, man!"
5
How about an evidence-based opinion piece? Brooks quotes very little from the 2003 book and nothing from the new introduction. And he fails to point out that the book was written before the Great Recession of 2008; it's not improbable that a thoughtful person's views on the ethics of an economy in which the most powerful are bailed out, leaving the most vulnerable to pick up the pieces would have changed.
3
It's unbelievably difficult to run for national political office nowadays since the opposition is always out to discredit and malign you. The presence of social media has only exacerbated this. A woman running for President faces far more scrutiny while carrying the nearly impossible burden of simultaneously demonstrating the toughness and aggression of a male while maintaining her femininity and maternal instincts. Likability as a measure of a candidate's worthiness of the office of the Presidency seems to play a much larger role with female candidates than male ones. Some polls of both men and women from all age groups and levels of education have revealed that many Americans are less comfortable with a woman in the number one position. Ms. Warren, like all of the current Democratic candidates and nearly anyone in this country with a pulse, would make a far better and legitimate President than Donald Trump. If Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris were to win the Democratic nomination, will those blatant or latent misogynistic leanings of enough of the electorate help re-elect Trump when votes are ultimately cast?
4
Some people evolve, some stagnate. Elizabeth Warren has evolved. People who think, can review and change.
5
While I don't agree with a significant portion of Warren's proposals, most are well founded, and even many of those I disagree with are obviously structured with significant thought.
One thing you have to understand with Warren is that her life has been a journey. From her own admission, she was a pretty much standard Republican for many years (before the mentioned report). Since then she's questioned a lot of other things, most quite sensibly.
A great example is school vouchers. The best equivalent I can think of to that is for-profit college, which DeVos is predictably in love with. Would you defend those as a great benefit to education? Most of us would not. And several people who have studied vouchers and school choice (including former proponents) have decided that they're a bad idea. They often cause separation of students by religion or other categories, they hurt public schools (private schools can choose the best students, leaving the rest to languish at under-funded public schools), and several studies suggest that they work no better than public schools.
While I'd actually agree with you on some points, overall I'd take Warren over most any of the Democrats running (worries about electability aside), and almost any Republican in the entire country.
5
Freedom Lost, Men are Less Equal
Senator Warren has always blamed corporations. She has now embraced the full Feminist Agenda of having government coerce corporations and institutions to do what government may not do directly.
At the state of the union address, the white clad ladies stood when Mr. Trump stated that 57% of all new jobs went to women. No one questions why only 43% went to men - particularly since they suffered the most since 2008. What say Warren about male employment? Are they paid too much or should they suffer because women work for too little?
Abortion is a basic issue for the left, but the courts and the legislatures have not spoken about a man's right to procreate. Should a man that plants his seed with consent have a right to withhold consent from a planned abortion of his unborn child? Perhaps only women have a right to procreate because they are not capable of consenting to the obvious risk of pregnancy.
All employers in New York State and elsewhere are required by state law to force all employees to watch 45 minutes of video on sexual harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation.
1. The indoctrination process begins by requiring the reporting of all offences even if considered trivial by some. Turning the other cheek is not allowed.
2. The employer or institution is required to investigate itself or risk sanctions.
3. The target of the investigation has no right to due process.
1
Warren's "breakthrough moment" was a public relations one ONLY. (Going from 6th to 3rd place is a positive fluctuation that most of the candidates have enjoyed at one point in time.) The real breakthrough was when her campaign signalled to the corporate media two weeks ago (or before) that she was pushing for a "revival", rather than a political "revolution". The prospect that she will play ball with the political and corporate establishment is pretty compelling considering that she switched from being a Republican only in the mid 90's - and presumably voted for Reagan... twice (as I'm sure David Brooks did).
4
As far as Elizabeth Warren is concerned: it is better to know who you are now than who you were.
We need to study, learn and adapt to move forward. Warren gets that. She exemplifies true leadership.
11
There is no perfect candidate. But Warren will look out for the middle and poor classes. The Republicans won't.
10
Right, and trump was once a Democrat and the GOP was once a serious, responsible political party. What's your point? Betsy DeVos is basically a lobbyist looking out for the interests of the predatory for-profit education industry. Debates about vouchers are totally irrelevant at this point. Public education is under attack together with civic virtue and basic decency.
7
Things have gotten worse since 2003 — for example, greedy bankers and corporations have become more so, and Citizens United has given them even more power — and that could be why Elizabeth Warren's policy positions have changed.
I'm reminded of an anecdote I once read, wherein a former student visited his old economics professor and happened to spot an exam on his desk. Hey, he said, these are the same questions you asked us 20 years ago. Yes, his professor answered, BUT the answers are different.
1
What about personal responsibility? When families now had two incomes, who told them to go out and get a more expensive house? If they had new debt what was it for? Nicer cars, or just basic necessities. This is not a good enough explanation.
3
And eventually, I sighed deeply and with incredible reluctance voted for Trump because you Democrats just would not consent to nominate a candidate that Frank, and Bret and I could agree was the one most suited to our taste. This is all your fault.
5
Remember when Donald Trump agreed with Elizabeth Warren? He said he would provide better, cheaper, health care, and everybody would be covered. This was only a few years ago, not 15 years ago. Intelligent people's ideas do evolve over time. I suppose Trump would argue he is one hundred times smarter than Warren, because his ideas evolve every time he talks to a different crowd.
6
This is one of the questions I always have regarding Bernie Sanders, both on college and health policy: “Are state governments supposed to write a blank check for higher education, allowing universities to increase costs with abandon?”
The left and the right's positions on health care largely amount to who's paying, not so much on what we are paying for. Medicare for all will not fix a medical system that is already overpriced and is largely based on symptom-fixing (too often with pills) rather than root-cause fixing.
4
It's a primary season. If Warren were to get the nomination, perhaps she and her daughter would republish again and revert back to the original introduction. Or maybe Biden could adopt a lot of those policies she advocates in the book.
2
David Brooks liked Elizabeth Warren better when she wasn’t all political and everything!
I like her better as a committed progressive!
She saw the light and he hasn’t. But Brooks has shown an ability to be flexible and it’s not to late for him to write another column supporting her bid to wrest our government from the corporate elite and give more Americans a chance at raising great families.
2
A few obvious Devos / Warren differences: Devos actively seeks to undermine public schools in favor of for-profit and Devos actively seeks to promote religious schools that will not teach evolution, the Big Bang, and climate science. And of course Devos has never reconsidered anything.
7
This message board is rife with hate for Trump and by association - for conservatives. As an Independent who has voted for both parties, I find this counter-productive, morally inept and ill informed. It has become far too simple for those on the right to malign the left and the left to malign the right - all with broad strokes and never allowing for a diversity of thought. In this forum, those who have dared to criticize Elizabeth Warren have been met with a flurry of nasty comments and silly statements about "fairness". Fairness is a not objective. What's fair to one person may not be to another. I for one like my employer sponsored healthcare and do not support Medicare for all. Some here would call that morally wrong. I say the market works best when we have choices, not a single system. But even if you have full conviction in your point of view, allowing for reasonable dialogue in disagreement only serves to better our collective understanding and appreciation for one another. Democrats are becoming just as bad as Republicans - everyone is going low. It's a shame.
74
@John , I am curious to know how many healthcare choices your employer gives you? I have worked for companies small and large, and I don't recall ever have more than two choices - the PPO, or the PMO. The insurer wasn't chosen by me, it was chosen by my employer. I am also curious to know if you are happy with the ever-escalating cost of healthcare? Not so long ago, everyone was very concerned with the cost of their healthcare, and now all of the sudden I hear people saying that they want healthcare to stay the way it is. It just seems odd to me.
45
@John, I'll bet you like your employer-sponsored healthcare a lot less now than you did 10 years ago. If you are like most people, you are paying much more out-of-pocket now than you used to, as well as being faced with the potential for huge, surprise medical bills if you were to, for example, receive emergency room care at an in-network hospital, but by doctors who are out of network. Healthcare isn't really a market. It is a hodgepodge of separate markets, each with their own bureaucracy, rules, marketing expenses, profits, and adverse incentives to provide efficient and effective care. That's why our healthcare system costs more per capita, by far, than any other country. While at the same time leaving 10's of millions with no insurance at all.
36
@John … Employer-sponsored healthcare is a result of abnormal employment conditions created by the demands of fighting World War II. It is an anomaly. No other major industrialized country manages healthcare in this way. It also happens to be a tax dodge for corporations and distorts the job market. It is also an obstacle to universal healthcare of any sort. As such, it is unaffordable.
35
It is only a surprise that people with new information change positions to those who never do. It is considered an inconsistency only to those who are steadfast in their misconceptions despite evidence to the contrary. In other words, ideologues like DeVos, who has probably never entertained an original concept in her life. If Brooks can’t see a difference between Elizabeth Warren and Betsy DeVos, there is little hope for him.
6
Correct if I'm wrong, but didn't Warren also write a book (and create a documentary) based on empirical evidence, showing that greed in the banking industry WAS in fact causing mass misery for working people in this country?
Aren't her accusations about "greedy bankers" not based on "rigid ideology", but on evidence of how exploited debtors are in this country, especially those with a lot of credit card debt?
9
My neighbor's arthritic bulldog would be a better President than Donald Trump. If David Brooks spent his time, energy, and column inches prioritizing the faults of the members of the Democratic and Republican parties and candidates in the proportion that each merits, he would never get around to the Democrats, because before he did, he would be dead of old age.
5
dear Mr Brooks,
Before posting here, I should really read both versions of the intro you are criticizing, but your critique appears a bit facile without any specifics on what you are incensed about.
I could easily imagine, for instance, that the battles Warren fought between 2003 and 2016 could have informed her change in tone at least as much as political expediency.
3
The main reason public education is less affordable is NOT because state governments are spending more on it. It is because they are spending LESS.
A study of the matter concluded that 75% of the increase in costs of public universities has been caused by the reduction in state funding since the Housing Crisis of 2008 and recession that ended in 2009.
The other 25% came from spending on new facilities, and could be considered wasteful. But studies of today's students show that outdated facilities turn them off and make them want to go elsewhere, so public universities feel they must spend on such facilities.
7
Yes, and Trump used to be a democrat. People change. Can we just support an excellent candidate whom even you could agree would be a vast improvement over the current occupant of the White House?
8
It is exhausting reading all the formerly Republican pundits opine on the failings of Democratic candidates for President. Seriously, dude, you should spend the rest of your life writing about the evils of the Republican Party, starting with Newt Gingrich and maybe Lee Atwater before him. I don't get it - the class of writers who were so wrong for so many years and have now changed their minds about being a Republican are finding fault with Democratic candidates who move on to more liberal ideas for moving on? BTW, the Consumer Protection Bureau that Warren gave birth to says it all to me. A singular achievement that outweighs anything else in her past.
11
Lord Brooks:
You are not the only one who has noticed a shift, a significant shift, in the plans that Senator Warren seems to have for everything.
I am not at all concerned that her views have evolved over the 15 years since the book was written. Obama famously "evolved" on gay marriage.
What concerns me is her playing footsie with Fraud Street and the banksters. She will not accept "corporate" money in the primaries but will in the general if she is the nominee. She has quietly told the investor class that she does not propose a revolution---just a few changes. Not that far off from what Biden told them, "Your lives won't change if I'm President."
She speaks about the need to address climate change and then proposes one of the worst possible policies to truly do something about it. Her plan to enact taxpayer funded, state sponsored daycare. She calls it universal pre-K. There is nothing that will reduce climate change more than a severe reduction in breeding. Yet, Warren proposes a plan to make having children more affordable. Yikes!
Would I vote for Warren over Trump? In a nanosecond. Will I vote for her in the primary? Extremely doubtful.
4
Any job that pays less than $30,000 a year is a trap - especially if you are the single-wage earner and/or a woman. There are no national child care centers nor are there national nursing homes. Child care and elder care both fall to already-working women. (Add low wages with no support and see what you get.)
Two-incomes is one reason why we no longer live in a polite society. Children need care and attention. Not all children respond well to group child care. There is nothing like a mother’s love and concern. Too bad the moral majority, family values political party didn’t do something about this!
The problem I have with Senator Warren today is that she tried to make the changes she saw we needed through government service. For example, as much as we needed new law, I think her time and attention would have been better spent running a private nonprofit consumer protection board funded by progressive donors instead of funding a political campaign that may be all for naught.
I think Warren is an extremely capable, thoughtful and caring intellectual who may get my vote. Betsy DeVos isn't any of these things. My opinion on school vouchers is that they threaten public education. But there are many, many opinions to consider in the universe of ideas, and I try to be willing to listen. I'd prefer a universe where the same stars might be shared by more than one constellation. The current cosmology, however, consists of black holes on the left and the right.
I think Brooks isn't comparing DeVos and Warren. I think he's just remarking that light doesn't escape a black hole.
65
@Jersey John
Brooks is in a real quandary, as his previous essays have indicated. He despises Trump, but can’t support a progressive. He’d love to see the Professor/Senator implode and leave the field to middle-of-the-road Biden. Not gonna happen. She may not be perfect, but she’s the real deal.
16
@Cloud 9 Thanks for opening the door to this discussion of very important topics. I just keep thinking that the Dems will loose this election because of arguments from the likes of Brooks. In the 2016 election, that broad viewpoint bomb of crediting many progressive ideas came from many columnists, including Dowd. On the opposing side, the denigration of a strong candidate ended up paying the price. What we had when the rubble cleared was the election of our present toddler and chief. No matter who the candidate is, I implore the Dems to vote unifyingly and not split the Democratic vote. We have demonstrated on the streets and proved it can be done. Otherwise it's a redo of '16. Vote the bums out, vote Democrat in 2020. Have a nice post Labor Day celebration week.
9
Let the Warren-bashing begin!
To paraphrase Brooks: "Warren is just like Betsy DeVos, one of Trump's most hated cabinet members."
I guess republicans are now realizing that Warren is indeed a threat to their leash-holders, the big-moneyed interests.
9
@Birbal; agreed.
1
Maybe.
Or perhaps the issue is that the coporatocracy is siphoning off ever larger portions of the economy and leaving scraps for regular Americans.
I seem to be seeing more and more references to the Gilded Age, perhaps because we have allowed the folks who favor unfettered markets have been granted too much leeway. The previous Gilded Age collapsed because greed had been allowed to outvote common sense and decency. I’m guessing that we have gone too far down the same path for this one to end quietly, but maybe, if we start soon, we can take actions that will soften the blow.
“Greed is good,” claimed Gordon Gekko as he shamelessly plundered to advance his interests. Maybe up to a point, this is true. Yet if we have allowed too much greed to cause our society to fall out of kilter in a way that favors a select few to the detriment of the many, then maybe it isn’t working mothers that is the problem.
Trump got elected because regular Americans felt they had lost their place in the economy. We need to get that back. Working mothers haven’t taken it, giant corporations have, and those corporations have been supported by the Republican Party.
Greed had gone too far, and regular Americans need to join together and vote to reel it back in.
6
Mr. Brooks's partisan needle is very subtle. When you get down to it, he shows his colors as a vicious hack. If he's concerned about mindless tribalism, why isn't he in the vanguard of an army elf-identified ""true conservatives" working their tails off to wrest the GOP nomination from the persistent prevaricator who sits at the head of their party and our government? Or supporting a "true conservative' third party candidacy that will help end this iimposter's incumbency? Is it because He has too many friends who are greedy bankers, living high on the latest tax cuts?
5
Elizabeth Warren, as phony as Obama and as calculating as Clinton.
She might actually get the nomination and even win the general election, but she will be just as disastrous and ineffective as Obama, and the backlash to another failed Democratic presidency will be much worse than Trump. No, thanks.
Bernie/Tulsi 2020.
4
"When Elizabeth Warren Agreed With Betsy DeVos
How a heterodox professor became a predictable candidate"
Reading the following in any publication always rattles my fillings: "“Fully funded vouchers would relieve parents from the terrible choice of leaving their kids in lousy schools or bankrupting themselves to escape those schools,” Warren and Tyagi wrote."
Why do we, in our country, even have " lousy schools"? Yes, they exist all over the country. "Rich school districts" spend huge amounts for the education of each child. Poor school districts maybe have half what a rich district has to spend on a child. The entire school funding system is warped. Every child, no matter where he or she is deserves the same dollars spent to educate them.
Where do the gangs, thieves, and semi-employables come from? The poor school districts.
Why do state colleges and universities pay their presidents over $1 Million dollars a year when the states have poor grade and high schools that get "peanuts" that should be getting the dollars to make the biggest gains to educate every child in the state?
3
The column starts with the two-income family and quickly defaults to the " Stay at Home Mom" . I all but gagged on the patriarchal attitude. Someone should mention to Brooks that "barefoot in the winter and pregnant in the summer" days are over.
6
If he had said a “stay at home parent” I might have an easier time with this.
Guess what, Mr Brooks? Doesn’t have to be stay home mom any more. It’s 2019.
Men are also capable of caring for their young. Or both parents work part time and share childcare.
Until we can get affordable and quality childcare for all. Some European countries seem to manage this so hard to understand why it’s so hard in the US.
2
Another in a long line of off the mark pieces by Brooks.
He is so stuck in today's faux so-called conservative ideology and his tortured attempts at intellectual essays.
He even uses the heterodox twice in this piece.
Where's his Thesaurus?
Warren is ostensibly trying to work for a vast majority of the country. She wants solutions that could work for most of America.
Brooks wants solutions that continue to perpetrate the myth that conservatives care and more importantly that they have been wrongly espousing for decades.
It's too bad Brooks cannot get out of his little sand box.
7
Warren and Tyagi advocated for “public vouchers,” meaning that your zip code wouldn’t determine your schooling options and the voucher could be used at any public
schools. This is categorically different than private vouchers which transfer resources to private institutions where there is substantially less public accountability.
8
I think all politicians flip-flop. If there is one who hasn't, name them.
1
Flip flop could also simply represent an evolution in thinking.
I tend to avoid candidates who never change their positions.
All people, actually, who never change their minds on any subject. Intelligent humans often rethink their prior stance. Not a sign of weakness.
1
Elizabeth Warren seems to be presented as the younger, female version of Bernie Sanders. This article lists the importance of her 2003 book “The Two- Income Trap,”
Yet, " Professor Warren... opposed the sort of government subsidy proposals that candidate Warren now supports".
There are other examples of her dubious positions David Brooks points out.
But my post is about the " stay the course" Bernie Sanders has presented since the mid-1980s.
Bernie is the older version of Elizabeth Warren, but his history shows near zero vacillation about today's issues.
Bernie seems sharp as a tack these days, and I hope age discrimination gets sublimated enough to allow him to come through as the primary candidate representing a true hope for America's future
5
Warren's passion for fairness and her technical competence makes her the best candidate to undo the results of corruption in our politics. Just as freedom of religion must include freedom from religion (separation of church and state), freedom to have guns must include freedom from being shot to death in school or the mall or church/synagogue/mosque. That means registration requirements for owners and restriction on some guns (automatics are already banned). If you're against that tell me why I can't have a tank and ground to air missiles.
7
@Saint999 "Warren's passion for fairness and her technical competence makes her the best candidate to undo the results of corruption in our politics. "; bravo! Agreed 100%.
4
I don't much care what Warren's old views were. Her new ones are disqualifying. The government is not going to solve your problems. On the contrary, given free reign it will create a lot of problems. That's what Warren wants to do; give the government (i.e., herself assuming she had a chance of winning) unprecedented power to determine outcomes as it so chooses all at the expense of individual freedom and property rights.
Have you done well in the marketplace and built a fortune? Well you don't need so much, so we're just going to go ahead and take your stuff and give it to someone else. Did you irresponsibly take out too much debt and now you're struggling to pay it all back? Congratulations, this is now everyone else's problem. Like your health care plan? Good, you can't have it. Let's make everything free (except for the guy who's paying for it all)...Not gonna happen.
@Bob No, we're just simply not going to favor you over other people. Your earnings (capital gains) are not going to be taxed at a lower rate than other peoples' earnings (wages). THAT's the problem Bob. And it's a massive one. You can't argue that it's fair. It's not.
Everybody who lives in civilization has to pay a share of the cost of civilization.
7
@Bob
Healthcare is a basic right and should be afforded to all, and the government can solve this problem - they already have with many of our seniors. What I really do not like is the large corporations shirking their responsibilities, sending employees to the exchanges asking smaller private companies to pick up their cost. Add in the insurances I provide to others through tax dollars, and I think you might be asking a few of us to hold up the world. I’m tired of it — Medicare for All!
4
Elizabeth Warren was a Republican until 1996. The book was written 7 years later. 2019 is 23 years later. It's no wonder that her ideas have been evolving.
9
The more I hear about Warren the more I like her. This column points out that Ms. Warren has had the guts and intelligence to change her political and live views as she matures. I wish one could say that about the vast number of other Presidential candidates. I'm a cautious person about whom I vote for, but Ms. Warren is beginning to impress me more than the other Democrats.
11
Mr. Brooks compares Senator Warren's take now as opposed to the different world of then .
And yes, the Senator does see some value in charter schools, but she means them done professionally and impartially without hidden agendas. Secretary DeVos sees charter schools as a help for her agenda rather than for students.
Mr Brooks then wonders how the Senator now sees the Senator's charges against 'greedy bankers' as a political ploy opposed to her original point. Seems to me that it's not her perspective that has changed; rather the issues really are bankers and money men and employers who perceive themselves to have carte blanche to manipulate and gouge in the name of profits.
Senator Warren changed, but only in reaction to the new American reality.
4
No ones views can change over time ? This would be a surprise to republicans, who seem to hold every position on every issue, depending on the time of day and who they're talking to at the moment.
Perhaps it was the past ten years or so where the awful bankers literally were responsible for a complete corruption and mess that cause her change of opinion? You know , "evidence" ?
6
"How a heterodox professor became a predictable candidate."
Yes, Ms. Warren has been a strong dissenting voice inside the Democratic party, but hardly rebellious. I suggest only a "heterodox Republican journalist" such as David Brooks may find her nonconforming or unorthodox.
4
Maybe Sen. Warren realized that vouchers are a scam, promoted by the uberrich (e.g., Sec. DeVos, the Waltons) with the intention to de-fund public schools. And, given that she is a smart, intellectually honest person, she also realized that the ranks of the "education entrepreneurs" championed by DeVos are filled with grifters, incompetents and mountebanks.
9
People, even political candidates, are allowed to change their minds.
3
Why does the author think that the introduction was not the result of evidence-based thinking? Just because the new ideas are not to his likening. For example, the vouchers are bad way to fix the education, even although it may help individuals, because if the vouchers will be used en masse the private schools will be overloaded and they will have to cut on accepting rate, leaving many students behind, and increasing the competition for decent education, somewhat as when women entered the workforce. And when the person realizes the full meaning of vouchers, should he or she insist on voucher system, that could not deliver the good education for all, or should he/she explore other opportunities that will more effective to reach the goal. Same with double-income trap. You may agree with consequences but you may rethink the cause. Is it because there are too many workers, or because the employers do not want to pay fair wages for all working people? Should we ban women from workforce, forcing them to become stay-home, depending on her man Moms, or should we change the system in way it will allow everybody have a decent paycheck and to have safety net?
1
Quite possibly Ms Warren's views have changed because economic conditions have changed. Two (perhaps multiple is a better term) income households have been the norm for quite a while. Looking at the census bureau data for inflation adjusted household income shows a negligible change in the bottom three quintiles, the only significant increase is in the top quintile. The fourth quintile showing some increase also. This is true for the last fifty years.
Inflation adjusted housing costs during the same time frame have shown multiple wild swings in the same period of time. Hard to make a case that two income families are bidding up the price of existing housing in established neighborhoods and school districts in one decade and abandoning the practice and allowing the price to collapse in the next.
Coming to the realization that lending practices, movement of industries and job prospects, and pure supply and demand realities reacting to population changes and housing availability are the main drivers seems sensible. The concentration of income and wealth at the top allows a concentration of ownership of property. Rent seeking behavior of the wealthy and large financial interests are also major factors.
Ms Warren is changing her views based on observing the realities on the ground. Good for her.
3
Is this the beginning of a let's get rid of Elizabeth Warren so that Joe Biden, the Republican pretending to be a Democrat can win? Bernie's free college when he was campaigning was free tuition for those who could make the grade. (Books can be very expensive-- and PS many courses could be delivered well in the internet with exams, essays graded by all those underemployed adjuncts out there for close to free. Ditto there should be MODEL elementary thru high school curriculums defining knowledge (facts) and skills (language, math, science and math) so we can be on the same page and not lost in creationism somewhere. (The cost for this would be close to zero -- to put it up. Get the Wkipedians to do it!!;-D)
Warren is many years older -- possibly wiser and trying to form a platform for Democrats. So sorry that her thought process is less creative. One can't always be as creative as one might like!! PS people cannot explain complicated things in two minute sound bites as at the pretend debate. It should be four night -- two nights of presentations; two night of debates.. Instead we have "Bachelor in Paradise" "America's Got Talent." "Ninja Warrior", etc. and frankly PBS should carry many debates -- because it is supposed to be Public TV -- and I certainly can do without the repeats of many programs... This is a national disgrace. Maybe Mr. Brooks can comment on that problem: how to get the message across?
5
I am sorry to say, despite it all there is no Democrat who will receive enough support to defeat Trump. Every one of Trump's supporters will turn out to vote. More than I can say for Democrats. Except for Joe, who will not make it in the long run there is little to no support in the Black and Hispanic communities for any one of the other declared candidates.
A broken clock can be correct twice in a day, 730 times a year. So, why is it unreasonable for Betsy DeVos to be right at least once a year?
Good god, David Brooks! Many of your articles extol individual creativity, and yet here you attack someone who changes her mind, as she so thoughtfully has, for selling out for a "rigid ideology". You can be really disappointing at times. And now, inconsistent.
7
Gee David, it's almost like 16 years of data about the deleterious effects charter schools and school "choice" on the free public system that these women overwhelmingly use -- as well as a major recession -- caused two intelligent and academic women to rethink something they wrote when circumstances were wildly different. And coming from such a paragon of independent, non-partisan thinking as you! Quelle surprise!
6
Great article. When you're overly dogmatic you focus less on the truth and more on being right; solving problems is less important than political correctness. Brooks is a refreshing perspective from this newspaper which seems to have devolved into a political advocacy organization (w/recent leaked comments from its lead Editor). I hope it becomes a newspaper again.
3
It must be wonderful Mr. Brooks to be able to hold exactly the same ideas over 16 years without regard to new information and new experience!
You are able to clothe your “conservatism” in old and tired tropes, why bother writing new columns? You have already decided everything.
I am so tired of hearing from you
4
Amen.
1
When Warren supported vouchers it was long before it became apparent that the true goal of private charters was to make a profit off of the families “choosing” their school. Now it is much more clear that there is a pure profit motive thinly disguised as “choice.” This is made painfully clear to parents of children with any type of special ed needs — we are not welcome to apply - our kids are too expensive to educate for them to make a profit. All charters and vouchers do is drain resources from public education schools, essentially insuring that the public school fails. Education is a human right that all children possess. No one deserves or is entitled to make a profit off of educating children, especially with public tax dollars. Same goes for health care. I admire Warren for changing her positions to match the facts, unlike others who claim “alternative facts” to support dubious positions!
2
Well done! This looks like something written by a WSJ journalist and it's the NYT! Sound logical reasoning, no anger and supported by facts....
5
Mr. Brooks:
So, now we know that you don't want Elizabeth Warren in the
oval office. But...really, comparing her and Betsy DeVos! That is like comparing you and Donald Trump. That would be cheap and mean spirited, don't you think?
10
Another insidious attempt by this author at demeaning and mis-interpreting another person's actions all with a patronizing smile.
9
Hmmm. A David Brooks column that did not annoy me. Will wonders never cease?
Wow, sir, nasty. You conservatives seem to be able to preach Money over morality as per DeVos, I prefer morality over money as per Warren.
This kind of petty politics as the world burns and the religions kill, making excuses for Elitist theft of the future of life...well maybe this kind of silliness, counting angels on the head of a pin for profit, has to stop.
Really Sir....
7
Fix the schools and the neighborhoods! School vouchers are a scam to use public money for families to pay for Christian schools. If that’s her platform I won’t vote for the traitor.
6
David Brooks sounds worried.
4
Yes, the 2016 remake is “True Enough.” (Reference Farhad Manjoo.)
The Right just tries to divide the Left, and Brooks is a master.
I started out in the center, liking candidate Reagan, because states rights sounded democratic.
I embraced markets and capitalism, writing business plans for my rock band, and trying to find ways to get rich.
Over the decades, I have moved steadily to the Left, not because I run for office, or because it would benefit me financially (In the top 5%, I vote to raise my own taxes), but because all of the evidence, like Supply Side Economics NEVER WORKING, says that the Right is wrong (or worse) and the Left is essentially correct.
While the center demands that the Left "compromise" our values to support bad Right-wing policy, the left practices advanced "compromise" where no one is expected to give away their values, but we listen to all voices to creatively find win/win solutions that make everyone's lives better.
Warren started out on the Right, but moved to the Left (as did Tulsi Gabbard who went to Afghanistan and realized that the Taliban wanted the same things as her right wing neighbors in the U.S.)
Warren didn't leave the Republicans, who win a majority of elections, to get elected. Warren moved to the Left because she takes in new information, analyzes it, and changes her mind to a better understanding and set of solutions.
If Warren was only trying to get elected, she would hide in the corporate "center" trying to pick up corporate donations, saying as little as possible.
Left is moderate.
10
@McGloin; well stated.
It’s unfortunate that David Brooks does not understand that progressives are not dogmatic and conformist simpletons like republicans. There are only two concepts to republicans: tax cuts for the rich and deregulation. Democrats/progressives/liberals actually think.
Because Elizabeth Warren came up with ideas that didn’t conform to the simple definition of a liberal confuses him. Hopefully this won’t confuse the voters.
Elizabeth Warren and Betsy Devos both might have supported school vouchers but for completely opposite reasons. Devos wants to prey on the poor who would have to take out loans to pay the balance of the for profit schools. Elizabeth Warren was actually thinking of solving a problem.
6
@Joann "Devos wants to prey on the poor who would have to take out loans to pay the balance of the for profit schools. Elizabeth Warren was actually thinking of solving a problem.". Exactly!
I am not sure I get the point. I would guess in the last 16 years things have changed and evidence may have proven ideas correct or incorrect.
7
Another fascinating account of the downstream effect of the shift of women's roles from home to work. I'm not 100% comfortable following the train of thought of the costs and risks created by this trend. You still have other factors such as loss of high paying union jobs, how specialization combined with education has contributed to income inequality, and how government policy has created housing inflation.
I guess I need to read that book. Makes me think, and long-for a politician like Patrick Moynihan where analysis and trade-offs had to be acknowledged and considered. Ironically enough, like Warren, he was also born in Oklahoma!
1
"This is the problem with politics in a dogmatic age. Everything conforms to rigid ideology. Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window."
I think you are reaching here David in an attempt to take Elizabeth Warren down a peg or two. Your examples can be framed to do this and you have done so at first glance. The headline used, certainly helps.
I would argue that your stance appears to be somewhat disingenuous when one looks at it from a different angle. People change and learn. If they explain their reasons and process with integrity and honesty, one can then judge that person on the merits and although you may not agree with them, you can trust them. I have yet to find a reason not to trust EW. That in itself puts her in her own category among the candidates.
What I think David is that your use of cynicism and your need to defend the current conservative power base, has you reaching a little too far. Show me one conservative politician with EW's level of integrity or the courage to challenge Trump in a meaningful way for his attacks on our Democracy and then you can maybe, and I mean maybe, try and call EW out for evolving in her stances on the issues.
11
The comparison of Warren to Devoss is weak at best and discouraging for someone of Brooks' stature to buy into the brand of journalism that devotes itself to finding a candidates philosophy or program idea that are decades old and have changed in the ensuing years in order to call them out as flip-floppers or inconsistent in their thinking.
Anyone who hasn't changed some aspect of their political thinking in the past 3 years (let alone 10-15 years) is in an intellectual coma.
11
Brooks's article intentionally misrepresents Warren's opinions, and the editors do the readers a disservice in not correcting Brooks's deception.
Warren did argue for vouchers—but only to allow children to attend public schools outside their neighbourhoods. She did not, as does Betsy DeVos, want to privatize education.
That Brooks calls Warren's argument "exactly the argument" DeVos makes is wrong and highly misleading. The editors should demand that that sentence be changed.
18
@617to4
This is even worse, we have kids open enrolling out in the country school, where our boy’s soccer team showed up with the numbers falling off their jerseys, and they are sporting new outfits, complete with warm-ups. I’m so tired of parents cheating other kids. And the promises made at the college level - a baseball team with 55 and they recruit another 23? The coach should be fired and the school sued, and the parents, thinking of one man in particular, who has an older son with Pittsburgh, he should be banned from baseball, forever. You should have heard the promises.
You gotta love how relentless David Brooks is in spinning the anti-progressive narrative. Elizabeth Warren wrote a book 16 years ago where she advocated for more school choice, which in Brooks' mind means she has now made all her policy choices conform to progressive orthodoxy (note the sinister overtones).
Sorry, but maybe, just maybe, Elizabeth Warren's views evolving on school choice in the last 16 years don't make her a craven flip-flopper beholden to party dogma.
And honestly, if you're going to write an entire opinion piece about Elizabeth Warren being beholden to progressive orthodoxy, maybe get a *second* example of a policy position she's changed. It's 2019 here, and Elizabeth Warren has long been one of the senate's leading liberals and progressives, yet here is Brooks trying to paint her as if this is all just coming out of nowhere. It's just embarrassing.
14
I'm saddened, and not surprised, to see how many commenters who dare to mount light criticism of Liz Warren are being reflexively characterized and attacked by other commenters as being "pro-Trump." This is the tribalism that Americans need to get away from immediately.
I am very enthusiastic about Liz Warren and look forward to voting for her. In terms of the whole person, I haven't been this enthusiastic about a presidential candidate for a long time. She is not merely the best of the Democrats by far, she's not only just "not Trump," but someone with real ideas, energy, experience and knowledge of what the real problems in America are.
Do I believe she's imperfect? Yes. Do I believe that she may have over-learned some of the problems of capitalism? Yes. Will I criticize her where I believe she needs criticism? Yes. Does this make me a crypto-Trumpian? Over my dead body.
4
I think you need to define "progressive orthodoxy" before you condemn somebody for supposedly adhering to it. I question whether such a thing really exists, or, if it does, how wide is its breadth?
7
What is your point, David Brooks? You constantly engage in a plangent, woe-is-me nostalgia for the purported old days, but in fact your columns quietly mime the same old Republican attacks on progressives who actually seek to gain enough power to challenge the corrupt neoliberal orthodoxy that got us here. Next time, write a column about Lindsay Graham, whose Faustian bargain with Trumpism could easily be contrasted with his high-minded moral intonements during the Clinton impeachment proceedings. Warren is sensibly calibrating her message for the campaign trail, as every politician who leaves the ivory tower must do. The suggestion that she has compromised her integrity, and that somehow she and Betsy DeVos were once intellectual compatriots (much less equals), is grossly misleading and so specious as to be almost comical. Nostalgia is a false disguise. You can do better.
14
pragmaticism was once a virtue
1
David Brooks can't bear the idea of a woman in power. He was always first in line to demand Hillary Clinton smile more. Now he's busily trying to undermine Elizabeth Warren as she gains in the polls. What a baby.
7
Two points: it’s hard not to see this column as bending over backwards to deliver a hit to Warren’s intellectual integrity. Has her thinking (or better yet—her observation and experience) changed in the past couple decades? Yes. Is there any doubt that Warren is genuinely interested in the economic welfare of the working class? No. When Brooks says that Warren has evolved into DeVos thinking, he’s delivering an insult, of course. Please consider the motives behind the thinking of both women before linking them.
Secondly, Brooks calls Warren and her daughter “feminists”. I think we’re past the point where someone fighting for economic fairness should be labeled with the same description as the bra-burning women’s movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. Another slight by Brooks...
Sometimes I think David Brooks has actually turned a corner and sees that the path to a better country is one of intellectual honesty. But being against Trump’s re-election is not enough, David. You still cling to that Republican Party that might have had some actual conservative principles decades ago, but is now Just a rubber stamp for a grifting President, big business, and the NRA.
4
Brooks' dogmatic thinking is on full display with this article. His "centrist" box is indeed a rigid one disguised with intellectual hyperbole, as usual.
4
OMG Lizzy is just another GOPer in Dem clothing. Who'd a thunk it? Mr. Brooks should get a medal for pointing this out in time to save the country.
What Brooks and Warren says is true. My niece is going through sticker shock at finding day care. It is almost as much as she makes in a week. Rent will eat up the rest. It wouldn't be so bad but her husband is "disabled" and can only play video games 10 + hours a day. I experienced this wage crisis myself in the 1980s.
Warren's support for vouchers was no surprise, and I will bet she still will support vouchers. Is Warren another Betsy? No, Betsy would eat Warren's breakfast, lunch, and dinner and be brazen enough to ask for a third helping of each. And no I do not consider this a good thing.
Warren is better than most of the Dems but realistically will not be able to do anything if elected. It will be 4 years of do nothing, dysfunctional government. The only good thing the Twit-in-Chief would be gone from the White House.
Warren did not argue for vouchers to send children to private schools. She argued for vouchers to allow parents to send their children (and tax money) to desired public schools outside their own neighbourhoods. This is radically different from Betsy DeVos's desire to privatize education through vouchers. The headline and the article are highly misleading. The NYT owes its paying readers better.
11
The title of this article says it all. A putdown of Elizabeth Waren.
4
Based on Brooksy’s latest book report, me thinks he fears a Warren presidency.
6
David. Of all the things you could choose to write about, you chose to demean Elizabeth Warren. And you choose a comparison to Betsy De Voss. Why Warren and why De Voss? You are usually more elegant, I am sorry to say.
2
Biden has similarly evolved on issues, but we don’t give him a pass the way we do Warren. Is it because he’s an old white guy?
When women with breast implants sued the manufacturer because they were getting sick from the implants, Warren worked for the manufacturer to keep settlements low.
If Biden had done that, he’d have been raked over the coals for it. Why does Warren get a pass?
3
Oh here we go--a Republican columnist tries to damage Elizabeth Warren: she used to be a Republican herself! She held the same position DeVos now hold on school vouchers! Well guess what, Mr. Brooks? Things change; intelligent people assess those changes and sometimes change their views for the sole reason that it's the right thing to do. And if you think anyone inclined to listen to what Senator Warren has to say is listening to anything you think, you need to think again and stop with the slime machine tactics.
2
Brooks, you go farther than damning with faint praise, you insinuate that Warren has the ethics of a modern Republican. A toxic, Trump apologist, or just one of the guys on either side who cannot stand a woman who won't stand down in the face of months of attacks.
What she has is determination to reset the direction of our society, within the rule of law, reversing the massive imbalanced distribution of wealth and increasing opportunity for those who otherwise faced closed doors.
None of her ideas seem to originate in a "comic book world," but in years of education and experience.
Efforts to get her message out to voters who have been repeatedly told she is radical and dangerous? You think that isn't necessary?
4
How amusing that David Brooks praises evidence based thinking and heterodoxy when he in his own life utterly rejects both. When he's not lying about Gallup polls, he's a font of tired conventional wisdom- "wisdom" he supports with a rather tenuous grasp on the facts.
Which is why, no doubt, he has to lie about polls- because the facts do not support the conventional wisdom.
3
Comparing Elizabeth Warren to the likes of Betsy Devos is a cheap blow.
Would be nuts to vote for Warren since Brooks has unearthed such unimaginable common ground. While Warren further studied an issue and reconsidered her thoughts, she continues to speak on behalf of the most voiceless and powerless, as she is wont to do. Devos, on the other hand, not so much.
Perhaps they both like the color green and flats over heels, too.
4
Every time I listen to a speech from Elizabeth Warren -- I think it has been at least since 2010 -- I am convinced that she is a socialist. I've seen no change.
@johnlo Define that term, or we know you're just repeating Republican party scare tactics nonsense.
2
Brooks disapproves of warren. Big surprise
3
Candidate Warren is being pragmatic. We will likely see her positions move toward the center left as the primaries approach. There’s nothing wrong with this. She knows that all politics is a compromise.
She has more and better ideas than the rest of the field. She is insightful and intelligent while being down to earth. She is an excellent candidate for the office and I will support her to the end.
4
I have been wondering whether the people who are discovering Elizabeth Warren and proclaiming her an attractive candidate have actually read her books. This is an articulate, thoughtful, well organized woman who showed that she could function in Congress. And her past ideas are anathema to any American who is not ready to drop capitalism with regulation. Thank you for the update, I suppose, I haven't yet read the "Two Income Trap" ; we do need to know what we're asking for, and not naively trust that once in power, she wouldn't be able to get any of this done anyway.
1
Have you considered the possibility that her thinking continued to evolve, from her original conservatism to her current progressivism, and that progressivism is an apex of enlightened thinking?
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@Dan
The problem is that many folks who say this about Warren, giving her a pass on her past, have attacked Biden, Harris, Pete, Bernie, Franken etc for their past, their “evolution.”
Why, for instance, do we not see reportage about Warren working with a breast implant manufacturer to help lower settlements paid to women who were made sick by the implants? Has she “evolved” sufficiently to not have that reported?
4
Warren has become the person she criticized in her book...the politically expedient Hillary :) And may she suffer the same fate!
5
So Brooks' first non-fluff piece in what feels like decades is an attack on the evolution of an outsider's perspective on how to solve political challenges over the course of 13 years (and a lot of experience)... an implied jab at her credibility and an implied endorsement of Trump. Because whether he likes it or not, that's the alternative.
How predictably Republican. How they will see boogeymen in the alternatives and fall in line when push comes to shove. The "heterodoxy" of the Republican party is on full display every time this guy opens his mouth.
6
Heterodoxy is for professors and pundits.
Orthodoxy is for imans, politicians, preachers, priests and rabbis.
3
When will the male-dominated media stop with the nonsense of whether someone is 'electable'? Electable to the mainstream media means straight, white, male. America is more than that.
3
Same old same old pattern, Mr David Brooks: you are by conscience now forced to say nice things about Democrats--always in comparison to the utterly amoral Republicans--but you just cant help your self, you have to always, always end in a dig at the person you begrudgingly have to compliment. Since 2003--that's a decade and a half ago--the world has changed. A demented tyrant is in the white house, profit driven, environmentally destructive corporations are in greater control of our politics, and the weight of deprivation and vulnerability among our weakest has increased. This is a challenge; look back at what you wrote in 2003 and I'll lay a buck on your feeling ashamed, deeply ashamed.
7
Nobody carries water for the GOP and Trump more than David Brooks. When it comes to the bucket brigade he is first in line. So who is the up and coming Democrat? It's Elizabeth Warren. David why don't you do a hit piece on her and we'll tie her name with one of the most hated members of trump's cabinet?David- Okay. Will do.
3
Mr Brooks, maybe its time for you to adopt “evidence based thinking”? Clearly, you still seem to be overwhelmed with ideology based thinking.
Time is not staying in the same place and Sen Warren can adopt to changing reality. You are falling further and further behind though.
Be less rigid, please!
3
And yet... When Elizabeth Warren was careful examining a real, important issue in America, and offering thorough ideas (not intended for mincing by rhetoricians), Betsy DeVos was sharpening her political influence with the ill-gotten profits from a multi level marketing scheme, Amway. Oh, and investing in Theranos. LOL.
3
It's true that in politics some nuance is lost (and it's probably impossible to avoid the loss when the audience is Everyone). It's easy to accuse Warren of living in "...a comic book world, in which everything bad can be blamed on greedy bankers" if only because of the obviousness of the milieu of this corrupt economy -- that characterization is so close to the truth that it resonates with the victims (remember 2007?).
But, well, maybe it's not just greedy bankers, but greed itself, in all its manifestations? In Tibetan Buddhism there is a concept that may apply here: "greed for views". The quest for dominance of the narrative. Once one sees the futility, the impossibility of imposing a "view" on another person, there is room for growth and enlargement of the mind (and even a natural magnanimity). But as a contracted weekly columnist, professional conference-speaker and media performer, Mr. Brooks is wedded to a quietly arrogant narrative of faux-centrism that increasingly requires absurd rhetorical contortions, unquestioned assumptions and ridiculous false equivalencies to hide behind.
One hopes his own indictments of others ("dogmatic..rigid ideology...boilerplate") will be seen the next time he looks in the mirror. But then, he may, in a fit of unexpected self-awareness, jump out that window.
Both David Brooks and I have experienced conservatism and religion, which make it easy to believe one's own falsehoods and accept those of others.
1
David Brooks, true to form, offers another head fake, in concert with his surreptitiously-harbored, orange-haired “chosen one.” To place Elizabeth Warren under the same rubric as snake-eyes Betsy De Vos is a bit of a stretch. Anyone with even a scintilla of awareness knows that so-called failed schools are a pathology, driven, to a great extent by unconscionable disparities in funding arising from state and city education budgets, with, say, triple the per-pupil outlays going to Brahmin suburbs like Scarsdale in NY, compared to pauper-like allotments for Harlem. Completely unregulated, no-standard Betsy-babe vouchers and privatization schemes to enrich the wealthy elite like the De Vos family and Jeb Bush are no answer at all, and if David Brooks harbored even a shred of intellectual honesty, he would convey this truth. Are schools of choice a possibility? Of course. But, not the way they are being marketed in Florida, with the clear intent of destroying public education, which is, by the way, the last truly republican endeavor remaining in this fractured, divided, profoundly troubled nation.
If David Brooks is offering a defense of bankers, who were the major cause of the 2008 Great Recession, he has his work cut out for him.
David Brooks is scorning Elizabeth Warren for having found progressive religion, through her impressive and erudite research and decades of interactive political and enlightening experiences. Trump is smiling.
5
When feminists first wanted to enter the workforce in large numbers (they always worked before including my grandmother) the notion was that both being a stay at home mother or entering the workforce was a choice they should have. Now there is no choice even though for most families a woman's earnings hardly, if at all, cover the costs of day care and now the increased costs of living resulting from them going to work. The solution for many women to to drive men out of the home, collect child support, scam employment with affirmative action and to pretend that their lives are meaningful. Working out of the home works for rich women like many of the news reporters on TV that come from families of wealth that most people can't imagine. Now we have a breakdown of the family, soaring costs of education, and fathers who are humiliated. Marriage itself is now a joke for most people - they don't even both with it. The radical feminist organizations created by Protestant women's groups decades ago started this. It is easy to see why Puritans in England were forced out of the country in favor of a King. An appropriate response would be to do to the now deceased founders of American feminist organizations what the people of England did to Oliver Cromwell. Dig up their bodies. Put the bodies in a cage and hang the cage in a public space. I would rather have a king or queen ruling the country that a puritan feminist!
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What is this bizarre obsession with vouchers? It seems to be the conservative solution to everything. Privatizing schools remains a terrible idea.
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What conservatives hate most about public services like schools or roads is that there’s no owner or investor in the picture reaping profits off the thing.
Vouchers offer a way to move those public dollars back into the hands of profiteers, where conservatives think they belong.
1
“This is the problem with politics in dogmatic era”...
This is such an deceptive and lazy argument. Is health care for all Americans a dogmatic issue? Is affordable and good education a dogmatic issue? Is transition to green energy a dogmatic issue?
How about blocking the required reforms by conservatives being a dogmatic issue?
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"When Elizabeth Warren Agreed with Betsy DeVos"?! Humm, this indicates a time period. Did Betsy think a moment about public education in 2003? Let alone have any policies in mind?
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Warren was once a die-hard Republican. Over time, she recognized the unfettered greed and exploitation driving policy ideas like this, and changed her views.
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@V
I wonder how many of those who agree with you have also defended the pasts of Biden, Franken, Pete, Harris, Bernie, and Williamson.
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What's better, a candidate who has changed her mind over the last 16 years, or a candidate who hasn't?
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What is so great about Elizabeth Warren is that she has learned from her mistakes of the past and is willing to admit it. She is a very viable candidate to become the first female President because she rethinks previous opinions and changes her opinions for all the right reasons, rather than sticking to foolish orthodoxy which turns critical thinkers into religious zealots.
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Make all schools great.
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David—do not shoot us all in the foot with this old news. I hope that your ideas have changed over the last 15 years. Warren’s have changed as well. Please use your pulpit to be positive and supportive of the change that can’t come soon enough for this pained country.
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I really enjoy it when Republican David Brooks (and his Republican colleague Bret Stephens) tell Democrats how to win their vote.
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Mr. Brooks, I get that you're not jazzed about the progressive agenda, but if you're trying to come up with ways to make Elizabeth Warren sound like a less appealing candidate, "no longer agrees with Betsy DeVos on something" ain't gonna do it. DeVos' sole mission as education secretary seems to be pulling money away from public schools while allowing for-profit schools to operate virtually unchecked, so while ideological rigidity may be a negative trait, opposing a corrupt, incompetent Trump lackey like DeVos is most assuredly a positive one.
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Sen Warren have updated her views based on real world evidence, whereas DeVos sticks to outdated right wing orthodoxy.
It is pretty deceptive to compare that, mr Brooks!
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David Brooks is even more dogmatic in his middle-of-the-roadism than he tries to cast Warren in her progressiveness. I find it very irritating. He filters all progressive economic ideas through a rigid centrist prism. His writing is often reflective of his humanity and basic kindness, but his mind is closed to any new idea that comes anywhere close to the left guardrail.
2
Good article Mr.Brooks, but it *is* the fault of the greedy and those who hoard resouces,like the bankers. It is the fault of those who push endless consumption and corruption and entertain no limits to growth. Ultimately it is the fault of all of us who buy this garbage, literally and figuratively. The greedy are destroying the biosphere.
Arguing Warren v Sanders plans is a useless exercise, unless we plan on taking all three branches of government.
Warren's nomination is, at the same time, Trump's wildest dream, and the New York Times greatest hope.
And now, Republicans are being called in to testify for her. What's going on here?
2
Brooks here with an underhanded attack on Warren. She is not “predictable”, or anything like DeVos. The fact that her opinions have evolved from a book written 15 years ago show her to be a intelligent human being and worthy candidate.
If only Brooks would stray from his Republican orthodoxy, however watered-down to make him look “reasonable”.
2
We frequently compare academic achievements in the US to other developed nations. We should do this as we compete in a global economy. I suppose ‘Leave no Child Behind, or ‘Common Core’ were attempts by policy makers to achieve academic competitiveness. I can also conclude we are failing, at least in the area of technology, to achieve academic parity when we depend on foreign nations to supply our tech industries with workers. I often wonder how we compare to other nations in the cost of a college education. Just a cursory look at the cost of an engineering degree in China or India shows our costs are far higher. When you add the interest on tuition loans, I would imagine it is off the charts higher. Perhaps Warren and Sanders aren’t completely wrong about addressing the cost of advanced education. I would also argue there should be strings attached. We need lots more people studying science, technology and healthcare. We need more good teachers. Why not focus subsidies to students succeeding in those curricula? We certainly don’t don’t need more lawyers, bankers or communications majors. Public policy makers need to make decisions and free education with no strings attached would be a poor one.
Have you ever heard about how stretched thin our public defenders are?
I will choose a thinker and lifelong learner who changes course as evidence and circumstances warrant over an immoral bloviator - every. single. time.
3
Elizabeth Warren scares the hell out of the establishment and the status quo regardless of party and this is the exact reason I will vote for her with more enthusiasm than any of the other candidates.
2
Warren is better than Biden and Sanders.
But Andrew Yang's idea of Universal Basic Income is a better solution to the income inequality than Warren's. Period.
2
Diane Ravitch, one of the most rabid supporters of school choice/vouchers in 1990s, changed her mind about them and avidly campaigned against them. See The Nation magazine June 14, 2010
A lot of people saw promise in charter schools until it became clear privatization/vouchers was not the answer to what ails the US educational system. The people who don't look at the evidence and don't change their minds because of blind ideological support for an issue are the hypocrites; they are the destroyers, not the builders.
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"This is the problem with politics in a dogmatic age. Everything conforms to rigid ideology. Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window."
A good description of David Brooks' opinions.
1
It's curious that commenters forgive Warren's past statements and say people can change.
I suspect many of the 700 commenters here were firmly against Bret Kavanaugh - not for his legal record which they didn't care to understand - but for his yearbook photo caption and uncorroborated statements about his conduct as a child.
So it seems to NYTimes readers that Democrates can change, but a supreme court nominee is unacceptable because of unproven allegations taken out of the Robert Bork playbook.
4
The difference between Warren's truthful assertion about school vouchers that it was to put a shock in the system so that it would become more fair and DeVos's lie about school vouchers is obvious. The latter is only interested in keeping the "poor" down and helping her rich donors and friends pay for the high priced private schools, so their kids don't have to go to school with "those people". Even if Warren still held to that opinion, it is still for the greater good, improving public schools, something that DeVos has been vocal about wanting to eliminate. Funny how Mr. Brooks doesn't see that. Warren at this point (I'm a lifelong Democrat) is promulgating an overly progressive agenda that is a sure loser with non-Democrats, but she is at least honest.
As we move along life's path we hopefully learn re-learn and adapt. I admire Warren's ability to be constantly gathering and evaluating evidence, discussing her findings and being transparent about it. Mr. Brooks could take a lesson from this.
3
Betsy Devos is driven by ideology. She sees privatization of schools as a business opportunity, a way of making a buck. Like many conservatives, she utters equal access and student opportunity to make her positions politically palatable. She, of course, doesn't believe for a moment in those things. Just as "trickle down" was the selling point of the tax give-aways to the wealthy of the past thirty years, the real impetus was ideology. Taxes are bad. Period.
Warren seems much more driven by what she sees as a need: opportunity and fairness for all. She will embrace policies that seem like they may do that. But, she will abandon policies if they fail. The long term welfare of the average American is her goal. Not an ideology that really just benefits the one per cent.
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@Publicus1776
I also believe DeVos is driven by ideology, and therefore blinded to the downsides of school vouchers.
But I don't have any evidence that's she just cynically driven to "make a buck." Do you?
I do know that public schools in the US have been awful and in decline for a few generations, run by ideology-driven teachers unions, blinded to the source of their own failures (no, it's not just not enough funding).
As far as whether they are just cynics driven by a lust for power, I have no evidence of that, either.
@Livonian
It might surprise you to know that the American Federation of Teachers (Al Shanker) were early proponents of charter schools. They felt being free to experiment educationally would be of great benefit to education in general in that some of those ideas would be brought back to public schools. It seems that you are choosing to generalize about unions, too. Yes, they do look out for teachers (as does the ABA, the AMA, etc: it takes a lot to kick one of their members out of the practices). Having said that, teachers have been unfairly vilified with being tasked to fix the nearly intractable problems of poverty and race in this country. Yes, they do look our for each other, but also for their students. The one I belonged argued for salary increases, but also for reasonable class sizes, teaching conditions, the arts during negotiations. I suggest your try teaching before you so readily condemn it for failures. There is a lot more success going on than is reported.
As for profit: she ran a school for profit. She is making it harder for students to negotiate college loan forgiveness, and she is gutting oversight of for profit colleges that have been guilty of issuing sham diplomas while charging large tuitions. Some, fortunately, have closed. Trump University for one.
Lust for power: the GOP silence when it comes to Trump (abuse of executive power, abuse of migrants, siding with the white power movement, etc.), they are silent. It's great to be reelected.
1
If Warren had the courage to discuss some of those issues and stand behind her arguments from that book, she might actually win the election today.
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It's interesting that Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 without actually adhering to all of the Republican litmus tests beloved on the right of the party. Trump was non-committal on issues like abortion and guns. There is no similar Democratic candidate. Democratic activists have a much tighter control on the agenda with this nomination. Is that the best for winning the election, though? The core of the Democratic party is an unpopular to the general public as the core of the Republican party. Showing that she is willing to deviate from the activists' purity tests may be an important step for the eventual nominee to gain sufficient mainstream support.
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@Tom Meadowcroft
Absolutely. She is going to have to conspicuously call out some of the bad ideas being pushed by the hard left to show both sanity and independence.
A well-planned Sister Souljah Moment would be a very good thing, which endless left-wing Twitter outrage will provide ample opportunities.
1
Elizabeth Warren's has a "plan" for everything. This involves greater government power and intrusion into the economy. Don't people realize that happily ceding more authority to government when your own party is in power means that you are also ceding that authority to the opposition when it takes control? Now of all times those who decry Trump's dictatorial instincts should appreciate this. Plus, her plans would tank the economy.
2
I suspect that in the 16 years between writing the book and now, Warren has seen the failure of the school voucher/ school choice experiment and has changed her mind on that topic. Is changing your mind in light of new information a bad thing?
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Sorry Mr. Brooks, but Senator Warren is hardly alone in reconsidering the orthodox views of both parties (remember Arne Duncan?) concerning school vouchers. Consider the change of heart displayed by Dianne Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education in the G.W. Bush administration. She was a staunch proponent of the voucher and charter movement following Republican orthodoxy and worked to implement federal policy to spread the gospel. She now has written of the failure of those policies in their stated goals of helping students in poorly performing districts. If a Bush-appointed bureaucrat can change her tune about vouchers and charters in the face of real-world results then we can surely allow the Senator the chance to do the same. You might consider it yourself.
6
Actually, Warren's latest approach indicates that she's a flexible thinker. Heterodox to orthodox just means she is solidifying some positions as a candidate, but for "expediency" she will have to compromise and be more fluid as President. Look what happened to both Obama and Trump, up against Congress and courts, and what gets accomplished is much less than what is planned.
DeVos' position on school vouchers is for a completely different reason-- privatizing for profit and religion, and not helping working people. Warren's focus is on helping working class and middle class America, as well as the impoverished, and she's willing to try many ways to get it done.
5
So, David ... since, if nominated, Ms. Warren would be running against Donald Trump, would you care to explain how her current proposals would NOT make her a vastly more desirable candidate for working-class Americans than your party's candidate?
I guess we can give you a couple of points for not tossing in the "socialist" canard that your party will be using to disinform the electorate ... or maybe we should just credit you with being too subtle to resort to it here.
4
Good heavens, David. What about the 13 years that passed between the new intro and the old book? During that time, more women had to enter the workplace to make ends meet, the right became stronger as they tried to erode the basic help programs and the rich grew richer as the middle class remained stagnant. And it became evident that the school choice program would allow the rich to erode more of the public school system to the detriment of all of society. Rather than castigate Warren you should praise her for seeing the truth of the situation and changing her mind. Not everyone is a slave to their party. Remember Warren is leading.
5
Liberals living in a "dogmatic age”? Religiosity is all on the right, not just when it comes to religion, but more importantly, in economic theory; neoliberal, trickle down, anti-democratic libertarian hoodoo--discredited, economically fundamentalist ideology, lifting the yachts of vulture capitalists while the Everyman capitalist in their dingy sinks slowly beneath the waves of fascism redux.
Liberals who pine for a more just, meritocratic society--like those in Scandinavia where education and healthcare are free, and schools and healthcare services are evenly distributed among rich and poor, such that regardless of socio-economic status, children have the resources to make of life what they will—are realists.
The American Dream is alive and well, just not in America, but in Scandinavia. In places like Finland and Denmark--where children consistently rank among the highest performers on the international PISA tests (the U.S. ranks among the lowest of OECD countries), and where taxes are high, yet hardly stifle what are among the most vibrant entrepreneurial, capitalistic economies in the world--meritocracy and economic mobility is alive and well.
Sorry, but dogmatism is a rightwing problem. Conservatives deny science and fetishize the Constitution, the 2nd Amendment, and abortion the same way they fetishize the Bible. They envision America living by the mores of an ancient, Iron Age, pre-Enlightenment culture.
4
David Brooks is leaving out some of the other books Senator Warren has written. Here are a few and all are worth reading. She writes quite eloquently about what has happened to working Americans. In fact, Mr. Brooks ought to read these too.
A Fighting Chance published in 2014
This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class published in 2017.
4
I'd advise everyone to read or at least consult "The Two-Income Trap" before taking Mr. Brooks' interpretation at face value. Warren and Tyagi's analyses and recommendations are vastly different, more nuanced, and very much more focused on extending the public good than Brooks is inviting us to believe. Whether by accident or design, he's completely misrepresented Warren's point of view.
7
My very conservative Republican sister said at a gathering recently, "that Elizabeth Warren is interesting." Her hand would fall off before she'd vote for her of course, but there is something very alive about what EW is doing.
5
Warren has risen in the polls because she communicates well and has thoughtful, developed plans. She is far from "boilerplate." Tucker Carlson, of all people, came out in support of her, and disgust of his own party leadership, in much lauded op-ed commentary a few months ago. Don't assess her on a 2016 introduction to a book written in 2003. And don't assess her on the few examples plucked out of the book and held up against her current policies. She is a dynamic leader, constantly evolving. And it is campaign season. If elected, I have full confidence in Warren to adapt to current data and tweak policy to help the poor and middle class.
10
As always, I find Mr. Brooks's commentary compelling and nuanced. However, the heterodoxy that he lauds in Ms. Warren's 2003 book was before the event that I consider the seminal experience in her progressive "education": the financial meltdown in 2008, precipitated by those greedy bankers and Wall Street brokers that Mr. Brooks seems inclined to forgive. Since the Great Recession, Warren has become a champion of middle and lower class Americans, the people who were most directly and unfairly punished by the malfeasance of those bankers and brokers (almost none of whom were ever held accountable for their crimes and incompetence). If she now promotes more "orthodox" liberal policies since entering government, it might very well be part of her evolution as a legislator, who has seen what damage unchecked and unfettered libertarian policies in the financial markets can wreak. As for "sharing" views with Ms. DeVos--well, Mr. Brooks, you could also point to their similarities as professional women of a certain age if you really want to be superficial, but claiming their ideas concerning public education, vouchers, and charter schools were simpatico is really stretching to find common ground where only quicksand exists.
5
I am confused about the timeline to begin with ... if Prof. Warren's book was written in 2003, isn't DeVoss the one adopting (stealing?) the idea from her and not Prof. Warren agreeing with DeVoss. For sure, their motives couldn't be any farther apart.
6
Brooks, like most establishment types completely misses the point. If one starts from a “moderate” or “reasonable” position, while your opposition starts from an”extreme” position, you have already lost the game.
Obama’s failure as President should be a clear warning. Once he took single payer health coverage off the table, we ended up with what is called Obamacare, but is really a Republican plan drafted by a right wing think tank to preserve the obscene profits of private insurance companies, big pharma, and a few other special interests by covering up the scheme with a very small increase in overall benefits at taxpayer expense which actually further enriched the greedy, useless private system.
If you want real progress you cannot start in the middle on any issue. Republicans learned that lesson long ago which is why they always start with extreme positions. A further benefit is that they shifted the whole frame of discussion so far to the right that moderate Republicans like Clinton and Obama under 1960s or 1970s standards could be called leftists.
5
@Jack Robinson; although I agree with you in the substance of the ACA being diluted, that's not the only thing President Obama did. So to call it "Obama's failure as President" is hyperbole. Also you have to consider the circumstances ACA got passed, recall Republican's vehement resistance then and ever since. Passing ACA was a miracle ... albeit it needs more work.
2
It doesn't occur to you that "evidence based thinking" is exactly what took Warren from many of her 2003 positions to her current positions?
11
If Warren is to be cautioned against jumping onto the left-wing bandwagon, let’s focus on health care where she's in danger of adopting a Sanders-like Medicare-for-All scheme. Here, the candidate who has a plan for everything seems curiously vague.
A rapid transition to Medicare-for-All might have been possible back in the 1960s when health care expenditure represented 5% of GDP, but it would be reckless now that health care represents 17.9% (1917). Health care expenditure accounts for approximately one-fifth of GDP. Private health care insurance accounts for about one-third of health care expenditure. Missteps may lead to massive hospital closures and job losses.
Support for an abrupt transition requires an inability to grasp the complexity of health care delivery, a refusal to take stock of the resistance encountered in implementing Obamacare’s individual mandate, and lots of hubris. In addition, the prospect of abrupt transition to a government-run system may frighten many voters into voting for Trump to preserve their employer-based health care insurance.
Anyone who thinks that a top down approach can be used to rapidly fix all that ails health care in the US is unrealistic. I don’t support Joe Biden, but his plan to add a public option to Obamacare would allow for the US to evolve to a system of universal health care coverage that may resemble the Canadian system or, more likely, a mixed system where private and public options are both available as in much of Europe.
2
I used to get most of my news from Fox and base my politics on old, comfortable paradigms, until Trump. Now I look objectively at the actions of the Republican party, and I realize it is nothing but a servant of the rich, with no regard for the welfare of the majority of Americans. People evolve.
10
Every morning in America, millions wake up. Still other millions may move about but remain asleep, zombies. In that state, you can sell them anything, even Trump. Good morning.
1
David Brooks mistakes correlation for causality, a common error. The two income family may correlate with rises in housing prices, need for childcare and families aspiring for better schools. Two-income families, and by inference cheeky women entering the workforce, are more likely phenomena impacted by many factors. Perhaps the rise in living costs, the striving of women to fulfill their potentials, and the rise in opportunities have given impetus to the growth of two-income households, not the reverse. David reports his conclusions, and those he imputes to Warren, a priori, without question. Professor Warren on the stump has expanded and refined her views. Again David Brooks would have us accept as given that Warren's thinking (which he stretches and distorts to meet DeVos') is really just cynical political grandstanding rather than considered policies due to leadership growth. The entire essay argues to prove his conceit using these "givens."
9
Why the surprise? Harvard professor or not, she is now a politician. And now she is a Candidate. She has to be expedient. So please don't single her out.
2
I'm pretty sure Elizabeth Warren never "agreed with Betsy DeVos" in that when she wrote in favor of vouchers, she probably wanted safeguards to ensure that private businesses would not take advantage of the system by fraudulently marketing their schools to parents and then 1. take all the vouchers 2. give most of the money to shareholders and executives and 3. use the few pennies on the dollar left over to provide kids with a fifth-rate education from unqualified, underpaid teachers: Betsy DeVos's business strategy.
10
@Dave
You're right. Warren's thinking at the time included plans to use vouchers in public schools only -- that's the part that Brooks elides. It had nothing in common with DoVos's project to syphon off public money into for-profit private companies.
2
David Brooks fails to mention that Elizabeth was a Republican, a strong supporter of market capitalism, and started to move in a different direction as research and evidence led to different conclusions. Now he believes she follows progressive orthodoxy only because she is running for president. Wake up David and ask the next obvious question: what research fuels your current positions?
17
Greedy banks does not describe it. Greedy, stupid and corrupting is more accurate. The mortgage crisis amply illustrated both their greed and stupidity. Their money corrupts government on a daily basis. We all know this. There are many newspaper articles detailing this.
3
Hey NYT...maybe it is time to populate your writing staff with fresh ideas. The boomers are stuck with status quo thinking. How is that working for us?
9
Oh, it’s that time of year again!
When the NYT editorial board begins to slam all the democratic presidential candidates while they write “introspective” pieces on Jared and Ivanka. Or how about another article on the “old guard” of New Hampshire is scared of Lewondowski, as if that’s the only reason why a blatant racist criminal is bad for the party.
9
Hear, hear!
Warren has some really good policy ideas, primarily those that reasonably protect consumers. David's article is importnat, also discouraging, because it shows again that some good ideas get mixed up in the current political dogma dilemma.
Warren is a smart woman, but she does not understand the vast number of Americans whose problems will not be solved by liberal
orthodoxy and requires a much broader understanding of cultural, religious and regional diversity.
78
@Hap
Health care for all Americans, affordable and good education, including college, infrastructure and transition to green energy, are not liberal orthodoxy by any means. It only shows how desperate the right wing orthodoxy is as they cling to cultural and religious arguments which actually have no real world meaning.
Stick to policy arguments and compromise will be that much easier. Drop cultural arguments and, in fact, we may discover that we want similar reforms.
58
@Hap
Yes, there is dogma on both the left and the right. We vitally need that dogma, those sacred values, in order to engage in the cultural war and avoid any compromise or even the suspicion that we might have common ground.
Down with heterodoxy! Long live purity of dogma.
7
@Hap
How can fairness, transparency, evidence-based policies and honesty be construed as mere "liberal orthodoxy?" These used to be universally accepted moral virtues. Recently, opposites of those virtues i.e. extreme income inequality, secrecy, science denial and bold-faced lying have become the operative "values" of the GOP.
38
Hey David, you were a different person before you wrote your most recent book.
4
David Brooks, the title of your article is so forced. Could you be more gratuitous in trying to elevate Betsy Devos' policies to that of Elizabeth Warren's?
5
Brooks asks democrats "whom they would vote for if they didn’t have to worry about electability," and finds great support for Warren.
How ludicrous is that? The most electable candidate IS precisely the one that people do vote for. Or not?
Warren is certainly as electable as frump, whom, I suppose, wasn't particularly electable since he lost the popular vote by millions.
It's all moot. Putin has frump firmly installed for another disastrous term. And the GOP is silent. Or have they disappeared entirely? How would we know?
5
For the coming presidential elections we need to focus on the electorate. In the last congressional elections the Democrats were able to flip 40 seats of those only 2 were progressives the rest were moderates. That should speak volumes to all of us. I believe that here in the Midwest there are many that voted for Trump that are tired of his shenanigans and would like a candidate that is more centrist.
3
Mr Brooks, it was 15 yers ago, before all this vouchers and charter schools became the current craze. We do have evidence now that voucher-based charter schools are not, on average, better than public system. One can only have school competition in highly populated areas where there may be few schools within reach of students. At the end however, it becomes the competition for good teachers and for good students, where less achieving students are denied enrollment to better schools.
6
I consider myself a ‘progressive’ and a feminist. I can still see the value and stability of a stay-at-home parent.
I think that even though I worked outside the home for most of my children’s young lives, I believe my children had a good childhood and felt safe. You can have different opinions about your choices.
It seems a Democrat can’t win the nomination without hewing to
the dogmatic progressive agenda - then they will have trouble
winning the election because most of us, even progressives live in a more fuzzy space.
I will vote for Democrats up and and down the ballot. But some
will not - or stay home if their ‘agenda’ isn’t adopted.
2
Ty for the thoughtful, informative article.
Its hard to believe you can be so cynical about Elisabeth Warren and yet leave out all the horrors of Betsy DeVos. Shame on you.
13
Your header is very offensive to Warren. DeVos is a sycophant out for her family and her rich friends.
The real David Brooks is back.
14
I think we all have mental blind spots: axioms we take for granted without even realizing they are axioms. That is why children are so important. As they grow, as they criticize, even antagonize their parents, they can (if their parents are open-minded enough) make them aware of those implicit axioms they had been taking for granted. In my case, for instance, I used to honestly believe that homosexuality was a pathology. It wasn’t so much an opinion as an unspoken assumption behind all my thoughts on the matter. It took my boys’ friendship with a gay person to make me aware of that assumption, start to actually think about it from a critical perspective, and finally conclude that homosexuality is, just is. It is one very normal way of being a human being.
Mr. Brooks is a very interesting, open-minded writer who seems to be unaware of a very serious blind spot. He takes the non-peer status prevailing in American society for granted. Ms Warren does not, and is doing her damned best to get that message across to her fellow Americans.
Sometimes oversimplification is the only way .
1
Capitalism is rapacious and subverts every social movement. (Go to the mall and see all the huge ads using the LGBTQ movement to sell clothes and jewelry.) There's another NYT column today about work, where many commenters, including me, complain about the tediousness of a 'career.' Yet somehow feminism became this idea that women without jobs cannot be fulfilled. Let me tell you, I'd like to retire right now and I'm in my mid 50s with a well-paying job. Working sucks and should not be the center of out lives, but the economic reality is that without my income my kids will not be able to afford college on my wife's income alone.
2
Why is it always about Conservative and Liberal labels? She is a thinker and wiling to adjust rather than being stuck in a box. Take a lesson, Mr. Brooks.
14
One thing you can say about Republicans is that they are consistent...... tax cuts for the rich. The cure-all for everything. Snake oil.
5
Most people will suffer a loss in their 401 k portfolio if they have in order to get a qualified president
1
@AVIEL
Nope, next recession will take care of overpriced stocks, not the president.
It’s good to know that Brooks’ thinking on any topic has never evolved, that he has never had a second or third thought about something he said or wrote, since his word is absolute and forever binding. What claptrap from an educated erudite professional pundit. When Republicans change their thinking on a subject, they have “evolved after much thoughtful deliberation and self-examination.” When Democrats do it, they’re politically expedient flip-floppers. Do we no longer allow politicians the luxury of changing or modifying their positions?
7
David describes in a nutshell why I am no longer a Warren supporter. Clearly she's the smartest candidate; has analyzed the challenges the most, and has the most detailed plans for addressing them. The problem is that dems are wrong on some issues, and repubs (the old repubs, not the new nutcases) on others. She has morphed from someone seeking real solutions to one toeing the liberal line that all can be solved by just more and bigger gov't programs. What a waste. So much promise.
2
As you say “Everything conforms to rigid ideology. Independent, evidence-based thinking?” And you confirm this in your columns.
3
What a shallow hit job by Brooks
Brooks is a conservative who masquerades as a humanist through anecdotal storytelling (just like his hero Ronald Reagan).
Hardly an original thought he can call his own - every new book he likes he parrots back.
Well, Mr Brooks, for those of us who have not hidden in conservative academia our whole lives we like it when candidates grow and learn.
So I for one am taking another look at Warren. I may grow to like her too.
8
David and Bret Stephens and Ross Douthat seem more than a little shocked that people they considered friends and colleagues, fellow conservatives, turned out to be as hateful as they are. That Trump has released an inner cruelty in them that they never realized was there. And in fact the three of them are not as horrible as their buddies in reaction.
The trio also seem drawn to center left Democrats. They like them as people and want to make some kind of common cause with them, But always on their terms. They even like some of the more leftist activists but their vision of deep profound social transformation is a bridge too far. So David writes a paean to a war criminal like Gen. Mattis claiming that his loyalty to an imperial killing machine shows real charactor as opposed to rogue anti-institional thug like Trump as if these are the only choices he can imagne. No matter what, Ross need to control women's sexual reproductive and sexual lives is too basic. For Bret mass carnage seems to be almost always justified.
Well even though they have differences with each other, rather than keep giving all this useless advice maybe they should just form their own party.
4
David...
You should read the New York Times, it often has some really informative stuff. They had a great story just last week by Stephanie Saul about Elizabeth Warren, detailing her political growth. Highly recommended. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/25/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-republican-history.html
6
Why on earth are picking on Senator Warren?
5
I wish David Brooks will pay attention an write about what Trump has done and doing to the Republican Party. Case in point today report in this paper about the despicable Corey Lewandowski attempts to run for Senate seat in New Hampshire. Also Warren may have had position on vouchers similar Betsy DeVos. The similarities end there. Ms. DeVos is nothing but corrupt person with an agenda to destroy public education in USA while Ms Warren has been anti-corruption crusader and champion addressing income inequality.
6
Brooks is either fooling himself, or is trying to knowingly fool the reader by proclaiming "agreement" between DeVos and Warren. Context is ignored.
This is bad faith, a characteristic of ideologues who play verbal tricks.
Why is he doing this?
5
Does this mean David admires Betsy DeVos the same or similarly to how he admires James Mattis? Both have devoted their lives to achieve soul deadening, spirit deadening (in the case of Mattis actually people deadening) outcomes.
6
No matter what direction he may momentarily stretch while writing about politics Brooks always finds himself going back to the same tired conservative ideas. So of course he finds it surprising that two intelligent women would change their minds since in the end he never does.
5
This is deeply flawed conclusion of a comparison between things that really do not speak to the issue, but is rather used as a tool to make a misleading generalization about a candidate's beliefs and policy positions at different periods. On top of which it is incredibly sexist. Shame on you, Mr. Brooks.
3
Leave it to a conservative to spindle, fold and mutilate a progressive argument as a means to validate the outrageous, a primitive tactic cultivated by the right for years. Thanks for again reminding us of who and what you really are, Mr. Brooks.
2
Warren has the Highest Favorability rating? OH REALLY? Morning Consult still puts Sanders at the TOP. What's your source Brooks?
2
Why, repeatedly, Professor Warren, Mr. Brooks? Why not Senator Warren?
4
Mr. Brooks fails to notice one important detail in his screed: the past tense form. Warren "wrote," Warren "believed;" but he ignores, Warren "learned." That's the difference Mr. Brooks: most liberals and progressives learn. That's what an open mind allows. What twisted logic, and exemplary right-wing "thinking" to call that "dogmatic" and "rigid."
6
What comes through here is an intense dislike of Warren. The underlying argument seems to be that she’s a hypocrite, not the ideologically pure figure people think she is. Seems to be an overly simplistic view, and coming from the source, I don’t trust it.
3
This reminds me of an earlier column in which Mr. Brooks wrote: "In an era of tribal emotionalism, you’re always going to be able to make a splash reducing a complex problem to a simple narrative that separates the world into the virtuous us, and the evil them (the bankers)". This is the problem with journalism in a dogmatic age. Everything conforms to rigid, preconceived ideas about what's going on to the extent that even NYT journalists assert Betsy DeVos and Elizabeth Warren have the same policy goals for education! Independent, evidence based thinking and careful analysis of policy details? That goes out the window. Splash!
3
Yes, I totally agree, too bad Betsy DeVos hasn't progressed like Warren!
5
The idea behind charter schools was that competition from them will force standard public schools to perform better. That idea may be valid if charter schools did not suck funds from the neighborhood public school and the charter school is not run by some entity more interested in profits or to follow some ideology rather than education. If a school competes by attracting the best students than the school losing them by definition will do worse. The whole purpose of a public education is to educate everybody as well as possible, not some subsection of the population. Warren's evolution reflects that.
3
HMMMM, I'm racking my brain trying to think of what might have happened between 2004 and 2016 that would have caused such a change in her thinking on some of these issues, but I just can't...Oh, wait! Maybe it was that thing where the greedy bankers broke the economy and walked away scot-free while the suckers (tax payers) bailed them out. Or the one where the pharmaceutical companies grinned and racked in billions as they knowingly pushed and addicted millions, many of whom are now dead. Or that thing where we have to pay 8% interest on government student loans while the prime rate is so low corporations can borrow at 0% interest. Warren has abandoned "Independent, evidence-based thinking"?
Give it up David (and Brett)! Stop trying to falsely equate the culture of the left and right. The left wants to make a better world (however flawed) for everybody. The right wants to make a better world for themselves. Themselves being wealthy, white and Christian (maybe a jew or two as long as they behave). Which side is Betsy DeVos on David? And what about you?
8
David points out that Elizabeth Warrens thinking has evolved and changed in the last 16 years, were as his have not changed in the last 40. David is still in love with the idea of Ronald Reagan and his voodoo economics. Less government regulation and tax cuts for the rich. It hasn't worked for the last 40 years, but that's no reason for him to change his mind. Donald Trump is not some kind of aberration in the Republican party he is the result of it sense the Reagan years. They have totally given up on the City on the Hill it is now the Gates of Mordor. Come on David you still seem to be a good guy, but you could with all your current soul searching evolve a bit. I know it's hard to give up on your ideas form those halcyon days of the 80's, but admitting that you may have been wrong is the first step to recovery.
6
Very good column, showing the expediency of Ms. Warren as a Presidential candidate. I would ask Ms. Warren to also post her actual plans, specifically the Medicare for all: I want to see the beef. I also expect an ex-university professor to employ experts in the field, so I would expect plans to have been vetted by named economic experts, not lawyers: I want to see the math, not just the exciting rhetoric. Ms. Warren has great energy, but the proof is in the details and as shown in David's column, confirming consistency with reality versus non-workable fantasy.
This is a weird article, Mr.Brooks. I am supporting Governor Steve Bullock in the Democratic primary, but your take on Elizabeth Warren strikes me as petty. Are you saying that a person shouldn't rely on sound and thorough research, historical facts and empirical evidence in assessing how best to improve our society? Even if this factors change one's mind about what caused and how to solve an issue? I may not be a Warren supporter as of now, but I greatly admire her integrity and her thinking and caring approach to leadership.
9
When 1% of the population own 99% of all assets what kind of candidate do we want. Trump continues to shift the assets to the 1% and he lies that he is not-the evidence is clear that he is benefiting only the already wealthy. Warren is the beginning of a change that will take place over the next decade or more. People are feed up-even those that were supporting Trump eg. farmers.
When the upheaval takes place-we will have a Democratic Congress and President-and drastic changes will be made.
3
Betsy DeVos rolled back Obama rules to protect people from predatory schools.
And for all those Republicans who claim to be patriots, many of those predatory schools prey on our military because they get veterans benefits.
To call Betsy DeVos and Elizabeth Warren the same is absurd.
Mr. Brooks knows this.
7
People's thinking evolves over time. What is different now compared to 2003? What Warren helps us see now and what she helped us see then is how the rich adapt to any innovation by labor (i.e., women entering the workforce) by finding ways to profit off those innovations, which simultaneously keeps labor in a disadvantaged position. Bankers are definitely sidekicks to corporations in this endeavor, along with rigidly supremacist politicians and their lackeys. All these bad actors have spearheaded the destruction of unions, which leaves labor helpless in the face of multiple predations. These shenanigans continue to disadvantage labor as well as the Earth environment. So, bankers aren't the only predators on labor and Nature, but they are key enablers. I am fine with Warren putting a target on their shenanigans.
2
Opposite sides of the same coin.
1
Why do so many of these comments think Mr. Brooks is a Republican? I’d bet big he’s been an independent for years like most conservatives (meaning the political philosophy).
1
There is little good we couldn't do if we weren't so warlike with our military budget..
2
Hmmmm. After 16 years, one's thinking cannot evolve? Opinions can't change?
Well, this opinion reads a lot like a tactic that Republicans never seem to grow out of: the wedge issue. Or, rather, a lame attempt at one.
Betsy DeVoss has been Secretary if Education for a few years now. Has she done anything to help lower income families and underfunded schools? Anything at all?
Why not ask Elizabeth Warren what her opinions are NOW, since she is running for President now, and not in 2003.
Also- where was Trump in 2003? Probably at a party with Jeffrey Epstein or walking in to a pageant contestant's dressing room.
Get out of the way, Brooks. People with helpful ideas need the column space.
2
Wow. All these years Sen Warren was working this way, and Mr Brooks was selling the USA on bountiful and obvious benefits of the Trickle Down Economy.
4
I don't have a problem with Warren evolving on the issues. However, Joe Biden is being held to a stricter standard by the media and progressives. Every instance of a gaff or inconsistent prior position, the media makes a front line story and ridicules him and quotes some progressive saying we have to pass the torch to a younger generation or implying its his age. Not only that it is that the story gets legs and is front page news for days after. I guess the same thing goes for Trump with media and others concerning some trivial misspoken word when there are more than enough non truths (lies) and outrageous policies to focus on.
1
David. Please, please, please go away and never come back. Warren is the only candidate who is offering policies to address the conditions that led to the rise of Trump - something that you enabled.
Remember, David, when you singing the praises of the "creative destruction" of capitalism, and advocating the Obama allow what remains of the auto industry in the Midwest to go under in 2008. I do.
7
In 2003, Warren was pointing out the problem and providing some solutions that may have made sense at the time. But some 15 years later, the problems have gotten worse because no one listened to what Warren was saying.
Now the solution takes on more progressive characteristics because of the Republican induced recession and Trump's tax breaks for the rich.
I don't see rigid ideology here but an evolution of thought in how to solve a problem brought about by the "rigid ideology of conservatives".
5
Another Republican nitpicking the Democratic front runners for being too progressive. Nothing will satisfy these guys until the Democrats run a Trump clone.
10
Elizabeth Warren evolved with the Times. We had a bailout of risky banks that in part helped create the tea party and angered both parties. If Brooks calls this ideology then I’ll call it populism. The conservative talking points are bad for women with children single mothers who are deserving of support. Marriage is very beneficial but there are some men who are unemployed or underemployed and therefore make bad husbands. The pool of prospective husbands determines in part the married mothers. Married while poor is a dumb decision but marriage is truly beneficial.
3
Brooks falsely claims that Elizabeth Warren agreed with Betsy DeVos on how to fund education. Warren some time ago advocated a voucher system that would among other effects increase funding for public education. DeVos has called for the eradication of public schools. She wants a voucher program that will dramatically decrease funds for all education, but funnel it into fundamentalist anti-science institutions.
Some suggest that Warren's views may have changed over time. That may have happened. Let's look at Mr. Brooks. Soon after graduation from college he rose to national prominence at National Review. The editor, W F Buckley Jr, described in his book, The Jeweler's Eye, how in much of the South, black schools were funded at a fraction of the rate of white schools. If Blacks got the vote, their main issue was to get black children an equal chance at education. Since that would mean taxes would go up, Buckley supported White opposition by any means necessary. Throughout the 1960's and into the 1970's, in his radio and tv appearances and newspaper columns, Buckley would repeat this position. In fact my memory as a young man in the South is that he usually chose immediately after an anti-voting-rights atrocity to repeat this platform. Brooks has previously claimed that Buckley was not a racist. Might Buckley have changed his position (at least, wanting to "hide the mint julep") over the years? Or did Brooks accept that platform as normal and harmonious?
7
There is nothing "comic book" about greedy bankers and for that matter greedy corporations. Profits over people is the cornerstone on which this country was built, from slavery, child labour, unsafe products, deregulation, pollution etc. The average citizen has been taken to the cleaners and fleeced throughout our history. Now we are seeing the culmination of our unregulated capitalism. It's about time the rowers underneath the galley are let onto the upper deck.
8
David writes: "Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window" ...
Did it occur to you David that maybe, just maybe, Ms. Warren learned a few things between 2003 and 2016, and that these insights undergird the change to which you allude?
I realize that learning things constitutes anathema to conservatives, but please don't cynically confuse evolution of thought with dogmatism.
8
Wonderful comment Ms. Wagener! You are dead on that Brooks conflates the two stances on education, a not untypical trick of the Right. However, for the first time he admits and applauds the use of data in evaluating a politician's program. This is his first step down the road of reason. Hopefully it wont be long before he recognizes just how fraudulent Devos et.al. truly are.
1
David, do you mean that greedy bankers have zero responsibility for our past economic disasters?
5
This sounds like an argument to get Republicans, who are seriously worried about the unicorn policies of the POTUS candidates, to talk themselves into Warren as only pandering to the extremists in her party. Then Republicans can vote for Warren instead of holding their noses and covering their mouths to pull the lever for Trump
2
"This is the problem with politics in a dogmatic age. Everything conforms to rigid ideology. Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window."
Apologies David, but did you look in the mirror while you were shaving this morning?
As with many intelligent individuals who continue to read and study the world, Elizabeth Warren's thinking evolved in the thirteen years between the publication of the original book and the new introduction.
Why sling mud and reduce her current politics as "progressive boilerplate?" She transformed herself from being a moderate conservative to a progressive because of the interesting swerves that her life and career took.
How might your political views have evolved had you volunteered for the peace corps and lived in South America or Africa for a few years?
5
"This is the problem with politics in a dogmatic age. Everything conforms to rigid ideology. Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window."
Hey, Mr. Brooks, we're just responding to your republican party and it's president.
You can't fight republicans with one hand behind your back.
They bring assault rifles...we have to fight back anyway we can.
What makes republicans think we are just going to sit back and play nice nice when they have a leader like their president?
3
David, endlessly trying to find a Democrat that HE, a Never Trumper, can vote for. I am sorry, but why should they cater to you? Millions of us want a progressive, not a "DINO", because they along with Republicans have failed.
3
What concerns me the most, is that on some issues, such as the terrible state of schools in some neighborhoods; neither Democrats, Republicans or the NYT have fond and implemented a strategy that will allow ambitions and talented students to complete fairly.
1
well, maybe she evolved. give her some credit for listening to her own research.
5
I would vote for the old Elizabeth Warren. Not so with today's version.
1
Many are coalescing around Warren, myself included, we appreciate informed intelligence as opposed to the nonsense we see near everywhere we look.
3
I guess David Brooks believes that opinion and political stances can never change when confronted by the realities of real life. Warren is clearly a woman who is not dogmatic enough for Brooks.
2
A retroactive “gotcha.” Congrats to your research assistant.
I saw Warren at a bankruptcy program in 2001, prior to the book Brooks cites. She was brilliant and very pro-consumer even then.
In true cynical style, Brooks assumes Warren’s views changed solely for political purposes and discounts the idea she systematically and honestly changed her mind.
Brooks should read the letter to the editor facing his column from someone confronting actual conditions for workers today. About which he couldn’t care less.
4
"Evidence-based?" You cite one article. Where is the research that replicates this method and the findings? Where is the research that expands on these findings and better investigates confounding variables? This is a requirement of evidence-based research. Your article is very sloppy and misleading because your single source the research tha suports your hypothesis.
On average, women's income and financial burdens can be reduced and increased, respectively. See Laurie Itkin, 2018, Forbes, discussing the Worthy study. This research presents confounding factors impacting working women's financial status, including the fact that they were stay at home moms while married. All you had to do to increase the credibility of your argument (or to at least employ a marginal nod to critical thinking) was to look for a few more studies, even in summary. They are out there. Oh, but this is just an opinion piece, I forgot.
Stick to your point about Warren agreeing with de Voss, since you are usually determined to discredit Democratic, and especially liberal/progressive viewpoints. Your ability to digest and analyze research is terrible.
2
So Warren's conservative ideas were Independent, and evidence-based, but her progressive ideas are rigid and ideological. I guess you didn't take the course at the U. of C. that discussed a phenomenon called the "fallacy of disparateness."
3
You can’t compare the sincere search for shareable answers that Elizabeth Warren has undertaken (is undertaking) vis-a-vis expanding public education opportunity and efficacy with the greedy and cynical efforts of Betsy DeVos to enable an us-versus-them America where core curricula is “deployed” in a way that keeps all of us in our pre-defined places.
Vouchers as a market-based means of improving the diversity of pedagogy and the stimulation of innovative core curriculum does need to be one arrow in the quiver of thoughtful policy innovators. Warren proved her sincerity back then in entertaining it as an option. Progressives today must fight back the self-interested forces in their midst (such as the NEA) who make the word itself anathema.
But DeVos’s dystopian view where cultural madrasas teaching fundamentalist religion and conservative orthodoxy are funded by community tax dollars is not comparable. It is the height of naïveté and perhaps cynicism that would lead Mr. Brooks to make such a comparison in this essay.
One of the approaches—Warren’s—is about strengthening broadly shared community values and opportunities through innovative policy. The other—DeVos’s—is about greedily enabling segregation of communities into sycophancies (and eternal voting blocs) based on pseudo-religious orthodoxies, racial animus, and culture-war dogma.
Big difference. Dangerous are the megaphone-wielders like Mr. Brooks who casually blur the distinctions just to fill an editorial hole.
5
2003.
I remember 2003.
Bush had just been handed the election by the Supreme Court.
The Saudis had just flown planes into the Twin Towers.
Haliburton had already set up their no-bid contracts.
Trump and DeVos weren't even a gleam in Putin's eye.
Almost 15 years later Warren and Tyagi wrote a new introduction.
That was after the bankster's almost melted-down the entire world's economics playing with derivatives and fraudulently moving the housing industry to collapse.
2003?
How paleo.
Only 14 months to go.
2
That Warren’s positions have evolved as 16 yrs of results data poured in from decades of laissez-faire neoliberal destruction of the commons? Hey, she’s got a brain. As to the new introduction’s “comic book world, in which everything bad can be blamed on greedy bankers,” it ain’t funny, & she’s “got a plan” for dialing back the dereg that made that happen.
2
I have to wonder how this column would have turned out had Warren been male. Both Warren and DeVos are women, but there's some tension in the column about Warren's evolution as a woman more so than as a scholar. What's up with that?
3
Always always Mr Brooks is a great read!
I prefer Professor Warren to candidate Warren.
1
The thing is-
David Brooks' story is one where Banks are all separate small institutions with a local rich white guy who loves his community and is just trying to lend according to the market.
Of course this denies the existence of large corporations who buy lobbyists and work together in trade groups. It denies the history of Red Lining, it denies that many of these men have bigotries that then are enshrined in the lending practices of multi-billion dollar organizations that people, like Mr Brooks, deem as to big to fail.
The problem is that Mr Brooks is a man of rigid ideology. He believes in the banker because it supports his thesis that the economy that benefits him cannot need regulation. Sure there might be unintended outcomes, but he will always find a way to blame that on others. It is never greed, because to Mr Brooks- Greed doesn't exist.
That is a nice moral exclusion from any religion Mr Brooks has ever professed to following- any creed, any ideology, that he has never been above. Because that is his morality. Good for Mr Brooks is good for everyone. Like Trump but with a different name attached.
2
Of course the other interpretation, if the author weren't following conservative ideology and actually keeping an open mind, would be that Warren has slowly transitioned over the years to more progressive views as she studied the issues more closely and searched for solutions that actually work instead of ones that work. Perhaps she actually recognized that vouchers haven't worked all that well and that pulling money out of the public schools that have served this country well for its entire history wasn't such a good idea, was actually quite unfair, and that spending that money to improve public schools and make them fair and effective for everyone was a much better idea.
4
David:
More than Elizabeth Warren changing I see you changing, for the worst: yards and yards to the right. Sad.
Naturally things change and people evolve with the changes, do not try to sell me the idea that bankers are a bunch of angles looking for the common good, with your paragraph:
"The 2003 book is intellectually unpredictable and alive. The new introduction is paint-by-numbers progressive boilerplate. The original book described a complex world in which people navigate trade-offs and unintended consequences often happen. The new introduction describes a comic book world, in which everything bad can be blamed on greedy bankers."
2
Working women in two-income families did not drive up the cost of housing and education -- it was massive white flight and the total abandonment of the inner city that caused those costs to climb. White families fled the city, and when they stopped running, demanded superhighways, overlarge houses; new schools, new strip malls; and all the bells and whistles of suburbia. The tax base of the inner city communities eroded to below subsistence levels; infrastructure decayed as did the physical facilities of the education system. Inner-city students began school needing subsidized breakfast in decaying buildings with not enough books, paper, or pencils; suburban students arrived fresh from family vacations and academic enrichment camps -- they arrived with laptops, iPads, and all the latest electronics; and their schools had well-equipped labs, gyms, and playing fields. The equity gap between urban and suburban schools grows every year -- vouchers for private schools will do nothing to help.
4
So, what you're saying is Warren is the type of person who continues to positively grow and adapt to a changing world. Well, that's my kind of president!
8
I agree it is true that “successful” social policy innovation results primarily as a result of sudden bouts of widespread sincerity and consciously deployed open-mindedness to the ideas of “the other”.
But equating Ms. Warren’s entertainment of vouchers in her open-hearted search for answers in ‘03 and Ms. DeVos’s greed-inspired screeds in favor of vouchers then and now is simply dumb.
Greed is the operative word here... we have become a nation in which the machinery of policy innovation and development are now under the thrall of greedy and cynical operators whose interests lie in permanent partisan advantage and in the triumph of a personal world view at the expense of any hope of shared community-wide progress.
For example, it is probably true in a sense that the public teacher unions hold back any sincere quest to promote a democratic menu of ever-better education opportunity in communities by being unwilling to even entertain some form of voucher and market-driven school-choice programming. The 2003 Warren may indeed have felt free to decry that stand as selfish and “un-progresssive”.
But for DeVos and her ilk the demand for vouchers isn’t about improving access or broadening the reach of quality education or child care. It is about greedily enabling exclusivity and segregation of “our school-children” and creating government funded “madrasas” across the nation through voucher-funded, faith-specific, party-connected schools in small towns nationwide.
5
"...It’s hard to believe this introduction was written by the same people..."
So, after 16 years they should NOT have learned something new, evolved in their thinking or adapt their thinking to new realities.
The same way Republicans do with their "tax cuts pay for themselves" mantra that has helped the country SOOOO much!
2
Mr. Brooks can't find anything real to pick on with Senator Warren so he returns to a book she wrote years ago to try to prove how unsuited she is to be president. What he has shown is that she, unlike the GOP, has evolved and grown as she's lived and learned. Warren, unlike many in the GOP, knows exactly what it's like to see her family struggle to survive. I don't suppose that Mr. Brooks has read any of her other, more recent books where she demonstrates a far better grasp of what life has been for most Americans in the last 40 years thanks to the GOPs voodoo economics.
At least Warren uses her intelligence to try to propose solutions. What has McConnell, Trump, Pence, or the rest of the GOP done to help us in recent years? Opposed the Consumer Protection Agency, tried to cripple the ACA, refused to fund infrastructure projects, created more of a problem with immigration than there was, tried to deport legal immigrants, put through a tax overhaul that was an unneeded gift for the richest individuals and corporations in America.
I would suggest that Mr. Brooks devote some time to looking at his part in Trump's election. His simplistic columns, including this one, miss the point. There are too many Americans being left behind not because they are lazy or incompetent but because the party he supports refuses to work for all Americans. I think that Warren would be an excellent choice. I hope that she or Sanders get the nod. Not Biden.
9/3/2019 11:19am
4
I voted for Warren for senate. I will vote for her in the primary.
She is honest, passionate, knowledgeable, intelligent, and she invokes her critical thinking skills, and is willing and able to change her mind if the facts and situation on the ground demand it.
These attributes are missing from every GOP politician, and virtually all of the other Dem primary candidates.
7
"In 2016 Warren and Tyagi wrote a new introduction to their book. It’s hard to believe this introduction was written by the same people."
Thirteen years of GOP intransigence tends to focus the mind. It's hard to believe how far down the rabbit hole the GOP is willing to go to avoid any social responsibility, so what made sense in 2003 isn't likely to be the same as what makes sense today … is it?
5
She supported Hillary and not Sanders. She was an accomplice of The Status Quo and many won't forget that.
1
@Rodrian Roadeye
I'm for Bernie too, but I wouldn't hold that against Elizabeth Warren.
2
Why do we chastise any candidate — Democrat or Republican — who has allowed maturity, study, and observation to alter their views? To me, that’s a sign of a flexible mind. When Lincoln first entered the presidency, he was against freeing the slaves. However, he came to understand why it was necessary and right.
5
Jrw. Flexible mind is good. Being in favor of school voucher makes you a traitor. Trust me, it won’t be for the middle class.
Yes, in fact state governments should subsidize higher education--but for students, not administrators, who will find any excuse to spend more money on themselves. Back in the 1960s, higher education at all public colleges and universities was virtually entirely subsidized--even at UC Berkeley and UCLA. At that point, higher education was seen as crucial, since the US was engaged in a Cold War and needed a skilled workforce. Today, college is considered a privilege and too many people view it as scary because it teaches students to think. What a concept!!!
5
It's funny, but I see it exactly the opposite. Instead of clinging to one idea her whole life, she observes, opens herself up to new ideas, learns, and adapts her thinking accordingly. Her whole life's work shows she wants real solutions to real problems, and just maybe it turns out the "liberal agenda" is where many of those real solutions lie.
7
To conflate Elizabeth warren’s 2003 policies with Betsy Devos policy of privatizing everything, taxing the endowments of private universities, and school vouchers is a bunch of malarkey. Isn’t it the Republicans who want to tax the endowments, reduce federal funding for institutions of higher ed (look at what they tried to do in Alaska), and defund the NEH? To say that we have to look at where federal investment is going is different from outright cutting federal investment and privatizing everything, siding with predatory student loan lenders every single time and doing nothing about massive economic burden of student loan debt or even entrenching the problem. Give me Warren any day! She at least want to do something other than just privatize the profits and socialize the costs, creating more dependency and debt for the middle and working class. Devos is the apotheosis of the “dark side” and her policies make sure we won’t forget that fact.
4
I'd like to see a candidate who rejects vouchers, charters and
any other erosion of public schooling. In a democracy the ultimate purpose of education is to impart a belief in the maturing citizen-to-be that she will have an equal stake in the social contract. This can't be outsourced.
2
@Charles Packer
So, you want to force families to send their children to failing schools, to preclude the option for perhaps something better - because that is part of some social contract?
It seems a bit cruel to me.
1
Like Sanders, Warren has been pressed to adopt some PC views that distract from their populist side. Unlike the execrable DeVos, and absent from Brook's piece here, Warren (like Sanders) emphasized the declining wages of American workers that forced both parents to work and then, given increasing earning inequality, left them worse rather than better off. That distinguishes her from the glass ceiling' obsessions of Clinton and the upper class women she spoke for.
8
The assumption by Warren or the explanation given by parents for bidding up housing prices in good schools districts are either wrong or not true or both. Even under those circumstances, the solution advanced by Warren of supporting vouchers is wrong. The policies should be based on common good and not to aid and abet the people’s wrong choices.
Warren remains committed to the belief that all people deserve a fair shot. Naturally, as she has delved into the details of constructing policies, her ideals have evolved. The suggestion that she is bound by the liberal orthodoxy overlooks one important fact: it is her ideas and conviction, along with those of Sanders and now others, that have largely shaped that orthodoxy, moving it far to the left over the past several years.
7
Am still confused how Mr. Brooks came to the conclusion that working women are the cause for rising housing costs. So when women were at home no family cared about good school districts? Or is is the argument that families that only have the man work do not care about education? Seems like a stretch.
3
Public college tuition, at least, did not go up because people bid it up. Rising tuition is a direct result of a conservative reform movement (a misguided and even corrupt reform movement) to make it go up.
6
This is a very shallow comparison between the two women. Motivations matter. DeVos’ family is actively involved in the for-profit Christian school business (and it is a lucrative business). Warren is a law professor and senator who has observed the effects of charter schools in the last 20 years: the swift funneling of money away from “underperforming” public schools; bankers and CEOs viewing charters as an opportunity to make serious money on the backs of low-income children; unregulated capitalism mixed with schools basically inviting corruption; low test scores for certain minorities are the same, overall.
Betsy DeVos and *SENATOR* Warren are also women who wear glasses. Another commonality. What’s your point, Mr. Brooks?
8
David Brooks's opinion pieces grow more specious by the day and are clearly intended to muddy the waters for progressive candidates like Warren and Sanders. But the facts remain: these are candidates whose basic platforms are intended to address the socioeconomic inequities that Trump used as rhetorical bait to fool those who voted for him into believing he would be a champion of the working class. No Republican has ever been such a champion, and, in this case, least of all, David Brooks.
4
Yes, David, there have been lots of changes between 2003 and today, such as the near-dissolution of a middle class that thought it was on the Road to Prosperity until corrupt financiers, having invested 40 years in courting an equally corrupt Congress with conservative economic policies, yanked the rug in 2008. If nothing else, that alone calls for new analysis and new solutions.
You go girl!
7
Liz Warren has gone through a transformation as a result of intellectual curiosity and a bold sense of fearless integrity. These concepts tend to make conservatives, especially republican conservatives, uncomfortable. In their view, politicians are supposed to stick to uninformed, simple views because they fit better into campaign slogans and bumper stickers. In the upcoming troubles of the next decade we need politicians that are up to the challenges.
10
You could note, too, the changes brought about by the normalization of vision and dental insurance in which eye glasses specialists and dentists become wealthy and no longer need to work a full week.
2
In 2003 many people believed in market solutions and nuanced policies. In 2019 we have had at least a decade to experience the failure of these policies to perform as promised and their peculiar ability to spawn corruption. Warren, like many of us, has learned from experience what Bernie knew from the start.
5
Remember that whole "no state religion" thing, David? DeVos blatantly wants to undermine it, and indeed hangs her entire (Tin Foil) hat on the idea of doing so, as quickly as possible. Warren's vision of a voucher system is the direct opposite — driven by true economic need, with true economic results for those deserving and those contributing. Yes, it would make for a complicated transition and require major concessions by "both sides," including hidebound teachers' unions (many of my teacher friends would take me to task for that statement, but it's true). Warren's stance has evolved though her bedrock beliefs are still there. DeVos hasn't budged an inch and has no data to back her up, just an Amway cultish attitude. In other words, your column misses the mark, by a wide margin.
11
Just the title alone, that Warren agrees with DeVos is absurd. Women in America are struggling to reach stability when Congress cannot even bring itself to pass equal rights. As for blaming everything on "greedy bankers", one of the reasons that Warren is gaining traction is her understanding of how seminal banking is to women's security. She knows where the bodies are buried, so to speak, and they're buried in DeVos' back yard. I'm left to wonder why Mr. Brooks is writing about a book Warren co-authored instead of commenting on her positions today. Talk about being hung up on dogma.
10
The problem is that the republican approach to all problems is a tired and boring and inconsequential idea that only at the unit of community—with, of course, upper-class benefiting, supply side taxation policies—can our problems be solved.
Talk about dogma.
10
As the situation evolves and changes, so too does Elizabeth Warren's thinking and subsequent policy proposals. She isn't using 1990s decisions for today's problems and issues. She's relatable to the common citizen as she tells of her three big brothers going off to serve in the military and the devastation her family's economic situation faced with her father's heart attack and her stay at home mom's forced decision to go to work to put food on the table and pay their mortgage.
We want someone who can relate to us and who is qualified and smart to be President. We want Warren.
13
David Brooks,
All that this tells me is that Senator Warren was that rarest of modern day republicans; a deep thinker whose beliefs can evolve after careful study of a problem to determine the best solution. This followed by working to solve the problem without trying to equivocate about her political transition.
I support her candidacy.
11
True intellectuals think. True intellectuals ask themselves questions. True intellectuals are not afraid to question existing ideas, including their own, and evolve.
Warren's ideas in 2003 are not the same as in 2019. The US and the world at 2003 were not the same as they are now in 2019.
It is quite reassuring that Warren constantly thinks, evolves, and changes her views. Not in an artificial spin that clings ot the most recent poll numbers (contra Hillary Clinton's belated embrace of same-sex marriage) but as part of a true, serious, long-term process.
We need a leader with a backbone and a solid vision for America. We also need a leader who is intellectually agile, and can quickly adapt to this world's dynamic, fast paced, and often unpredictable changes. Warren exemplifies all of these things, and THAT'S why she is going to win.
9
@Peaceman
True intellectuals? Young people are more idealist with little experience but with few facts. They are well trained in what and how to think and tend to go with the crowd. As they learn more they become more conservative. The facts never change. They are open to open to misinterpretation but don't change. That's where experience comes in.
Listening to an itellectual spin reality is less painful than listening to Fox news. They are smarter, smoother and lace their story with convient truths but are still painful to listened to.
@JoeG
The very large generalization you made is absurd. As (young people) "learn they become more conservative". I actually believe the opposite, myself a case in point. I do believe that as people get older, they often become more conservative, but that is based on their own money coming in to the equation.
@LFK
"they often become more conservative, but that is based on their own money coming into the equation."
Aren't you proving my point as absurd as it is.
Attended Warren's visit to Seattle; appreciated her proposal to tax 2 cents to the super rich for every enormous measure of money they have. She listed possibilities of how that tax to the rich could balance or re-balance economic woes in so many ways including education at all levels. This was inspiring considering what we have been going through in recent years.
Two cents in the wave of a hand makes a peace sign. There was great spirit at this gathering.
5
Maybe Warren and her daughter are now free to dream big and imagine transformative change. A lot of this country’s problems can be traced back to too much wealth flowing to the already wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.
7
Now, now, Mr. Brooks: you're treading on thin ice in this column. Senator Warren has simply "grown" into full acceptance of the wonders of the Progressive faith. And hence won the acceptance of the media and of Hollywood.
She did apologize to Native Americans for appropriating their identity to her own benefit. But I think they and we would have been more impressed if she had said, as part of the apology, that she was resigning her Harvard professorship which she had acquired by claiming to be a Native American.
I suppose she's winning the "selfie" war, but I question whether people really like her. Of course, the ballot box will tell.
3
"This is the problem with politics in a dogmatic age. Everything conforms to rigid ideology. Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window."
Listening to a Republican say that makes me laugh out loud.
Is it impossible to believe that people learn, grow, and change based on experience, evidence, and facts? Perhaps not for conservatives, who hold on to discredited ideology for dear life.
One of the greatest things about Warren to me is her intelligence, and yes ability to progress.
14
The interesting thing in this article is Warren’s thesis. It’s counter intuitive. We think that we need two incomes per household because the cost of living is going up. Warren’s thesis is that the cost of living is going up because now we have two incomes per household. It is like the idea that many people assert concerning economic development. We think that we need economic growth because the world populations is increasing. But a few of us hold the counter intuitive idea that the world population is increasing because of economic growth allows it. That is, the population will increase until the point of starvation is reached (see Malthus). Economic development pushes that limit ever further back. (Birth control and family planning will remain ineffective until the limit set by starvation begins to be felt.)
As in many other such cases, if what you’re doing to solve a problem is in fact causing the problem, it’s a good idea to stop what you’re doing.
5
True, but we are mostly not going to stop having 2 incomes since many women find work fulfilling. But it is counter-intuitive that when a 40 hour a week could support a family of 5 that we now need two parents each working 50 hour weeks! And that is with modern efficiency.
So what can we do to better peoples lives that are currently filled with anxiety. Create more part-time work so women and men can balance their responsibilities to their children, elderly parents, communities, health and self-care. Invest in our citizenry with education in typical academics and in the trades (like Switzerland), longer vacations to promote wellness, socialize medicine to just wipe that constant worry away and subsidize childcare through early childhood kindergartens like the French system.
1
The book Mr. Brooks talks about was written before the financial crisis, and before Elizabeth Warren ably co-chaired the Congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. I am sure that experience taught her a great deal about why the middle class is shrinking, and why ordinary people struggle in today's economy.
Ms. Warren's first book identified one tree in a large, foreboding forest.
11
Brooks says, "They [families in which women worked] started bidding up the price of [...] college tuition."
This is not correct. The huge increase in tuition (4%/year above inflation) at public universities is a direct result of the decrease of state support for higher education. Tuition at private universities has also risen (2%/year above inflation), but not nearly as rapidly.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2017-09-20/see-20-years-of-tuition-growth-at-national-universities .
8
Why do people use words like heterodox, rather than non-conforming, or some other more adequate term?
Sigh...
6
Kind of took a right turn and 'petered out' there at the end. Mr. Brooks still clings to his "Trickle Down" conservative world, even as it implodes in front of him. Like the rest of us old time conservatives, he's getting there but watching the slow transformation is painful.
9
Mr. Brooks criticisms notwithstanding, Ms. Warren remains the best candidate for President, in either party, by a wide margin.
14
What is your argument in this column? Prior to her appointment and currently as Sec'y of Education, DeVos devoted her life to breaking the church/State wall. DeVos isn't an educator, or an education leader. DeVos in 2001 listed education activism and reform efforts as a means to "advance God's Kingdom". In an interview that year, she also said that "changing the way we approach ... the system of education in the country ... really may have greater Kingdom gain in the long run". Warren succeeds in the creation of the CFPB in 2010. Your boy Trump refuses to nominate a director, instead having Mulvaney be the agency's "acting" director. On the other hand, DeVos lost the lawsuit brought by 19 states and the DC, accusing DoE of improperly delaying implementation of regulations protecting student loan borrowers from predatory practices. In our youth, DeVos & I were members of the Christian Reformed Church of North America. When participating in a catechism as a 13 year old, I abandoned the church as I couldn't accept its Calvinist doctrine (especially "predestination"). A few of our elders, of Dutch origin, also made it clear that "if you're not Dutch, you ain't much". We would probably have never had to suffer the likes of DeVos if the Republicans hadn't embarrassed the religious right. DeVos, VP of her mother's Prince Foundation, testified under oath that she had nothing to do with contributions made by the foundation to Focus on the Family & the Family Research Council.
7
Ten years ago I found Sen. Warren interesting. Now she is simply predictable, checking all the boxes for liberal ideology. Bernie Sanders is getting his socialist goals embedded into the American psyche even if his campaign comes to naught.
4
Yes, clearly we should be spending time criticizing Warren because she obviously isn't being honest with voters. Meanwhile, President Trump is...
11
Gosh, if only there was some sort of event between 2003 and today that would have made a bankruptcy scholar a lot more critical of Wall Street...
16
Regarding the new introduction to the book. Did something happen between 2003 and 2016 that might have caused the authors to change their thinking?? Asking for a nation.
12
Warren is opposed to the deportation of anybody illegally in the country, except rapist and murderers, and supports higher levels of legal immigration. She fails to recognize the impact of increasing the supply of laborers; driving the cost of labor down, (lower wages). She fails to recognize the impact of increasing the demand for housing and education driving prices higher. This is the most simple and basic economics. Why does she fail to understand? Does she actually support low wages and high education costs?
3
Here in farm country we need more immigration but it doesn’t drive wages down because it’s not competitive. You worry about driving wages down then you should support unions because they fight for fair wages. Immigrants take jobs no one else wants- is that a myth?
1
This is actually my only policy disappointment about her. I think she is smart enough to know the truth but knows she must check off this box to get the nomination. Unfortunately, I think it is ultimately a political miscalculation as the population outside of the most vocal on the coasts wants to follow the rule of law and only allow legal immigration.
1
Brooks complains of "rigid ideology." But Warren's deviation from the Devos "voucher" ideology is anything BUT rigid, and is instead the product of ada[pting to FACTS and changing one's mind. All sorts of people, liberal and conservative, jumped on the choice/voucher bandwagon when it was new for their own reasons. The Devos' did so as a means to undermine public education, create little Christian madrasses using taxpayer money. Liberals did so to be experimental and help students.
But what we know now is the voucher/choice system was a sham, enriching mostly wealthy evangelicals like Devos and Huizenga by sluffing tax payer money to private profit driven schools whose performance was, by and large, no better than public schools. The PRIMARY driver of improvement for students especially at the early grade levels is SMALLER classrooms.
Rather than destroy public education, let's reform it so that elementary schools have classes of 12 instead of 30
5
Yes, it is depressing. Our candidates pander rather than tell hard truths, but so does the hard Right. There is no comparison between Democrats and the simplistic politics of resentment and fear practiced since the days of the infamous "Willie Horton" ad during the Bush Sr./Dukakis contest.
Mr. Brooks, you call it correctly. The age of dogmatism on both ends of the political spectrum. A forced orthodoxy worthy of the medieval church or the Puritans in their witch (and Quaker) hanging era. Independent or challenging thoughts are banished. Trump loathing Republicans get threats, some of them felonious. Democrats who don't comply with the rigid nostrums of the cutting edge activists whether black , feminist, Latino or "woke" (whatever that means) are derided and marginalized (ironically one of the buzzwords of the Left).
None of this is good for our democracy or our future. If we can't have free flowing discussions of all topics and a wide variety of programs and solutions, where are we?
3
Very slippery. DeVos proposes vouchers systems that will enrich private companies at the expense of those being educated (at taxpayer expense), as well as school "choice" that will, for instance, embolden religious education that could allow teachers to question Evolution in science classes, or engage in regressive and harmful preaching about sexual identity, as well as not falling under the aegis of public standards. Oh yeah, and you can kill some unions while you're at it. Warren was advocating for an expansion of available PUBLIC schools (especially low-income people), more adequately funded by taxes, not a scheme to float more parochial schools for conservatives who don't believe in science. Try again, David.
10
Odd, independent and evidence based policies are not the stuff of conservatives like Mr. Brooks. Their mantra is tradition, metaphysics, and tribalist. But I suppose he needs a column of two criticizing a liberal to keep his status as a conservative.
3
"Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window."
Really? Lets see what windows David Brooks has thrown his independent evidence-based thinking out of:
"Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Brooks argued forcefully for American military intervention, echoing the belief of commentators and political figures that American and British forces would be welcomed as liberators. In 2005, Brooks wrote what columnist Jonathan Chait described as "a witheringly condescending" column portraying Senator Harry Reid as an "unhinged conspiracy theorist because he accused the George W. Bush administration of falsifying its Iraq intelligence." By 2008, five years into the war, Brooks maintained that the decision to go to war was correct, but that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had botched U.S. war efforts. In 2015, Brooks wrote that "from the current vantage point, the decision to go to war was a clear misjudgment" made in 2003 by President Bush and the majority of Americans who supported the war, including Brooks himself."
Brooks' sanctimonious moralizing wears a little thin. I realize that he has to churn out a column several times a week but apparently the best he can come up with this week is the startling revelation that some of Elizabeth Warren's positions have evolved over the last 20 years. That is quite a stunner David.
8
Brooks evolved toward heterodoxy. Warren evolved toward orthodoxy. If you read the column as simply criticizing Warren (or people in general) for changing her mind then I think you’ve misread the column, which may be more of a critique of the political system than of Warren in particular.
2
David Brooks was part of the Republican Party that got us into our current miserable and dangerous situation, by either going along with, or ignoring, the long lurch to the right.
Now Brooks et al should sit back and let Democrats choose their own candidate, period.
4
You are misrepresenting what Warren wrote. She advocated for "public school vouchers." She did not want private schools vouchers. With public school vouchers, parents' children could attend any public school in the district instead of being locked into a failing neighborhood school. It's totally different than DeVos.
9
Not sure if the subject is to hang Brooks for his disingenuous article on Warren and DeVos or possibly it is to show us how strongly Warren and her daughter are truly feminists. I follow Warren because she still remains to be level headed in this Dem candidate race, but she should be careful not to closely associate herself with DeVos. One of quickest ways to lose votes is to be progressive when it comes to subsidizing education, day care centers, debt forgiveness and some other items that moves her closer to Sanders.
1
At the end of the day, Brooks remains a loyal, steadfast Republican, who would have you believe he despises Trump and most of his party's leadership. It's a charade that he plays in concert with other token GOP Times writers, Douthat and Stephens. They continue to market the right-wing "conservative" GOP party mantra---conveniently absent of any Bush/Cheney war-deaths-recession-high unemployment legacy reminders---and to use progressive and Democrat terms as pejoratives.
3
Per Democracy in Chains and Dark Money the De Vos bunch has been dedicated to destroying public education and funneling public money into private schools for the rich. De Vos supports for profit education at the primary, secondary and college level. . Jeb Bush has made tens of millions of dollars off of public education.
School "Choice" lets upper class parents migrate to affluent communities and schools where they pay for what approaches private school level education. If you can't afford to move or are in a poor zip code De Vos doesn't care a doodle about those schools. Look at the NCES Data on Title 1 schools.
Another mealy mouthed Brooks ramble about inconsistency among the dems. People change and evolve.
Does he think Warren is a Trump in sheep's clothing?
I don't. Look at the above cited books and see choice for white people, destroyed labor unions, massive inequality, tax cuts for the rich, crumbling infrastructure with it all culminating in Citizens United.
Vietnam Vet
1
So David, what's the idea here? Spread the blame for the disaster that is Betsy DeVos? A moment in time, taken out of context to promote false equivalence ? A good mind used to support bad conclusions. Admit you were wrong about Trump, Republican conservatives of the Tea Party hue, and the threat to American democracy.
Elizabeth Warren changed her views to win the Feminists vote, Teacher's Union and potentially the Democratic nomination?
I'm shocked!
3
Here's the really odd thing about republicans these days. If Ms. Warren had ideas at any time that crossed over to republican thought, that's bad because it shows that Dems aren't rigid ideologues? How did this become a point of sneering or trying to humiliate Ms. Warren? Is it really a sign of weakness that a candidate or party has some overlap in thought, EVER? Republicans constantly portray Democrats as traitors, lovers of criminal elements, haters of democracy, bad to the point of caricature.
When you reach that point, it's hard to accept compromise or common thought, since you've invested a lot in demonizing Dems as 'others', scary Socialists/Communist/open borders/immigrants VS real Americans, etc. There is such hatred on the right for universal health care, environmental care, clean energy, etc that you'd think Dems were advocating death to America! Competing visions of the future; it's not an evil thing, it's how we've always done this. Putin isn't good, Elizabeth Warren isn't evil, and ideas are an American value.
David wants to think that Dems are bad if they have no republican input, and hypocrites if there is ever any overlap. Not much wiggle room there, concerned writer. Let's all send David Brooks another string of pearls to gently clutch.
1
Brooks is getting desperate. To compare Warren to deVos is simply ridiculous, and if he has to misstate Warren's positions then and now in order to critique her, he's starting to sound like his colleague Bret Stephens giving 'advice' to the Democrats -- which can only be interpreted by anyone not to the right of Genghis Khan as 'do the opposite of what they recommend.'
1
Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, bulldog propagandist for all things Trump and, until recently, a climate change denier, now believes humans are cooking the planet for short term convenience. It's funny how east coast Republican politicians are suddenly embracing the reality of climate change now that their districts are threatened with the inundation of rising seas and storm surges caused by hurricanes turbocharged by a warming planet. Suddenly, they get "religion" on the truth when they are threatened with electoral defeat if they don't. For Republicans, evidence matters only when it threatens to weaken their power. For Elizabeth Warren, evidence simply matters.
1
I had an opportunity after college to have a career with the postal service. I was told by a very high up to check the box for Eskimo when filling out the application. Now I had no desire to work for the postal service, that wasn't my calling. Neither was lying to get ahead. She's a fraud. Everything about her is a fraud. No thanks.
1
The closer it gets to 2020 the more frequently Brooks and Stephens shed their reformed republican skins. Any changes in their thinking were only skin deep.
4
Why isn’t more made of the fact that, when women sued the manufacturer of breast implants because the implants were making the women sick, Warren worked for the manufacturer, trying to keep settlement payments to the women as low as possible?
If, say, Biden had done this, it would be the lead story on every news show.
2
DeVos doesn’t want to improve education, she wants to privatize public education. Warren wants to nationalize public education? Horrors! That means that millions of children will be taught that evolution, global warming, and gender variances are real while “beneficent slavery”, traditional Confederacy was treasonous, that racism and misogyny has been exploited by the wealthy for personal gain, that the hydrocarbon industry and big Pharma are factoring in deaths and litigation as the cost of business. Regional sentiments about “god” will take a back seat to evidence, and science as per the First Amendment where government is prohibited from favoring any particular faith in an effort to avoid religious wars.
All it will take is for faith in government to be restored. A good start will be the trial of Trump and McConnell for their crimes against the Republic, for acting as the agents of foreign powers, and for grand scale theft. Perhaps the criminals who gave us the opioid crisis should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Just hoping
2
So let me get this straight. Professor Warren was a brilliant, heterodox thinker, but as soon as that incisive mind adopted policy positions with which you are uncomfortable, she magically turned into a craven dope. Perhaps she is just as smart today as she was then, and her current policy positions reflect a further development of her heterodox thinking>
2
Did the new introduction throw heterodoxical thought out the window, or did it show growth? (Rhetorical question.)
1
When Gabriel Sherman's The Loudest Voice in the Room revealed that Roger Ailes dictated the coverage and positions of Fox News personalities in service of his personal political preferences, I don't think anyone was very surprised. This sort of ideological chicanery is standard practice for the sort of populist yellow journalism typified by Fox. I don't know why I thought the Times would be an exception.
The op-ed page of the Times has devolved into a propaganda operation for Joe Biden or any other milquetoast so-called moderate who will assure that the status quo, which brought us President Trump and could always bring us something worse, prevails. The strategy is well executed and covert, with left-leaning commentators pining for an avowedly left candidate before whinging about "electability" and ultimately cowering for the safety of the rotund middle, while right-leaning ideologues bemoan Trump's sacrileges against conservative decency before begging Dems to nominate someone they'd feel comfortable voting for. And here we have Brooks, the thinking man's sentimental reactionary, demonstrating for us how Elizabeth Warren is just the same old political hack so we may as well nominate someone with a record of election wins--I dunno, say, Joe Biden?
I have plenty of fondness for the former Vice President, but I can't believe I'm watching seemingly bright thinkers advocating the very strategy that gave us Trump in 2016. The imminent catastrophe will be on you.
1
Changing ones mind is not a bad thing.
2
Yes, true, Mr. Brooks ... but the bankers are greedy to the bone and recklessly murdered the Middle and Working Classes over the course of decades ... Quite an unintended consequence.
And, our country's mixed economy is now clearly part Plutocratic and part Oligarchic.
And, furthermore, polls have consistently for decades been showing what people want or need has not been honored by our corporatized government - for decades!
You do not show concern in any of your columns that our Neoliberal Corporate State has its boot on the necks on the bottom 80 percent of the American people.
SURPRISE! Populism, Nationalism, NeoFacism.
Forgive my skimpy remarks but I'm very busy researching dark money, gerrymandering, and updates on the military-industrial complex AND the industrial-military complex.
2
If you were looking for an example of how being immensely rich doesn’t guarantee you a meaningful, successful and happy life, you’d be hard put to come up with a better one than Betsy DeVos.
If you were looking for an example of how being immensely rich
doesn’t guarantee you a meaningful, successful and happy life,
you’d be hard put to come up with a better one than Betsy Devos.
3
Fascinating how Mr. Brooks is so very assured that it is the woman who should stay home. There is such a thing as a stay-at-home Dad.
1
But maybe her earlier views are what she really thinks?
1
Um, Mr. Brooks, you know something happened between 2003 and 2016. Do you recall the Great Recession and it's causes . . . greedy bankers? All those sub-prime loans and the housing bubble. We don't have some of those greedy bankers like Countrywide and Lehman Brothers anymore. Maybe there's a reason for that.
1
Yes, "feminism" was/is no panacea. Ask the throngs of minimum wage workers. I am amazed at our collective stupidity, where tax advantages accrue to those who only make things worse for the virtual entirety of everyone else. Now that "child care" has become an industry, it too was destined to help ruin society. Child care ( outside) gets a tax break, but being home for your disabled child at 2:30pm doesn't even get paid attention to. Providing care for an elderly parent has been supplanted by nursing homes and their lobby. I'll tell you what is "rigid." The grip of capitalism run amok. Greed that tightens like a noose on those upon whom fortune did not shine.
Like most who "abhor Trump" from the right, David Brooks takes no issue with the misogyny, racism, or economic depravity of this administration and its supporters. What they deplore in Trump et al. is the crudeness of the "populist" approach that rips off the veneer of gentility, which used to provide Republicans of Brooks' ilk with plausible deniability.
My gosh, David! It’s astounding to me that you conflate Warren’s educated, thoughtful and nuanced arguments regarding “school choice”—which have evolved over the past 20 years— with DeVoss’s marrow approach. There is no comparison. Choice to Warren has always been about making the best education systems available to those who have faced the most discrimination and have had the least access. To DeVoss, it’s about funding private, fundamentalist Christian schools.
856
@Judy Wagener
Thanks for this excellent comment! It is all about nuance and motivation.
49
@Judy Wagener
It does point out the unintended consequences of vouchers.
Much more likely to enhance the opportunities at already well-funded, private, religious schools than to drive improvement at schools in low income neighborhoods.
38
@Judy Wagener
I wonder why there’s almost no coverage of Warren working for a breast implants manufacturer, helping them diminish settlement payments to women whose health was harmed by those implants.
10
Sixteen years ago, Warren was suggesting a range of policies to help working class people. What policy was the Republican president, George W. Bush, pushing to help the working person? Why, tax breaks for the rich. Sixteen years and a GOP-induced financial crash later, Warren is still suggesting a range of policies to help the working person. What policy (and only legislative achievement) is the current Republican president pushing? Yep, tax cuts for the rich. "This is the problem with politics in a dogmatic age," writes Brooks, but not "Everything conforms to rigid ideology." Only the Republican party does that.
908
@Julie, the GOP idea of help is to give tax breaks to the richest corporations and individuals in America because they are "job creators". Never mind that some companies can't wait to lay off their employees at the slightest excuse. Even making money is a pretext to fire people. And let's not forget all the labor law violations that go unreported or, if reported unpunished. It's more important to Mr. Brooks that we know that Warren once "agreed" with DeVos although closer reading will probably show she differed in important ways.
The rich are not job creators. The rich do not spend all the money they get back from tax cuts. The rich do not care if we have a decent infrastructure, if most of us have access to timely medical care, if we have decent housing, or if we have decent lives. But some of the rich, not many, do recognize what the GOP doesn't: government is supposed to take care of everyone and that's what taxes are for. Charity is not a substitute for a decent social safety net, safe living spaces, good schools, good health, or a good job.
40
@Julie, they haven't yet tried to give tax breaks to the unemployed. That would probably fix everything, don't you think?
@Eric Berendt Well actually it would be nice if your unemployment benefit wasn't taxed. Thanks Reagan!
17
"She criticized Hillary Clinton for flip-flopping on important issues for the sake of political expediency." Yes, that's Warren in a nutshell...caving for political expediency. I found this article most informative on Warren's "evolution" .
83
@east coast writer, great. You got your position reinforced. If 'caving for political expediency' is a deal breaker for you, what do you have to say about trump flip-flopping on his promise of universal background checks after a phone call from Mr. LaPierre? Seriously, flip flopping is a problem for you folks? Let the examples begin!
You folks are really sure that Democrats need constant sunlight to expose their malfeasance, while you adore everything that comes out of trump's (and Stephen Miller's) mouth.
RedgoodBluebad is not an American value, nor a respectable argument.
74
@deb
Brooks is not pro-Trump. He is stating that it would be better if people didn't pick a side, and went with logic. But here you are blindly "reinforcing your position".
16
@deb
Was, is, east coast writer wrong?
Also, his confirmation of Warren caving for political expediency doesn't make him a Rep. of Con.; just that it seems Ms. Warren won't be his first choice in the primary.
He isn't alone.
Your choice seems to be different.
Hooray for democracy!
Yes, shouldn't Dems be looking for a candidate exposed to sunlight? Shouldn't we strive for a leader that isn't compromised, beholden or an agent of malfeasance?
This "less evil" schtick brought us to were we are today.
How about we try something different for a change?!
6
What Brooks fails to mention is that the vouchers that Warren supported weren't vouchers to be used in charters or other private schools. She wanted to decouple real estate purchases from the public school one goes to. Her voucher system was about kids being allowed to go to *other public schools*.
1
She seems to know what deeds to be emphasized to get elected and what needs to be downplayed. To win the Democratic primary she needs many of both Biden and Bernie voters. I think she is running a good campaign and has a strong chance of winning the nomination particularly if Bernie drops out.
Elizabeth Warren has NEVER "agreed" with Betsy De Vos. The title of the article is irresponsibly misleading.
David is not only cherry-picking policy details out of context, but magically inverting time for rhetorical effect. No one can agree with some unknown future event.
"Warren once held a position now supported by De Vos", may be a true statement, but the title is not.
Similarly, if there is a progressive orthodoxy, Warren is not conforming to it, she is helping to create it. It is exactly her "I Have a Plan for That" approach that is allowing the diverse agendas of different groups to coalesce into one coherent theory and practice. The more coalescence and agreement, the more that theory and practice becomes the orthodoxy.
1
@ImagineMoments
Thank you for your comments. The title is not only misleading it turns a reasonable idea into propaganda.
David Brooks does not address the differences between Warren's goals and those of DeVos. Betsey Devos is interested in promulgating religious education and turning public education into profit making ventures, as evidenced in many of her policies. She has been dismantling the 'public' aspect of education since entering office. This even includes her views of the rights of individuals to an equal education.
Elizabeth Warren's objectives could not be more in opposition to this thinking. Warren's policies and proposals are based on the rights of individuals and include health care, education (public), equity (that includes women), and the pursuit of monetary stability.
The use of the term 'progressive' has changed only in view of the extreme change in the direction of the republican party to the right. DeVos is a representative of this movement. Comparing a proposal made by Warren in a book written in 2003 without the context in which it was stated to the goal of someone chosen to meet some ideological goal of the present administration appears to serve some idea that lives in Mr Brooks.
The book was written 15 years (and one global economic meltdown) ago. If her thinking hadn't changed at all during that time, she would actually be a much less desirable candidate.
769
@abolland Excellent point. Elizabeth Warren's history, even before she became a politician, clearly shows that she's the type of person who is willing to look at realities and learn. Her "evolution" on issue positions has consistently been from reliance on theories, to scrutinizing the data, to revising her views to be consistent with realities. This is admirable behavior--too many people simply ignore and deny realities in favor of maintaining their established opinions.
38
@PJR many people simply ignore and deny realities in favor of maintaining their established opinions.
Most voters in both Parties do all the time.
10
@abolland And in the book, her starting point was 20+ years prior to its publication.
If the policy prescriptions in the new edition of the book have not changed substantially and merely the introduction has, then that would all the more prove David's point. It would suggest she either stands by her original idea and/or refuses to challenge them, but will put on a more left-wing face for the sake of political expediency.
In which case, I don't know if that effects her desirability factor in your mind, but it certainly lumps her in with just about every other typical politician.
1
I think what we all need to remember is that no matter how many plans a presidential candidate has, our system is inherently conservative (if we vote our interests) and progressive ideas that seem too far to the left will likely end up as bills that show some compromise. We may not get "free" college (nothing is free), but we may get some attempt to bring down prices at least in public colleges and reduce the amount of debt too many young adults are weighted down by.
I voted for Bernie, but I didn't think he would get his policies passed without debate and compromise. I didn't want him to. I just wanted us to move toward solving some problems, one of which is the income disparity between laborers and capitalists, and people like the former president of our community college system who got rich (6.8 million dollars over a decade) at tax payer expense while biologists with master's degrees worked as adjuncts or made $34k a year.
324
@Wanda Excellent points. I always felt that if we could a fraction of what the Sanders agenda was proposing, that would be a significant step towards solutions to major growing problems, like big money in politics and growing inequality, which so branded Bernie as a "lefty". We need a candidate that proposes the changes we need and relentlessly pushes to achieve them. Only by doing that will anything improve over time. I hope I am agreeing with you.
24
@Wanda
Bernie's legislative record suggests he would never get any policy passed under any set of circumstances.
10
@Wanda
Pretty much what you said.
Warren’s approach to saving capitalism from itself and rebalancing the interests of Wall Street and Main Street seems right to me. Do it carefully, do it right, listen to what people who know what they’re talking about have to say, pay attention to how things are working out in practice. But let’s do this.
On the other hand, I want many of her other ideas to be starting points that have to work their way through the Democrats in Congress who represent swing districts and swing states. Examples are issues like the cost of higher education and how we pay for it; the health care system; and how we provide and pay for child care. It would be fine with me if the Republicans decided to work with the Democrats in good faith to come up with policies that will work out well in practice.
I think many people on the left have taken the wrong lesson from experiences like the 2010 elections and the fight over Obamacare. In 2010 I thought the Ds were essentially cowards who ran away from Obama, and I never could understand why they wouldn’t defend the ACA all those years when it was under unfair attack.
The answer isn’t to move further left. The answer is to stand up and be counted. Since this is a representative democracy that means people who represent swing districts and swing states will be standing up for what their constituents need while taking into account which policy proposals make sense to their constituents.
20
Education is one of those challenging issues, The US spends the highest per student for primary and secondary school education and yet we lag behind a lot of countries. We talk about healthcare costs and the drastic need to change healthcare system and how it is to be financed, why is there no such talk about changing our education system and how it is financed.
There are embedded interests in both, the public sector unions in case of education and private insurance and other health care providers in the other. I wonder which will win under Warren, I think from her recent positions it is pretty clear on whether it will be the socializing of healthcare and the unionization of all healthcare workers or the privatization of education.
1
Brooks writes, "(Warren) also criticized the women’s movement for being naïve about economics, and she criticized Hillary Clinton for flip-flopping on important issues for the sake of political expediency." I am heartened to know that Warren is critical of the women's movement and especially of Hillary Clinton. She confirms the fact that Clinton is in it only for herself. She could care less about the people, especially those who she dismissed as "deplorable." Thank goodness she is not the President of the United States. Thank you.
3
@Southern Boy I suppose Trump's primary concern is about the people and their well being? Really? If anyone epitomizes a self-centered, self-enriching use of the office of the president it is our current one.
@Southern Boy
To say that Hillary Clinton is "in it only for herself" is what is "deplorable". Hillary Clinton is an educated, well-meaning human being that would have made an excellent President of these United States. How could anyone prefer the ignorant, arrogant, vile buffoon presently occupying the White House over her? Class over clowns wins my vote every time!
1
This fascinating article seems to tell me that we have a candidate for President who writes books, herself, with lucid suggestions which aim to improve Americans' quality of life and which are not bound to a particular ideology.
This article even suggests that as the candidate sees more evidence, her conclusions change.
What a crazy idea -- a technocrat! OK! Let's try it out and see how it goes.
10
"...a comic book world, in which everything bad can be blamed on greedy bankers." That's more characteristic of Sanders, who castigates all "billionaires", than Warren. No one should be under the illusion that bankers are selfless do-gooders, but it's folly to blame everything on the ultra-wealthy. Many of them (Bezos, Brin and Page, Zuckerberg...) started off as un-wealthy as the rest of us, but then, according to the progressive hymnal, at some point crossed the line and now deserve to be reviled. News flash: billionaires, like the rest of us, can be both good and bad and you can't tell which simply by looking at their bottom line.
7
As we all know now, the surest way to lose an election is using "evidence based thinking." What Warren has figured out, and unfortunately, Trump knew, the American voter in incapable of holding two or more contrary ideas in their heads---so, the best strategy is pound away at one simple idea---as simple as that idea maybe.
13
I am interested in Elizabeth Warren because it seems to me that she is the only candidate with the imagination and the leadership to blunt the effects of the coming recession, not because she checks off a laundry list of standard Democratic proposals. Cry that she is really a Republican all you want, but the looming recession cries even louder.
19
@Mark Lebow
The great thing about Warren is that she has put forward actual policies...you can see them up front. This, in stark contrast to most other candidates, and in starker contrast to the current occupant, who almost three quarters the way through an actual governing term, has yet to come up with any policy at all, or hold fast to any ideology, other than that which self aggrandises or increases his personal and family wealth.
1
@Mark Lebow Recessions are part of the business cycle and regardless of our attempts to delay them (which makes them worse), they will happen. It's part of the cycle.
1
@Mark Lebow
Personally, I would rather see Elizabeth Warren as Secretary of the Treasury rather than President. I admire her economic acumen and believe the country would greatly benefit from her knowledge and experience in subduing and controlling run-away capitalist pigs in their selfish attempts to turn our country into just another banana republic.
There is no conceptual debate in American politics .
Nothing concrete about education or health care or justice or guns.
Nothing. Only opinions of surface.
Nothing concrete about financing or changing laws .
If there is one or two or three candidates who is trying, Mrs Warren is one of them .
19
Times change, challenges shift, and (some of us) learn from experience and adapt to new circumstances. David doesn’t see Warren that way. Instead he sees her changing, not to adapt, but to pander.
Tut, tut, David. Trying to push Warren into Trump’s mold is not a forward step, and doesn’t fit.
41
@John ✅Brews✅
Of course she is pandering, as do all politicians. She has moved vastly to the left in four years, because she thinks that’s how to be the nominee. I liked her better in2016, preferring her over HRC, who ignored the rust belt and insulted working people, and lost.
But now I am wary of Warren, both because she has gone too far left for me, and because that shift will make her less likely to win back the Middle. And it’s in the Middle where there are the most votes up for grabs.
3
As is too often the case, Brooks cherry picks and characterizes the facts argumentatively. Elizabeth Warren, at the turn of the century, took positions that were textbook neoliberal positions that we now call Republican Lite.
In 2003 she looked at the need for universal, affordable daycare and worried that government could not write a blank check to provide affordable, universal daycare. The daycare system has lurched along for almost a generation. Warren now looks at the data and realizes that the neoliberal, Republican Lite, solution has not worked out so well. She advocates affordable, universal daycare.
What Brooks fails to produce is any evidence that the cost and availability of daycare has improved and that Waren is wrong to now support affordable universal daycare.
37
@OldBoatMan
Both the former Soviet Union and the Israeli kibbitzim proved the value of universal, affordable day care. Even the devil can come up with a good idea once in awhile. In a nation as supposedly as wealthy as the US "costs" are irrelevant. If it can afford a trip to Mars it can afford to care for the children whose mommies have to work because their daddies can't make enough to support them.
1
“Fully funded vouchers would relieve parents from the terrible choice of leaving their kids in lousy schools or bankrupting themselves to escape those schools,” Warren and Tyagi wrote.
I DO hope that Warren evolves on this belief. Bernie is against funding for vouchers because he knows that they take money away from struggling public K-12 public schools. 85%-90% of children in the US go to public schools which are in desperate need of money. Fix public schools since they are a foundation for the community.
Recent estimates suggest that 85% of schools accepting vouchers are religiously affiliated. They don't have the accountability that public schools have. I do NOT want my tax payer money funding the belief that people rode dinosaurs 6,000 years ago. Tax money has no place funding false beliefs that denigrate science. If parents want to send their children to religious schools, let them pay the full cost.
The belief in separation of church and state is being eroded.
19
Why do ideologues on the extremes, left an right, rise to the top? They don't represent mainstream America. Trump, Sanders, Warren...the electoral system t's up hard-line Democrats and Republicans. This is not what most of us want.
Nor are their kooky ideas in the best interests of the country.
4
@charlie corcoran--Judging from Warren's crowds, I'd say large numbers of people do like the "kooky ideas" she's proposing. Maybe "mainstream America" is less mainstream than you think.
5
Trump gets big crowds too. Does that make him right?
@Ms. Pea
Mainstream America can be as polluted as many of the main streams crisscrossing America's countryside. What most folks want isn't always what is good for the most folk. Trump in the White House is ample proof of that!
Bingo! That about says it all:
"This is the problem with politics in a dogmatic age. Everything conforms to rigid ideology. Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window."
Enough said on politics that doesn't work, but not near enough on what does. Why? Politicians today, all of them, don't have a clue on how to politic.
7
The book was written in 2003 - 16 years ago. I know for conservatives, time stands still. But for people in the real world, that's a long time ago.
I'd say "nice try," but this is a pretty feckless attempt to damage a progressive candidate.
75
@Michael So then, we can all agree that people such as Warren and Biden--politicians with a past--that they can evolve and going back, say thirty or forty years to criticize stances on issues such as bussing, is pretty ridiculous?
1
@Michael
Folks go after Biden for events much farther in the past. So she’s fair game.
2
@OrchardWriting
Not necessarily. You need, among many other things, to consider whether the anti-bussing stance was part of a bigger force, such as resistance to change. If you are referring to Joe Biden here, there is ample evidence that he is a devotee “incremental change,” the centrist-conservative MO. That’s the bigger concern regarding Democratic candidates and the 2020 election. Warren, on the other hand, has proven to be a true progressive. The world is changing rapidly and we need s leader with bold ideas, not just a “nice guy” who will return civility to the conversation and reminisce fondly about working with virulent segregationists.
2
This analysis accurately describes the Warren/Sanders "theology" of socio-economic policy. It's more subtle than "Build the Wall." But not by much. Painful as it may be, Democratic presidents need to build real coalitions with conservatives -- or see their "reforms" swept away by the Wall-builders.
9
Betsy DeVos like Donald Trump is not a poster child for better education for our children. When you take your eye off the children and aim for profit, everyone loses except the investors.
Elizabeth Warren on the other hand sees the ripoffs in for-profit education, and attempts to stop it.
38
I think this is one of the primary reasons that I am luke warm on Warren, at best. As I watched her through the years she was more than willing to take positions because they were what she believed were right, not ideologically in line with the far left of the party.
She took a non-ideological lens to problems and policy. But now she is running with policies that are unpaid for and politically unfeasible for the election and if she should win.
This in turn, I think, has led her to be more defensive than she was in the past. As but one big example, she allowed Trump to force her into taking a DNA test. She was played and played bad by Trump, but why?
I think too that her transformation makes her criticisms of Clinton seem rather naive.
4
“The Two Income Trap” is a brilliant book, and Brooks loses sight of some important facts to take a cheap shot at Elizabeth Warren. First, Warren researched and wrote the book during the Clinton and early Bush era when inequality was bad, to be sure, but nothing like it is now. Second, the book and its insights preceded the Great Recession before we understood the games Wall Street had played with housing decisions by underwriting loans that probably should never have been made.
The book makes an number of important points that Brooks glosses over. Warren’s main point was that extra income allowed some families to bid up the price of housing in the best school districts. But why should this even be necessary? Why are there substantial differences between school districts in the same county, state and nation. Welcoming vouchers was a way of moderating some of the economic calculation in choosing where to live. In any event, she made the argument, again, well before we saw the level of corruption and self-dealing inherent in the current education secretary’s approach to education. And, after all, Warren’s book came out when we had a president who was serious about trying to insure that every child got a good education. There was a reason GWB’s bipartisan “No Child Left Behind” was the first bill he wanted passed, and he worked with Ted Kennedy to make it happen.
Warren’s second point was that our bankruptcy system is badly skewed. It’s even worse now.
41
@Martin Kobren
I appreciate your comment very much as I've not read the book. That said, my experience with Mr. Brooks in cases like this is that when he references a book, he leaves out so much that I'm not getting nearly the complete picture; sort of like when an evangelical Christian quotes the Bible, but somehow leaves out the parts about being kind to the alien, stranger, and immigrant.
30
@Martin Kobren
Good comment. I'd just add that Warren's voucher proposal was so different from DeVos's that to say they "agreed" (as the headline says) or that Warren's argument was "exactly the argument" made by DeVos (as Brooks writes) is highly misleading.
DeVos wants to privatize education by giving students voucher to be used at private schools. Warren wanted to preserve public schools. Her vouchers would have simply allowed parents to send their children to public schools outside their neighbourhoods. The voucher only transferred the parents' tax money to the public school they chose for their children. The point was to allow students in poorer neighbourhoods to attend (the often better) public schools in wealthier neighbourhoods. This is radically different from DeVos's attempt to defund public schools in favour of private schools. In fact, I'm surprised the editors allowed such a misleading statement to be made. I expect the NYT to have higher standards.
1
I was with you until you got to NCLB. I spent 30 years in a large urban school district working to help children who began public school already way behind their mostly white, comparably rich and more literate (meaning their more educated parents had been reading to them for 4 years) “peers.” With NCLB and then Race to the Top schools began an inordinate and largely unhelpful focus on testing. Let’s think about this. Schools filled with children from, let’s say, “less fortunate” families have “low” test scores, are deemed “bad” and need to be “reformed.” How do we tell if these schools are changing from “bad” (where, keep in mind, most of the “way behind” kids are) to “good” (where, by the way, most of the “ready to learn” (more literate) kids are)? We take up too much precious time testing and retesting kids, we close “bad” schools, we change the faculty and names of “bad” schools in the hopes of attracting more “good” kids (read kids with better test scores), we insist teachers of kids in “bad” schools “close the gap” (meaning figure out how to raise the test scores of the “bad” kids FASTER than the teachers in “good” schools are raising the test scores of their “good” kids), we put the test scores in the paper so “all” parents of kids in “bad” schools can find “good” schools for their kids, etc. etc.
I wish the politicians and journalists could better articulate the “problem” that needs to be solved. Why don’t they? What is the “gap?” Can it be closed?
If this was supposed to be a column about how there were unintended consequences to the rise of women joining the workforce, Mr. Brooks should have explored all of those unintended consequences--not merely the ones in Professor Warren's book. If it's about how Senator Warren changed her mind, go ahead and explore that. But this column is clearly mostly an attack on progressive ideas about women in the workforce.
Because guess what? There were other unintended consequences to the social and economic change caused by the expansion of two-income families than the ones Professor Warren and her daughter focused on in their book.
Two-income families mean better material conditions for all involved, more opportunities for the children of those families (violin lessons, chess clubs, etc.), more opportunities for educated women to express their potential other than as wives and mothers (a woman with a chemistry degree from Mount Holyoke, for example, could actually use that education beyond knowing not to mix ammonia and bleach when cleaning the house), more possibilities for those families with two working parents to send their children to college, more independence for the women in those partnerships to break them apart if the man was abusive.
I could go on, but the point is this column really wants to make the conservative case for women's role in society to be restricted to the home.
10
@Emile I didn't get that at all. I agree that on balance it is wonderful for women and families to have these choices of work or manage children and home.
But there have been consequences to this shift and they have not yet been resolved. That is what Warren was writing about and what Brooks is noting. She saw the benefits but also the problems and offered non-ideological--pragmatic--solutions.
As she's become a politician she started to see how wrong her criticism of Clinton was because she saw there is political reality. If she ran as the owner of unique and pragmatic solutions, the left would abandon her. So, now she has massive programs that there is no way middle class America will embrace beyond the liberal left of the Democratic Party.
She achieved liberal ideological purity but at a true cost. She should have sought to compete against Biden not Sanders.
1
"She has made sure that her policy views conform to progressive orthodoxy."
This would be worrisome if there were such a thing as "progressive orthodoxy". Who establishes "progressive orthodoxy"? Is there a college of progressive cardinals who meets in conclave to establish orthodoxy and with the power to excommunicate anyone sufficiently heterodox? Is there an index of forbidden books, or at least of forbidden ideas?
Mr. Brooks appears to think so.
43
Why on Earth would a progressive these days throw out policy proposals that might appeal to Republicans but draw objections from Democrats? Maybe it’s the experience of passing Obamacare.
Where have you been for the last decade, David? Obama chose a healthcare plan based on a Heritage model and enacted by a GOP governor, and what did he get from his attempt to reach across the aisle? Not a single GOP vote, followed by 10 years of sabotage.
29
@Dan Styer There absolutely is progressive orthodoxy and right now it is represented by Warren and Sanders and supported by The Nation and other left leaning media.
1
@OrchardWriting
Good-- it's good for their to be a set of articulated values that are different than the ones peddled by right wing think tanks paid for by fossil fuel companies and weird billionaires.
Also, it's good that their are a set of articulated values to aim for aside from dolling out pork.
Without a set of values to aim for, how do you keep people accountable or mobilize action?
In the world of business everyone acknowledges the need to articulate a mission statement with goals, and everyone seems to acknowledge this as an effective way to get things done.
Why should it be different in politics?
3
Jane Addam's wrote about how people without means (immigrants in slums) handled the childcare problem. She reported on how cooperation among families, instead of competition between facilities and agencies generated a certain self-reliant ethos and contributed to the society. Of course, Warren can't just say, "Call your neighbors, sisters, if you need a sitter," for that would just look wrong nowadays. The voucher idea is not that people should have choices between this daycare facility or that one but that people shouldn't have no choice. In my neighborhood in Flatbush, immigrant parents still depend on a personal and neighborly network and don't think sending their kids to some government facility is the best option. People tend to do what their neighbors do. Good parents and good neighbors do what good parents and good neighbors do. They don't wait for vouchers to teach their children what it means to be a good person.
7
Two things:
1. I applaud Warren for allowing her solutions to social problems to evolve. That shows as much intelligence and compassion as it displays practical political calculus. God forbid we encourage our leaders to learn, grow and adapt to rapidly changing times.
2. If this piece thrusts the issue of child care to the forefront for a few minutes, thank you. We all know that America is WAY behind the times on female workforce participation and it's impact on child fearing. Equal opportunity and equal pay at a job mean little if the cost of decent child care eats up most of that second pay check. It's time for universal education (not just baby sitting) - publicly funded - for all kids from 3 months through college or trade training.
And the "instructors" for those toddlers should be paid on a par with someone teaching elementary school - maybe even more because they are forming the human race in those first 3 or 4 years. That is a scientific fact. Yet we don't pay attention to the damage done to kids dumped into lousy day care environments. Then we pay the price for their bad behavior as teens and adults.
Capitalism had a shot at this. Major businesses could have fully embraced on site child care as an employment benefit (oh no, we can't do what other countries do - we're exceptional!). Now it is time for a dose of intelligent "social behavior" - if that's "socialism", sign me up now.
39
@Bob Bruce Anderson
Wow. I actually said "child fearing"!
Wasn't intentional, but....
1
It is a bit quixotic to propose that Ms. Warren's evolving views are due to her kowtowing to liberal dogma, and not simply doing exactly what you have recommended: responding to evidence & research. This is the same process that informed her journey from a traditional conservative who believed bankruptcies were due to a failure to properly manage personal finances, to birthing the CFPB - a journey beautifully documented in her book, "A Fighting Chance."
I'm not all that concerned when a politician describes a change in position as long as that change is based on "Independent, evidence-based thinking" and not "rigid ideology." I am convinced you have it exactly backward; it is inconceivable to me that someone with a rigorous and well documented history of changing her views in response to overwhelming evidence should suddenly abandon her integrity and intellectual rigor in order to win votes.
I'm very comfortable with the notion that if Elizabeth Warren reversed her position on school choice, it was because she carefully studied the issue and concluded that either circumstances have changed or else new information has convinced her that her earlier position was in error.
As for "greedy bankers" - yes, along with greedy businessmen and greedy billionaires and greedy pharmaceutical companies and greedy real estate developers, they are one of the principal causes of escalating income inequality.
68
The critique is that she has different ideas of how to solve the problem she raised, then vs now? The problem with your criticism is that the problem of women going bankrupt is not a problem on the conservative agenda, but it is on the liberal agenda. So are you defending DeVos who is associated with for profit, charter, voucher funded schools? Doesn't the conflict of interest bother you? Thorny problems are best solved with all inputs. Politicians run on dogam campaigns and then, if they are good politicians, compromise with all sides to solve the problem. The solution is likely not Left vs Right, or Conservative vs Liberal, or Democrat vs Republican, it will be a compromise and a series of adjustments to find the right balance. We don't have that capability in our polity today, but Warren going through policy adjustment is not a fault.
21
Flexibility and "re-thinking" are the keys to a positive message. Warren is going in that direction and more power to her.
32
I'm sure many of your readers will claim that Warren has evolved--and that may be true. She's the only person who can address that question. But my take is that the two-party system is outmoded and, at this point in our history, perhaps even dangerous. We have an "all or nothing" system where it is impossible to build coalitions and policies supported by a minority of voters are enacted against the will of the people. Sad to say, if Warren get the nomination, she will tack back to the center for the general election--and the informed voters won't actually know what they are getting when they cast their votes. This is not so much a reflection on Warren as it is the reality of American electoral politics. For me as a voter, the only question today is: Whose judgment do I trust? The upcoming election is about the preservation of something that resembles a democracy. The rest of it is all chatter for daily media consumption.
15
"This is the problem with politics in a dogmatic age. Everything conforms to rigid ideology. Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window."
Person's can evolve in their thinking. Politics is sales first and foremost but certainly not evidence-based thinking. If Charter Schools are better than Public ones and both serve a pupil group's learning objectives than why? Smaller class sizes in the former could be one reason among several. Or is the former is preferred because it's cheaper for taxpayers to manage which is more a business than a public service model--opening a whole new can of worms.
Mr. Brooks, the type of thinking or argument you've presented is typical of those that refuse or are unable to admit fallibility when faced with newer more objective information. We can be wrong but one should not feel shame in that; provided no deception or deceit was intended beforehand.
Learning and acting to improve societal circumstances is what 'good' government leadership is suppose to do and politics is the gamesmanship played by vacant or loss souls.
10
I think its a bit unfair and illogical to blame inflation in the housing sector on dual income families. When families divorce the demand for housing grows. ..not the other way around. A more important cause of housing inflation is the tendency of people with surplus money or borrowed money to buy houses....not to live in them...but merely to flip the houses for an unearned profit. There should be regulations in place that restrict this kind of unproductive speculative activity, which inevitably leads to bankruptcies and recession. All of those boom and bust cycles in our nation's history had one thing in common....unproductive speculation in real estate or stocks.
On the other hand it is refreshing to read a critical analysis of how Warren's views have changed. We see plenty of criticism of Biden, Harris, and Sanders by the press. Warren should be held to the same scrutiny. Please provide us with more analysis like this.
8
Having witnessed the evolving conserative compassionism of David Brooks over the past several years, this old line FDR liberal has often recommend his books and columns to friends. The Road to Character comes to mind in this regard. Also having witnessed Elizabeth Warren’s evolution from a Republican to a Democrat, I have enthusiastically recommended her candidacy to friends. She is the real deal. I remember first hearing Her speak at a consumer law conference many years ago to a bunch of us who began our careers on David Brooks’s second mountain, having eschewed his first mountain for its illusory heights. I was fortunate enough to meet her and get a signed copy of The Two Income Trap. I keenly recall reading of her stand on vouchers and how and why she came to her conclusions. While I did not agree with her stance, I understood it. To me, it comes as no surprise that she would re-evaluate her stance and soften it. So to read this column this morning was a little unsettling. The cheap shot taken in its title left me wondering about my favorable take on Brooks. Then I thought of his pedantic book on The Second Mountain, laying on my bed stand half finished, likely to remain so. I’ve read my fill of coming of age stories written by and for boys from prep schools. Likening Warren to The Amway queen is possibly the last straw. It has all the earmarks of a Reagan dog whistle.
60
@Dale Irwin
I wish Brooks would take some responsibility for supporting a GOP that made Trump inevitable. But to be fair, Brooks likely had nothing to do with writing the headline.
But as for Warren, we have scrutinized Biden in particular for past acts. Warren should get the same scrutiny. I think she gets less in part because she’s female, part because she has become a much more progressive media favorite. I preferred her in 2016, but fear now that she would lose even more of the Middle to Trump than HRC did by ignoring the rust belt and insulting working people. To regained the WH, we must win back the Middle. I’m not sure Warren can do that with her lurch to the far left.
5
@Franco51
This is strange-- she offers more for people in the rust belt and working people than any other candidate besides Sanders. So this idea that she "ignores" them like HRC is a baseless fantasy.
Do some research into the policies and positions.
I'm from the Rust Belt, and what working people really don't need is Biden. You do remember that Sanders overwhelmingly crushed Clinton in the rust belt primaries, the states that Trump also took from Clinton: Michigan, Wisconsin, Penn, almost Minnesota.
Do you think the people who overwhelmingly preferred Sanders over Clinton in those states are thrilled by Joe Biden, the credit card king from Delaware?
5
I do not know why it is such a shock that in a couple of circumstances Warren might agree with Vos. For those who follow theological dogma, is there a Republican and Democratic position on the ten commandments (I know some would try to point those out)?
Have many presidents run in primaries and then in a general without shifting positions without making some promises they cannot keep?
We tout the value of modern transparency, but it comes at a cost. We make it very difficult for candidates to bend or compromise, to find a middle ground. If a candidate strays, lobbyists attack and the public can be whipped into frenzy with our social media.
Having said this I would agree with Brooks about the varied and polarizing dogmas of our age. We have a lot to learn about tolerance, something we have devalued in this age (or maybe never learned that well).
I would prefer a more moderate Democratic candidate, but would vote for anyone who could take Trump's place. That includes Warren. I would want a president more tolerant than Trump, not adherent to a rigid set of political dogmas, not too susceptible to one or another lobbying group, not so concerned about feeding an ego or a bankroll.
5
"Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window." This is hilarious coming from the right. On economic issues, the cut taxes mantra and trickle down theory must not be subject to any evidence. Those are faith-based and shall not be questioned.
29
So, a candidate who does research and changes her opinions? A candidate that doesn’t come with all the answers from birth?
I have to say that I have certainly changed many of my opinions since college.
I find her evolvement refreshing. She will do a great job of getting America back on track.
52
@Thomas Nelson
Bravo. I agree, as human beings, our thinking has evolved over the decades. How many people can say they have the same views as they did in college or the beginning of their careers?
The country has evolved too. Present day America is not the America of 1980, 1999 or even 2008--it is a different landscape and psychology (most fear-based due to economy, mass shootings and nationalism). The ever-changing new America requires flexibility of thought and ideals. Warren demonstrates the ability to do so.
11
@Hope Present-day America is closer to the America of the robber barons than to the America of FDR, Truman and Eisenhower.
Maybe what's most heterodox about Elizabeth Warren is that her positions actually evolve as she accumulates new evidence? This maybe explains why, unlike certain pundits, she's been able to escape Republican orthodoxy?
43
“An all-voucher system would be a shock to the educational system, but the shakeout might be just what the system needs,” they continued. This is exactly the argument that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos uses to support school choice."
This is deceptive because the contexts are completely different. DeVos is profiteering, while Warren is trying to expand educational alternatives.
How and why reform is done matters, but not to Brooks, who is playing tricks.
55
Warren is singing a different tune now that she has been a senator and has had first hand experience in a previous presidential election. She has carefully declared herself to be a "Capitalist" which is pandering to the conservative and neo liberal voters and the uber wealthy who have corrupted that very system. She has reversed her position on numerous occasions and has been careful to straddle the midline. Trump will make mincemeat out of her.
6
Brooks is exactly correct when he concludes that independent, evidence based thinking has been abandoned in our politics. This is a sad phenomenon which afflicts both major parties. Brooks well and accurately illustrates it among Democrats using Warren as example. The exact same phenomenon is at work among Republicans as they fall in line to support Trump economic policies despite that those policies are essentially ones that the Republicans have opposed for many decades. Trumps economic policies are essentially the same misguided ones that 60 years ago were the bible of the labor union dominated Democrats, and which the Democrats themselves long ago finally recognized were harmful to the population as a whole.
6
@Errol
I fail to see where "evidence based" policy has ever really been alive and well in politics--particularly US politics.
We tend to imagine that our present age is an exception to the rule: expediency for political gain has been the mainstay of most politicians.
7
When has De Vos ever called for "Fully funded vouchers"? Most private schools cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. What Warren and Tyagi were calling for was the equivalent of making all schools pubic schools, with tuition covered in all cases by federal subsidy. It's a redistribution of wealth of the same magnitude that medicare for all would be, not promoting the public support of for profit schools as De Vos has. Get the facts right.
34
@Brad Weiss
I agree with you that the Warren voucher proposal was not the same as DeVos's voucher proposal. But the fundamental characteristic of both is that they give parents substantial ability to choose what school their children attend. Freedom to choose is anathema to the left. It is so reviled that we may soon see media commentators calling it the "V" word as "voucher" becomes unspeakable in public.
3
@Errol "Freedom to choose" is NOT anathema to the "Left" any more than it is to the right, whose money actually gives them that freedom. What is anathema to the Left is that the choice is reduced to choosing between superstition and mediocrity, while to the hereditary oligarchy, choice includes a large number of prep schools and private colleges that are free of superstition, as well as religious schools. I have some concept of this--having graduated from a very good prep school and a very good small, old, college.
@Errol Freedom is exactly what the right wing insistence on the privatization of the public sector has gutted over the last 40 years. You are "free" to choose your doctor if the insurance company you can afford authorizes it. You are "free" to attend a public university, if you don't mind being saddled with lifelong debt; you are "free" to keep all of your firearms, and all it requires is that every parent be afraid to send their kid to school. Freedom is exactly what austerity and rampant inequality destroy.
No. This is disingenuous. Warren only talks about PUBLIC school vouchers--not private or charter. DeVos is a proponent of private school vouchers. What Warren wrote in her book was, "Local governments could enact meaningful reform by enabling parents to choose from among all the public schools in a locale, with no presumptive assignment based on neighborhood." This is in reference to families, particularly those headed by women, having to spend too much of their income on housing in order to ensure their children can attend a good school.
61
@Marianne Roken "Local governments could enact meaningful reform by enabling parents to choose from among all the public schools in a locale, with no presumptive assignment based on neighborhood."
Wouldn't this lead to racially segregated schools? Of course, it would! The title of this book should be "Flip-Flop: How my views change to be electable in 2020"
4
@MCH when my children attended public school in NYC's district 2, we were allowed to apply to any school in the district, and some of them were recruiting, offering tours and explanations of their philosophy of how to educate, and their methodology. The school my kids went to was majority minority (less than 50% white) and excellent. District two was so over all excellent that it became over crowded, and choice became very difficult.
4
Stop with the ‘Flip-Flop’. It’s intellectually dishonest. If you don’t change your mind over the years or with new information, you aren’t thinking clearly or honestly.
Warren’s views have always been influenced by her surroundings i. e. political. “All politics is local”. Massachusetts may be a liberal state but when it comes to education, private schools rule: Parochial schools in the ethnic Beantown neighborhoods; high end prep schools in suburbia. At the college level, private institutions dominate. These entities have incredible political power. They have plenty on money and can activate their workforce, alumni and parent groups. It’s no surprise that Professor Warren was simply a tool of the establishment that employed her. Candidate Warren is taking her cues from a different establishment now.
5
@G
Hopefully the establishment of hard working families, who are fed up!
Funny how a critic can always have everything at least both ways while those being criticized can only have it one way or the highway. Heterodoxy or hypocrisy, Mr. Brooks? Yes.
Vote.
20
So sad that David Brooks is unable to see the difference between Elizabeth Warren and Betsy DeVos. Warren has plans to improve education by looking at the entire system. Living in Michigan we watched as DeVos went out of her way to improve her bottom line while destroying public education. Warren was a teacher while Betsy DeVos was appointed to her position because of money and her desire like trump to destroy anything good introduced by President Obama. DeVos is a destroyer. Warren is a builder. David Brooks is a disappointment.
113
Warren is far more valuable to the Democratic Party in the Senate. With a Republican Governor who can replace her for a period of time with a Republican leaves one scratching their head.
5
Why can't Elizabeth Warren change her mind and grow intellectually? She wrote that book seventeen years ago, and even then, her position was not De Vos'. De Vos wants vouchers for religious schools and to destroy teacher's unions. Warren was focused on describing why so many women who were working were going bankrupt. Maybe the problem then and the problem now is that Republican ideas of unregulated capitalism and reduced or zero taxation for the wealthy have largely not been good for Americans. Republican tropes are stale, tread bare, and false. Kudos for Elizabeth Warren for being able to reason and change her mind based on evidence rather than on received dogma.
44
@Dr. Conde The 'laziness' in some of today's journalism is astounding. Or, could this be an informed hit piece?
Poor David completely misses the point by attempting some cheap point scoring.
He should read ‘False Dawn – The delusions of global capitalism’, by Professor John Gray, or if he has read it, he should try to understand it.
1. Laissez Faire Capitalism, which requires massive government intervention to create ‘Free Markets’; in fact, it creates a Corporate Welfare State.
2. The unrestrained growth of virtual money and global financial markets has caused a runaway cancerous growth on the Body Politic and limited the ability of Governments to manage and protect the citizenry
3. Laissez Faire Capitalism also creates an underclass – recently discovered it seems by Elizabeth Warren.
“Warren and Tyagi want Americans to have children, but they provide case after case in which childbearing strains family finances and leads to bankruptcy and misery.”
This is a classic description of an Economy driven by the neo-liberal Economic ideology.
The growth of the underclass in the United States resulted in the Election of Donald Trump – an act of desperation by the marginalised. The marginalised are becoming increasingly desperate.
It may well be that Elizabeth Warren is the President who shall finally “knit up the ravelled sleeve of care”, connect with the “Basket of Deplorables” and win back the American Dream from Corporate Greed.
20
Good grief. Betsy DeVos is a corrupt creature who has repeatedly attempted to abuse her position for financial gain for herself and other like-minded investors. She is the epitome of crony capitalism. Her advocacy is another example of how Trump did quite the opposite of draining the swamp.
At the time of her book, Warren's interest was finding solutions for women struggling to do the best for their kids. Her interest was not a long term approach to improving schools, but avoiding immediate bankruptcy for families.
To compare the two is highly disingenuous. It really smacks of a hit job due to the superficiality of the argument.
Since that time, Warren has gone on to take on the financial sector and the abuses of the credit industry. She has developed her views and become a more comprehensive candidate. To a conservative, I am sure the use of government to insure security and fairness of common folk still bristles, but I give her credit for the growth and expansion of her views. If Warren were saying anything just to get elected, being progressive in a political system where political speech and victory are paid for by the 1% would be hardly the way to go. If she were to become craven to donors and the superwealthy, then she truly would then have much in common with DeVos.
53
Yeah, and she also used to be a Republican.
That's one big change that no one can fault her for making.
What about our author here?
You know, it seems like a lot of changes- in ultimate financial independence, in a willingness to accept whatever government hand-outs in order to survive or keep your house- took place between 2003 and 2019.
Maybe the 2008 financial crisis had something to do with it.
Live and learn, they say.
11
duh.
I've known this before even read her book.
A single family income, no matter how substantial can compete against a family where both parents are working.
It was at least a little better when there was an income bracket for "head of household" which was for single income families,
but married families called it the marriage penalty tax and it was eliminated.
3
Brooks is telling us that Warren's thesis is that women with jobs caused family expenses to increase, specifically the cost of housing and daycare. Help me with this. Is that even possible?
3
@Cathy
It's a stretch to connect women working with rising housing costs. They bid up the price of houses, why? They actively worked against their own economic self interest? I don't think so. See, another argument that we'd all be better off if the little ladies just stayed home and take care of the kids. Or, for that matter, take care of the no kids.
7
@Cathy
It’s not that women with income from jobs specifically caused their familes’ expenses to increase, it’s that the increase in money in a two income family allowed them to bid more for housing and pay more for the now needed childcare, increasing the demand and thus raising the prices.
2
@Cathy, unfortunately daycare is so expensive that many women with middle-class jobs find that it takes a substantial portion of their paycheck, especially if they have more than one child.
I would say that the change is evidence-based. We have indeed learned much from "greedy bankers" in the past 11 years.
18
The state of this country at the turn of 2000 and before is very different than today. Income inequality is the mushroom cloud that has destroyed our middle class. And yes, very simply, it can be blamed on collusion between corporate America and government.
22
Mr Brook’s extremely rigid thinking is all that his essay communicates. The economics of today’s world are not identical to the economics of the 1980’s and 1990’s when I was a single parent myself. In the early 1980’s, employers still treated employees with some sense of human dignity and showed some residual value for their contributions. Not any more. Now people are just disposable human capital, and “corporations are people. That’s just one change precipitated by St Ronnie, when the destruction of the American middle class began. The goals of the elite wealthy are unavoidably clear now almost 40 years later. To benefit the majority of people in this country and on this planet, new strategies are required. But that’s not a goal Mr Brooks would support.,..,
30
We have gone to "progressive boilerplate" because we are fighting a mix of hard right toxic libertarianism and conservatism and nationalism that is hiding a real trend towards oligarchy.
The "Two Income Trap" paints a picture of what happens when adding labor to the workforce drives up income in the short term, but then drives up costs, and when incomes stagnate, or when a family continually faces the loss of one income, how it traps or imperils the family economically.
The problem she outlined was that women MUST join the workforce now, because most families cannot exist without the income, but also, when they do, the cost of family services negates the investment.
Warren has recognized that the fix is systemic - uncoupling healthcare from employment, helping make child care and education affordable, attacking stagnant wages and economic insecurity. I do believe she'd settle for answers outside of progressive orthodoxy, be we've shown her in 15 years that no one will offer them.
She's smart and savvy, and unlike most of the GOP, her goal is to improve the lives of common citizens.
63
@Cathy
I listened to 's Warrens speeches and I like what she is championing but then I think how will all of that be paid for?
The pat answer is to increase the taxes to be paid by the rich and super rich. What we have seen in so called tax revisions is the middle-class to lower middle class and the lesser income folk will bear the burden. The rich and super rich can afford the expense of tax experts and high powered lawyers. The rest of us cannot.
So I have severe reservations about Ms Warren and her platform as the forces in Washington D.C. are extremely hard to get around.
Just an old white man's opinion based on what I have observed in my life.
1
@Alecfinn
Of course there's truth to what you say. However, many of the plans she champions address that problem directly by confronting the failed idea that private/public partnerships are more efficient and better than having some services in the public domain where they can be regulated effectively.
For example, Obamacare, developed in consultation with the healthcare industry, did nothing to upset the apple cart of corporate profits and helped to sustain the failing private insurance industry. NOW, so called moderates just want to "expand" Obamacare-- which will do exactly what you say, shift tax burdens around, and the super rich may find a way to escape. But this "expansion" will not do the things needed to address the skyrocketing cost of healthcare. It will not give Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices, it will not address the monopoly power of hospital conglomerates, it will not address the immense administrative waste created by a thousand different insurance plans using a hundred different kinds of forms and platforms. The so called "moderate" position is to just throw more money at the problem without really doing anything about it.
In my opinion, THAT is what many Americans don't like about democrats-- the tendency to address problems by throwing money at them without actually addressing the underlying problems. Warren is talking about the underlying problems, in my opinion.
2
Mr. Brooks seems to want to have it both ways. First he declaims the so called pie in the sky initiatives set out by the candidates in the primaries. Then as the candidates respond to voters and start going closer to the main stream and gaining strength, he has the candidates argue with their former selfs and complains that the candidates have rigid ideologies. Nowhere does he offer an opinion on the actual proposals, just finger pointing at impure thinking.
There are bigger issues than whether Sen. Warren and De Vos shared an opinion once. Mr. Brooks might want to take a look at his own party.
26
Betsy Devos favors vouchers because she rejects the capacity of public schools to fulfill the egalitarian promise of American education. Elizabeth Warren endorsed vouchers because she wanted to help more families achieve a better education. DeVos aims her program at affluent families, while Warren targeted the struggling middle class.
Warren's proposal might not have worked the way she intended, but that possibility does not change the difference in the goals of the two women.
26
When, during the evolving recession a decade ago, Warren recommended 40 yr mortgages and increasing FDIC insurance when people’s equity was in crisis and banks were careless with our money, I found that a very poor reading of the economy and poor use of government intervention. I have yet to have faith in her instincts.
1
Mr. Brooks conveys fear for the upset of his favorite status quo. He understands that the current political landscape must change but fears that the cure will kill the patient.
That is totally understandable.
Elizabeth Warren may flip and she may flop, that is what candidates do.
I hope that Mr. Brooks would not be too hard on any candidate who was less skilled in the Kabuki theatre that has become part of our political heritage.
There are candidates who try to cobble together a reasonable platform and may not quite hit the mark.
Then there are candidates who simply lie or develop a platform based on hatred and division.
Our country is divided in many ways and we are in dangerous times.
I believe that anyone who makes a good faith effort to solve this national emergency is worth listening to.
I also believe that they are absolutely worth voting for.
Elizabeth Warren’s heart, and mind, are in exactly the right place.
Donald Trump, and the subservient republican machine that supports him, are the very heart of darkness.
33
I look for her to win, and I will support her, but my loyalties lie with Bernie. It tickles me how many of the candidates are running on Bernie’s ideas, but have changed a few ingredients and called them their own. (The true nature of self.) Until Bernie broke on the stage, I don’t remember hearing or reading a peep out of any of the candidates, concerning many of the issues front and center in this election. God bless, Bernie!
8
Elizabeth Warren has to respond to a corrupt political arena dominated by money. Ideas that can be reduced to bumper stickers seem to work in our political campaigns.
Warren began this campaign with a plan for everything. Or so it seemed. None of those plans could be implemented without significant compromise. I suspect she knows that.
Tearing apart any candidate's plans is what pundits do. The advertising in all forms of media will target the concerns that voters have about issues, with little regard for practicality, or truth.
I believe the plans matter much less than the ultimate goals of those plans. Warren has been quite clear that her goal is to make the lives of people better. Most of the public likes the ideas she advocates when you break through the hype and the bluster.
I think there is a danger in wanting too much detail from candidates on the ways to respond to the issues we face. There's more danger in looking for absolute consistency over years.
Looking at Donald Trump's approach, we see that he doesn't fall into that trap. He will promise anything and everything with the warning that only he can fix what's wrong. Too many people took him seriously in the last presidential campaign.
A person who is knowledgeable and smart can do a lot to improve our nation. Let's demand that.
20
Elizabeth Warren changes her diagnosis and prescription for what ails our body politic based on newly uncovered evidence and verifiable observations. How refreshing!
38
So because Warren once advocated for vouchers as a part of a solution, Brooks believes that makes her like Betsy DeVos? That's like calling Trump a unionist because he likes tariffs.
The key overarching message, which Brooks consistently misses in his writings, is that over the past 40 years too much of our nation's wealth has been taken by the 1%. Their are several reasons for this--information deficits, technology advances that hurt unskilled workers, governmental taxing and spending policies and, yes, "greedy bankers" and other business leaders who just take and take and fail to share in the prosperity with labor. And now, with few limits on contributions to federal political candidates and campaigns, politicians are being bought by the uber rich and connected, who want to maintain and cement their advantage.
It's not about vouchers or updated book introductions. It's about whether capitalism, unbridled, can be saved from destroying itself. If it ceases to work successfully for enough people as an economic system, eventually people will seriously consider an alternative.
40
I agree with a lot of what you say. I’m not sure Warren’s ideas will solve that problem and I’m not convinced that she understands that. Boldness and courage she has however.
I find this encouraging about Senator Warren's candidacy. She recognizes the zeitgeist. She is being flexible to get elected. She has become a politician. She will win. I don't believe she has been brainwashed (too smart and thoughtful) or that she has lost her soul. What we see now is a more market-tested version of the same woman, though still thoughtful and passionate. You don't get to bring about ANY change if you don't win.
It's like in 2008, when Barack Obama had promised to participate in public financing. As soon as he saw he had a fund-raising advantage, he ditched it. Some (like Mark Shields) scolded him for breaking his promise. I was thrilled: this guy's pragmatic! He can win! And he did.
14
"This is the problem with politics in a dogmatic age. Everything conforms to rigid ideology. Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window."
Does Mr Brooks read what he writes? So many of his trenchant criticisms could with perfect justice be aimed at his own positions.
25
This piece is more evidence that for me, Warren is a non-starter as the anti-Trump choice. Rather, I still prefer Michael Bloomberg to run as a third party candidate but I would also settle for William Weldon who has stressed fiscal responsibility as one of his goals.
2
@Accordion - Let's see what has happened EVERY time we practiced "fiscal responsibility":
The federal government has balanced the budget, eliminated deficits for more than three years, and paid down the debt more than 10% in just six periods
since 1776, bringing in enough revenue to cover all of its spending during 1817-21, 1823-36, 1852-57, 1867-73, 1880-93, and 1920-30. The debt was paid
down 29%. 100%, 59%, 27%, 57%, and 38% respectively. A depression began in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929.
Be careful what you wish for.
6
@Len Charlap
And when we become a credit risk like Argentina & no one buys our bonds- then tell me what will happen.
@Accordion - Our economy is NOTHING like Argentina's.
Furthermore, the idea that the federal gov has to pay for things, good & bad, with taxes or borrowing is just plain wrong.
The gov doesn't need your money. It can (thru the FED) create as much as it needs out of thin air. Just think about where money you pay your taxes with came from in the first place. Unless you have a printing press in your basement, it originally came from the federal gov.
But there's a catch. If the gov needs to create too much money to do the things we want it to do, we may not be able to make enough stuff to soak that money up & will have too much money chasing not enough stuff, i.e. excessive inflation. This is rare & is usually caused by shortages, e,g, of oil.
But that's easy to solve & where taxes come in. Taxes allow the gov to take back the excess money & prevent inflation. The purpose of taxes is to adjust the amount of money in the private sector. The more we
can produce, the lower taxes can be.
So the way to run things is to spend money to facilitate production. Tax cuts do this, but in an inefficient way. If we cut Daddy Warbuck's
taxes, he does not need to spend the money; he uses it for financial speculation. If we cut poor Joe's taxes, he spends the money on stuff--food, house paint, etc.etc. This promotes production of food, etc.
Even better if we pay Joe to fix a bridge, the money still gets into the economy, AND we get the bridge fixed.
No selling of bonds is necessary,
1
Since DeVos ran her state’s school system into the ground, this is either throwing shade at old Warren, or praising New Warren for learning from others’ mistakes.
Sadly, since this is Brooks, he’s mad at New Warren for not standing with the worst Education Secretary since the position was created.
32
@Mercury S
As a Michigander and no fan of the DeVos family, I do have to correct you, Betsy did not have any official position that could have ran our state's school system into the ground. Secondly, our school system was in decline since the 1970s, it accelerated in the 1980 and was nearing disaster under John Engler. By this time, Betsy was a GOP fundraiser.
We must give credit where credit is due, to the people of Michigan, mostly west Michigan, who consistently voted for people from the extremist GOP crazy train that has controlled our state government for nearly all of the past 40 years.
8
Yeah Warren used to believe all sorts of irrational stuff Republicans believe to this day. Then she experienced personal growth. You know, personal growth David? Maybe you can hold a symposium in Aspen on the subject.
52
@sedanchair She certainly isn't marketing to the average hard working men and women in Erie, PA. We've barely recovered from the Great Recession.
"Independent, evidence-based thinking? That goes out the window." Mr. Brooks perhaps needs to read some of Warren's scholarship dated later than 2003. There is plenty of evidence that "greedy bankers" have helped skew the system toward the 1+%. But that's a small fraction of what she's learned since 2003, and while "greedy bankers" is the lazy media's summary of Warren's thinking, it goes far deeper than that. Disappointing, but fortunately will be easily sloughed off.
14
Your comparison of Elizabeth Warren and Betsy DeVos is puzzling, and I suspect an attempt to say something sensational. Betsy DeVos is totally corrupt. Elizabeth Warren is not, although she will occasionally make an honest mistake. She, like Jimmy Carter, has never hesitated to admit her mistakes, and I would advise you to emulate them now. Your comparison is cheap and a throwback to the David Brooks who still, alas, marches in lockstep with his Republican mates.
54
You really should be ashamed of your intellectual dishonesty, Mr. Brooks, in your likening of Senator Warren to Secretary DeVos over school vouchers. You know full well that there is a seismic, critical difference between Warren’s past position vs DeVos’ continuous position, and that is the role of school district lines. Republican / conservative plans like DeVos’ are only about “school choice” within existing district lines, intended to shift students, and dollars, out of unionized public schools and into non-union, “charter” schools. In contrast, Warren wanted school choice to cross district lines, allowing, for example, low income, inner city, residents to choose to attend better-funded schools in essentially all-white, upper income suburbs. You know full well that “choice” in this situation means little without cross-district integration.
26
I grew up in a low income neighborhood in Queens, NY in the 1970’s as the city flirted with bankruptcy. My parents property taxes were (and remained) about 1/10th those of suburban Nassau and Suffolk counties to the east. In high school, my choices were cleaning offices with my dad (his third job), driving a truck at JFK (his second job) or the Army/Air Force/Navy/Marines vs the virtually unlimited options found 15 miles away in Massapequa. Because Massapequa homeowners paid ten times the taxes (and about 4-5 times the price for houses) as we did, they rightfully expected and received not only better educations, better facilities and more options, but greater lifelong opportunities as well. As it should be. Otherwise, what’s the point of good choices, parental efforts, hard work and success if everyone gets the same rewards? For me to indulge in the current liberal fantasy that life should be a level playing field is absurd.
2
@From Where I Sit
The level playing field is a vision. Any company needs a vision: “to become the best transport equipment supplier in the world”...
Then you get the mission, then the plan. This, I seem to recall, is business management 1.01.
Any society needs a vision. “To become a level-playing field country, where all men, women, and non-binary individuals are peers” sounds, to me, like an updated version of the American Constitution.
Honestly, what’s absurd about that?
6
How do we make everyone middle class or above? Is that even possible?
Maybe Elizabeth Warren is smart enough to realize that vouchers are a stupid idea that will only spread the money available for public education too thin.
The law mandates that public schools be available. Based on that citizens pay taxes to fund them. If some taxpayers are able to withdraw their funds via vouchers, there will be less money to fund the schools. Then governments have the choice between raising taxes or under funding schools.
6
So what’s your point, Mr. Brooks? Anyone who’s taken the time to listen to Elizabeth Warren speak to people and answer questions understands that she is an evolving human being. She’s thoughtful and is trying to create a more level playing field for Americans. Your column only creates confusion and adds misdirection. Was that your purpose?
25
What David Brooks fails to recognize in others (even though he has built a career on presenting himself as the direct opposite) is the ability to grow and mature and learn. He holds up heterodoxy as though it is itself a virtue. If there were any good-faith right-of-center arguments that haven't been completely lacerated by the stench of racism, sexism, classism that pervades the right, perhaps it would be.
Warren has evolved into her positions over time. What has occurred since 2003 that might have impacted her thinking? 2 wars that have helped bankrupt the country, a mortgage scheme led by banks who preyed on the most vulnerable, a health system that has dived even further below a basic threshold of morality, and a government that is being strangled by one party while the other party stands to the side and points a finger.
One doesn't need to signal their independence by taking on insane positions. It doesn't make you more "authentic" or more "realistic" or more "independent." It just makes you another sort of middling triangulator unwilling to call a spade a spade.
21
Meanwhile, on the other side, there's nothing resembling rational thought of any kind at all.
20
On 2003 she wrote a book. On 2016 she wrote a nomination card!
Far left is not that different from far right, they both are full of self-righteousness that they would do anything, even lying, to get to their “end”
Machiavelli is rolling in his grave!!
4
All along, many people have claimed that it was a mistake to typecast Warren as a knee-jerk liberal. She is a Teddy Roosevelt Progressive.
What makes her different from Republicans is that she sees economic civil rights as occupying the same space in a democracy as all other civil rights, and denies monopolists' power to encroach on those other rights.
What makes her different from Democrats is that she recognizes that an economy operates by its own, ever-expanding rulebook, requiring central govermental protections to prevent catastrophic failures.
13
My overview comment is that Brooks must be right to imply Warren’s political expediency having formed the book’s new introduction. But, whether it is cartoonish or not depends on how to take journalistic criticism of day by day, I think. Warren, first of all, did not tweet for the new introduction, correct? I did not know her book co-authored with her daughter. It was said in the column as that their argument was based on statistics, data, thus, social studies. The point of view and conclusions, though, for me seem to be from women’s instinct. Feminine sense in the modern era looks up for better life which usually accompanies ownership of house or houses, neighborhood, how to spend free time, health and so on in the most desirable conditions. Above all, family and education have to be there, of course. The more income, the more everything will be desired. The income level and the level of desires occasionally reverse in their order. If there is a trap, one sees right there at that spot. Then, what is masculine sense as instinct for a desirable life? Don’t ask me please. That is another spot as to be arguable.
1
Leading up to the 1980 presidential election, I and about 500 other members of my unit were told point blank by a senior NCO that he would not provide absentee voter registration materials because we were as a group unqualified to vote. He raised an interesting and valid point. Our life experience was nil and due to our low pay, our exposure to the threat of liberal confiscatory tax schemes was severely limited. Our peacetime military service was obligatory and low-risk. A manager in my civilian job after my discharge has referred to it as a form of welfare for 38 years. Today, I am no more intelligent than I was at 18. As a 1099 contractor my income, relative to the overall population, is likely lower on the scale. That makes me no more qualified to vote today than I was nearly 40 years ago.
1
Warren grew up conservative - she was a Republican until 1996 - in conservative Oklahoma, but through hard work, evolution, and eyes-wide-open observation, she came to see the American economy for what it was: a stacked deck - stacked in favor corporations, oligarchs and billionaires and their Republican puppets.
Warren's 2003 book “The Two-Income Trap” was released early in her progressive transformation, just seven years after she rejected Republican shamanism, quackery and legerdemain.
Of course Warren was bound to evolve, like most sentient beings who aren't calcified by ideology.
Brooks' conflation of Warren and DeVos is disgraceful false equivalence; Warren's a supporter of parents sending their children to the best available public schools; DeVos is a proponent of for-profit education and for-prophet education, thirsting to send taxpayer dollars to private corporations and religious schools while starving public schools of tax dollars.
DeVos is an Amway queen; a member of a family that made its fortune through its company's questionable multi-level-marketing schemes and shady ethics.
Warren is the godmother of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the government agency that helped to return billions to bilked consumers from shady, ethics-free corporations.
Warren is the anti-DeVos.
It's sad that Brooks is so wedded to his conservative ideology that he can't see that the best solution to America's radical right hijacking is a good old-fashioned progressive.
174
@Socrates
Come on. She was a Republican until her mid 40s. If by that time you are still simply taking a political simply because it was the one held by you parents, you obviously have no mind of your own.
It's one thing to change a political position you held until your early 20s. Mid 40s is something completely different.
Steve
So Senator Warren, the former university and Harvard professor and primary author and inspiration behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has no mind of her own ?
Ronald Reagan was a Democrat until 1962, when he was 51 years old and then went on to become a Republican saint.
Perhaps you need a refresher course on human evolution.
8
@Socrates
We have many who open enroll where I live, and I completely sickened by their parents.
1
David Brooks, the confirmed Republican (in addition to being a conservative) that he is, cannot restrain himself from putting in a kind word for Trump, however backhandedly as he can. In order to 'appear fair and balanced', he dredges a 15-year old opinion from Elizabeth Warren.
David, look up the past fifteen years for all the inane, incompetent, irrelevant, irreverent, inscrutable things spouted by your standard bearer.
Are you preparing another column about Bernie Sanders and one about Joe Biden? Along the same lines?
Just to be sure, come up with one about Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete. Nip'em in the bud.
10
Brooks makes it seem that there is parity between the Warren take on vouchers and DeVos's:
“An all-voucher system would be a shock to the educational system, but the shakeout might be just what the system needs,” they continued. This is exactly the argument that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos uses to support school choice."
While DeVos supports Charter Schools, for reasons that seem unclear to me, other than offering opportunity for someone to make money, Warren comes at this from another perspective:
https://facts.elizabethwarren.com/elizabeth-warren-never-supported-private-school-vouchers/
Clearly the shift from a single wage income being enough to support a family to a dual income requirement is one of the most dramatic socio/economic shifts of the recent past. Trying to deal with the multiple, complex effects of this are difficult. What would be a huge abrogation of one of the foundations of American democracy however, would be an abandonment of the ideal of public education as a equalizing element in creating an informed society...although one despairs of the efficacy of this experiment given the election of our Buffoon In Chief.
6
We don't love Warren because of her thousands of selfies or "likability". We love her and will vote for her because of her history of action, respect for transparency and the clarity of her thinking. I'm not sure what you are trying to convey with this opinion article.
1491
@MC: It's pretty simple: Warren's being politically expedient and has turned disingenuous to win an election, not solve the problem.
26
@David C
And you're basing this take on ??
36
@MC and we love her because she not a rigid ideologue but rather one who works, simply, for the best interests of the people at large. That makes her core goal at odds with Mr Brook’s desires.
78
Elizabeth Warren hasn't abandoned evidence and research - unlike the Republican Party - which continues to demean science and scientists and to reduce funding for independent authorities who might inform Congress and the American people about the truth.
I look forward to Warren's election to the Presidency, where she can return to policy ideas that are neither Republican nor Democratic, just based on evidence.
1328
The clear evidence in NY from Stanford’s CREDO is that NYC charters deliver superior results. Science baby!!
1
@Nyalman
Not really, when you take into account the practice of denying less achieving students access to some charter schools. They do not represent the local community anymore, yet are funded by public grants. One has to understand science before commenting.
Overall, across the country, charter schools are not better than public schools.
21
@Ned
"Warren's election to the Presidency" requires her to execute two tactics, successfully.
1. Win the nomination by appealing to the radical left which appears to have an unwarranted weight in the nomination process.
2. Win the general election by walking back her pandering to the radical left without appearing to flip-flop.
Unless we believe she can accomplish #2, we shouldn't nominate her, because she won't beat Trump.
6
Time passes. People observe and learn. Especially scholars, like Warren. Charters and vouchers have been disastrous to our public schools, wherever and whenever they have been instituted.
The problem is not that Sen. Warren is insufficiently 'heterodox,' but that unlike Warren, Mr. Brooks eschews 'evidence-based thinking' for his own conservative orthodoxy, still unexamined, all these years later.
1763
@BarbaraL
I agree with David Brooks: Warren seems much less original, intellectually rigorous, creative, thoughtful, etc. than she once did. Now her thinking is much more uniform and much less inspired than it once was. She has become a lot more slogany. The extent to which all her thought conforms to progressive ideology (or any ideology) suggests that her thought is only so evidence driven.
As for David Brooks, if you have paid any attention over the years, you will see that he has evolved a lot. He routinely questions and changes his own beliefs (more than any other NYT columnist I believe). He is much more open to the powers of argumentation these days than most. He hardly toes any party's line. He is very open to reason and discourse, and intellectually humble. It is for these reasons, among others, that I, like many others, routinely read Brooks.
56
David Brooks tows the Republican party’s line, complete with misdirection, obfuscation and sowing suspicion. Which seems to have been the whole point of this column. Dislike for Donald Trump is not the same as disputing the narrowness of the Republican Party,0 or of having humility as much as Brooks would have us believe that.
153
@BarbaraL One constant in Brook's writing is to never, ever agree with or support a Democrat/Progressive/Liberal on anything, even when he has distain for some conservatives and their policies. No matter how critical of Trump or the GOP he is in an opinion piece, he can't help but finding something about liberals to criticize.
142
Conservative Republicans assume everyone is like then. Opinions set in stone at puberty. Luckily the rest of us continue the learn and grow until we die. I am retired and 3 years of Trump have push this older person to the left. I Imagine Trump has had this effect on all Democrats any many independents. I for one like my food inspected, my water checked for toxic chemicals, my air and land clean and our species protected. I want to see worker right protected and strengthened. Women medical decisions and everyone's sexual behavior should be their own business. I believe in science it is the Literal Bible of the Fundamentalist that gives me jitters. Like Most Americans I do not want Christian Fundamentalist interpretations of the bible trumping our secular Constitution, I prefer the enlightenment to the theocracy of fundamentalist Christians. Trump incompetence and unholy pandering to corporations and wing nut Christians has only focus my politics and focus them to the left.
I for one believe government serves the people not America's Corporation. I believe politics should reflect the opinions of everyone not just mega donors like the Koch boys.
18
This critique will never do. It’s Trump’s party now. Republican insights or insults need to be hat-length. Is “Flip-flopper” available again?
2
Elizabeth Warren, unlike ANY conservative (including David Brooks), is capable of changing her opinion in the light of new evidence. That makes her a scientist. And that makes her an outstanding candidate for president of the United States. David Brooks, on the other hand, would seemingly rather have another term of an indecent, depraved, narcissistic autocrat instead of anybody capable of thought. After all, he had a role in bringing that creature into the White House.
13
Elizabeth Warren is not a corporation-friendly establishment candidate, so David Brooks will do what he can to knock her down. This article is just the straw he grasped onto.
10
False equivalency to make Republicans feel better.
16
Greedy bankers and corporate America?
Say it ain't so.
And what are Republicans doing to fix the problem?
More tax cuts for the rich.
More deficits and debt to be paid for by us and our children.
What did we get for it?
2018 jobs: 2.6 Million - revised down now to 2.4 Million
2015 jobs: 2.7 Million
2014 jobs: 3.0 Million
So lets criticize the Democrats.
Republicans are much worse but no criticism there.
4
DeVos ‘s position on education in no way, shape or form resembles Warren’s. DeVos supports charters and private schools because she doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state. She has said that the function of education is to “bring children to the kingdom of God.” She is a Calvinist. Read up on their beliefs.
8
@Kb
As a Calvinist, I know many people in my church who send their children to public schools. Historically, Calvinists (and Calvin himself) have been proponents for the separation of church and state. Since DeVos is not mandating religious school for non-religious children, but only choice and funding for those who want to attend these private schools, what are you talking about? By the way, in the UK and Ireland, almost all schools including religious ones are funded by their respective government. Two of my children attend a Catholic school but sit out any religious classes. We educate them at home on our religion.
1
@Pat. Public funding for private religious schools violates the separation of church and state. I don’t know what Ireland’s laws are. She did say that the purpose of education is to bring children to the kingdom of god. Sorry, not in the United States.
1
Wait a second....conflating Warren's position on vouchers with that of Besty DeVos is extremely misleading. I highly doubt anything about Warren's position was ever motivated by religious fanaticism. Besty DeVos has no interest in bettering education - she simply wants religious organizations to be able to brainwash children with government financial support. She wants to elevate (born-again) Christian schooling to the level of public schooling and give it legitimacy. Her school vouchers are code for infiltrating the public school system with religion. This comparison of her and Warren's views makes me wonder about the rest of your analysis of Warren's positions. To be clear, Warren and DeVos are not on the same page regarding vouchers.
7
This column brings out one of Mr. Brooks's finest qualities, his willingness to test out an obviously weak, untenable argument by literally inviting often quite devastating rebuttals; Mr. Brooks knowingly proffers flimsy assertions to clarify the range of tenable claims, ultimately to determine the viability of political conservatism itself. I think he's genuinely seeking.
In any case, as most comments already suggest, his critique of Warren's evolution is one long exercise in "post hoc ergo procter hoc," not to mention a kind of ad hominen dismissal of her interpretation of greed/societal ills. Mr. Brooks simply pronounces Ms. Warren either a) be pandering to the liberal establishment or b) to have been brainwashed by it. Neither is backed by a shred of evidence.
However, I do see an intellectual shortcoming on Ms. Warren's (whom I support for president, with this caveat) part: she may indeed be a bit prone to ideological seduction, as evidenced by her erstwhile enamorment with the patently corrupt, stupid, & ideological "law & economics" movement pioneered by Richard Posner. That she embraced that money-worshiping drivel reflects terribly on her.
However, I believe she is genuinely growing intellectually, & is not simply bouncing & being buffeted in the winds like a hollow ping pong ball. She has a mind, a core, a heart, increasingly recognizing precisely what law & economics got so horribly wrong: greed ain't necessarily good, the source of all blessing in the world.
2
Um, I'll take a predictable candidate over what we have now, thank you very much.
6
Sheer honesty would require that Brooks provide us with the source of the oppo research he exploits in this piece.
And, as usual he relies on distortions to force yet another false equivalence: Betsy DeVos is for vouchers because her goal is to stuff religion down the throat of America and, in the process, drown public education in Grover Norquist's tub.
As to Elizabeth, as a true academic and intellectual, she has widened her analysis and has learned about factors other than the purely statistical. Politics is not just a set of data on a spreadsheet. The depth of her knowledge results in better and more refined proposals. She is clearly the most talented candidate of this election.
As to Brooks, well, another missed shot. We got so used to it.
7
In this age of ever increasing inequality, greedy bankers, CEO's and others are to blame for pushing people out of the middle class and many into poverty. It is no "comic book."
1
I would definitely home school if my children were of school age now. Top two points being
Shootings and mess of education system during this administration. I don’t know how any body can go on chanting we are the best. If this administration has not achieved but one thing is that all the rich have gotten richer. I wouldn’t trust my children in this system between charter schools, violence, bullying where schools turn blind eyes to the responsibilities in protecting children from these bullies. This seems intentional. The dumbing down of America.
1
"When my information changes, I change my mind. What do you do?” (Attributed to John Maynard Keynes"
David Brooks apparently does not believe that information can change, or that one should change one's mind when that happens.
5
"The new introduction is paint-by-numbers progressive boilerplate."
I take it this means you don't agree with it?
1
Logical and analytical Warren thought vouchers would stop the mad rush of real estate prices with everyone trying to get into the same school districts. She continues to add data to her knowledge base and has the mental flexibility to reanalyze with an open mind and change her running hypothesis. What a dream it would be to have such a thinking, fair and wise president!
5
In her book, Warren promoted vouchers for public schools. DeVos promotes vouchers for private schools. Not the sme thing. Not even close.
5
Since we are talking about what candidates said years ago.
Trump said Obama was born in Kenya and Trump supported abortion.
W Bush told us there were weapons of mass destruction and the smoking cloud would be a mushroom cloud.
Reagan told us tax cuts would pay for themselves.
Maybe Mr. Brooks will make a column about Republicans one day.
But then again, maybe not.
9
Mr. Brooks,
Without addressing the particular point of your article, I just want to assert that there is not and never was any agreement between Sen. Warren and Betsy DeVos.
Ms. Devos is a person who had no skills for her job and who only wants to defund public education so that her rich Republican friends can worm their way further into the education system. I'm sure her hope is to create little Republicans who will graduate kindergarten spouting the glories of "trickle down economics".
So there!
3
A poor professor at the University of Texas, Ms. Warren is well known for basically lying to advance her career. Does anyone really see her going toe to toe on the international scene or leading our military? Her domestic banker blaming and give-always programs are laughable. Guaranteed to re-elect President Trump If his opponent.
1
Elizabeth Warren and Betsy DeVos agree on school vouchers for fundamentally different reasons - helping poor families send their children to better schools is very different to DeVos wanting to get her hands on public tax dollars to push her religious agenda and further enrich her family business.
3
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
John Maynard Keynes
The main difference between a conservative and a progressive is the ability of the progressive to change one's mind rather than repeating the same action hoping for a different result.
"The definition of insanity is continuing to try the same approach to solve a problem but expecting different results."
Albert Einstein
6
Mr Brooks,
When you have the decency to repudiate your Republican allegiance, I will consider your opinions. You say in this column that Elizabeth Warren has changed her positions on a number of issues as she has faced shifting constituent beliefs, accusing her of finger in the air politics.
She, unlike you, has proved capable of learning and moving forward.
5
You quote "old" Elizabeth Warren: “Any subsidy that benefits working parents without providing a similar benefit to single-income families pushes the stay-at-home mother and her family further down the economic ladder.”
Sounds like something "new" Elizabeth Warren would say, though.
1
I always thought of Warren as someone watching Clinton and waiting for "her" own moment to run. To that point, she must love that Clinton lost and we ended up with Trump. Warren's biggest change over time, from the 2003 to today, from Professor Warren to Senator is that she has dumbed-down her message and became just another progressive politician. If she really wants to get elected, she needs to drop her "I'm going to start a revolution" shutter and instead allow Americans the chance to relax from the daily barrage and assault on those across the aisle that we have to listen to now.
2
That a Republican such as Brooks has the temerity to lecture Democrats about orthodoxy shows how far out of touch our ruling conservative elite are with mainstream America. After 40 years of having Mr. Brook’s conservative icons jam their form of orthodoxy down our throats - trashing our country in ever higher fits of corruption, he and those he supports should not be surprised that America is pushing back. But that’s not orthodoxy- that’s the will of the people.
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"The new introduction describes a comic book world, in which everything bad can be blamed on greedy bankers."
Thank you, Mr. Brooks!
This is precisely why I cannot stand Warren and her fantasy.
== what is the list that will be paid by those greedy bankers.
Not only the massive deficit, but
Free health care,
Free tuition
Free day care
This makes any mainstream and honest Democrats... look boring.
This is demagoguery, and I cannot stand
Warren for it.
(I am ashamed I gave her money for her Senate race years ago.)
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The real intent of vouchers is to destroy teachers unions, which have provided decent salaries and benefits to a largely female profession. Instead of admitting that many of the problems in problematic schools can be traced to the problematic neighborhoods in which they are located it’s easier to blame the teachers. Somehow many poor, non English-speaking Asian families have found success in such schools.
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So Ms. Warren is not only smart, but also open to change her mind and her policy proposals when evidence show she was mistaken in her previous position. She learns!! Wow. She is humble enough to accept mistakes! Double wow.
That is exactly the kind of President and the kind of political leader the US (and the world) needs. In other words, the exact opposite of the current occupant of the White House.
2
This is about education so I would like to reply to Hugues from Paris .
The cost of university in France does not cost 600 $.
I quote from the ministry of education : 243 Euro ( = max 300 $ ) for a master , 600 euro for a private engineer school under MEN title ( = 700 $ ) . 380 euro for doctorate year ( PHD ) .
All these include complete health insurance + other liabilities, privilege of University restaurants etc.
Hugues writes that a business school in France costs about the same price as a business school in the US = 20 K $ .
Any American know a business school that costs 20 k $ in the USA ???
Elizabeth Warren was the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed in Congress in 2007 and passed in 2010 along with the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This was accomplished under the leadership of President Obama as he attempted to clean up the aftermath of the 2009 financial devastation left by Bush & his merry band of GOP thieves who didn't think any financial regulation of the banking/Wall St. sector was needed. The CFPB sought to protect innocent Americans from ever having to withstand losing their homes & having their savings wiped out through the sheer greed of Wall St. & mortgage companies like Countryside.
Mr. Brooks cherry picks one position Dr. Warren took in 2003 to make his distorted point that she aligned with Betsy DeVos before she became a "boiler plate" "paint by numbers" progressive Democrat. Nothing could be further from the truth. Is he supported the GOP which seeks to dismantle Dr. Warren's creation of the CFPB under the so called leadership of Mick Mulvaney? Just like all the other departments that Mr. Mulvaney is seeking to undermine through de-regulation & budget slashing. Instead of Warren's idea, Mulvaney wants the CFPB to just protect financial institutions similar to DeVoss protecting for profit colleges. Another difference between DeVoss & Warren is that Warren would never use her position to further enrich herself or her business associates as DeVoss does by investing in for profit colleges.
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A President Warren will not be allowed to fulfill even 10% of her promises. She will be a great thing for America compared to Trump but rest assured, a socialist anything USA will never be allowed. Don't get scared of her progressive ideas, they will be just gathering dust in the senate. A Biden Warren ticket would beat Trump easily! A stable team with centrist strings and progressive tailwinds.
3
Elizabeth Warren has become more predictable, progressive, boilerplate over the years and the reason why?
I can understand her change, frustration, the entire frustration of the left wing party in America, because it seems America is perpetually behind the curve of satisfaction in every way, that no matter how much effort is expended, no matter how much imagination, no matter if we have two earner families or families juggling a number of jobs to make ends meet, we are still crushed, it all seems to lead to inflation or bubbles, that most people must be put down, ground underfoot, controlled, yet apparently all these people must exist to work, to be a mass thrown at life and chewed up, to drive up profit for the very few.
It's a system not far removed from military/feudalism of the past, that there must be an overproduction of people (births) but the vast majority of people cannot be trusted with anything but minor tasks, nor can they be trusted with much wealth because they are not fiscal, prudent, thrifty enough, not to mention know how to invest, nor can they get around the system in any way because that would be too high animal spirits, threat of inflation which must be put down, so you have millions born and dying but a situation of never getting over the hump, just millions increasing profit for the very few, like armies of old sacrificing life after life for the glory of the general.
When are the privates in the army of American life going to be trusted to rest?
Sure- attack a Democrat and never get after Republicans. There are solutions to the problems Brooks cites, but giving huge tax breaks to the very rich is not one of them. Fair wages and better support of public schools and fixing public transport and infrastructure would be part of real solutions.
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Independent, evidence-based thinking concludes that Republican ideology is not interested in reality. Voodoo economics, climate-change denial, immigrants as criminals with a few decent ones, and seeing the virtually nonexistent voter fraud of illegal voting and not the widespread voter fraud of voter suppression are all examples of ideas and stories divorced from typical reality. Many bad things, such as growing income and wealth inequality, can be blamed on greedy bankers who do not think that the present inequality is a bad thing. But if the reason for growing inequality is automation and artificial intelligence, the need to discuss the problem is even greater.
The Democratic hard opinions have nothing to do with Leninist or Trotskyite or Maoist dogmatism, which was as rigidly dogmatic as the basic Republican dogmas named above. They are disagreeing on solutions for problems that Republicans are prepared to live with, ignore, and if necessary manage or make disappear with public relations techniques.
When Republicans are ready to work with them to address these problems, they will work with Republicans. But when they tried Republican-developed ideas to extend health care, Republicans responded by renouncing their own ideas and painting them as socialistic and government takeovers.
6
If it comes down to Trump or Warren, I might vote for the latter. However, right now, Yang is probably the ultra-long shot - people keep talking about male/female dichotomy in American politics, wait until they look into the most successful minority group, Asian! They may be doctors and scientists, but managers or politicians? - with the most American spirit, pragmatism.
I have voted for Warren twice as my senator, but she has proven to a populist and nothing else. Hindsight 20/20, we have first learned of Warren as President Obama's point person for consumer credit reform effort; but looking back, she is a product of academic politics. In case people don't know it, academic politics is as bad as, if not worse than, politics.
You could smell her presidential ambition when she fooled around with that Native American fiasco during her 2nd senate election campaign.
To be clear, she is not a total fake. And she is capable, with pluses and minuses. If she becomes POTUS, she might be a micromanager.
3
Warren's work in establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Board is indicative of where she would go as president. Instead of focusing on areas where consumers are unprotected, as in car title lending, she went off tilting against the banks and causing general confusion by creating overlapping regulations in areas like mortgage lending, student loans, and credit cards. Congress had favored the banks during the lending crisis over consumers, rightly or wrongly, but the CFPB could not correct for that, assuming it was an error. Warren pushed ahead anyway without proper authority. Under Warren's guidance, the CFPB turned into a real mess, and there is reason to think that trying to implement her myriad grand plans as president would be a mess too. Wonks are not always smart about the big picture, and Warren is an example. Being earnest is not a sufficient qualification for president. Case in point: Jimmy Carter.
3
Warren has evolved along with her research. She started out forty years ago as a moderately conservative Republican convinced that low-income people who filed for bankruptcy were gaming the system. Her detailed study of bankruptcy case files changed that perception. So her politics changed as well.
Another watershed event was the real estate asset bubble bursting in 2008. Wall Street banks were bailed out while ordinary homeowners with underwater mortgages were hung out to dry. Financial scam artists like Steven Mnuchin got rich on the backs of middle class homeowners' mortgage defaults. Tea party populism and its distrust of elites was in major part an angry reaction to this indefensible double standard. So Warren's 2003 book that Brooks suddenly finds so compelling was also overtaken by new realities.
There is an easy way to pay for the social programs that Warren now champions. Undo Trump's tax cuts for the rich and slash the bloated military budget. Brooks feigns concern about the role of ideology in American politics. But it is ideology that prevents Brooks and his allies from taking a critical look at our sacrosanct war state.
31
@woofer She wrote "The Two- Income Trap" 16 years ago, not 40.
Brooks has a good point about orthdoxy.
1
@Alfred
Her bankruptcy studies preceded the 2003 book.
1
In Southern California, a one-wage earner family with kids bidding with a solid job and income, good credit record, and a pre-approved mortgage, has no chance against the DINKs - Double Income, No Kids - all-cash buyers.
9
Thank you for this thoughtful piece on Senator Warren. I am concerned that she has put her finger to the wind and decided to copy Bernie Sanders, for political expediency’s sake, and thus I do not trust her. I plan to stick with the real deal - Senator Sanders - whom I’ve supported since living in Burlington, Vermont, back in the 197Os. Prior to his win in 1980-Mayor of Burlington - Sanders was not popular with the business class. But once he won, the results he was able to achieve spoke for themselves. He was able to prevent a high rise from being built on Lake Champlain in downtown Burlington that would have blocked public access, instead seeing that the waterfront was used for public purposes...just one of his many stellar accomplishments in the town.
In addition to Senator Warren adopting popular views being a concern, I also don’t feel that she - a woman Harvard professor- could actually beat Trump, but have no doubt that Senator Sanders can. The last thing I want to see is a Trump second term.
3
the increase in house prices was not fueled by an increase of women in the work force. That is ridiculous. Rather, the 30-year trend of rising house prices was driven by falling interest rates (as inflation came down in the 1980s and 1990s) that were then capitalized into higher home prices. this process continues today - even as wages are stagnant, making homes less affordable for new workforce entrants.
4
@David Safety and building codes and zoning are one reason housing prices doubled since the 1960's. I don't particularly mind it, but that reality does need to be onsidered.
Regulation hikes the cost of everything.
6
@L osservatore Actually, good regulations force the "costs" onto the relevant parties. The "cost" of my home being a death trap is now no longer borne by me, but by the builder.
2
Prices are also bid up by investors, often foreign, who want to park their money in real estate.
2