The Democratic establishment sold out to corporate donors long ago. For example, Obama, Biden, et al have made it clear to the GOP that they are willing to cut Social Security and Medicare. The people who run the party would rather see another 4 years of Trump than someone like Sanders in the White House.
737
@Martha Shelley Devastatingly cynical comment Martha ... but spot on. The Demos are the good cops to the Repubs bad cops and both serve the oligarchs
142
Nonsense.
126
I find your comment re 'the people who run the Democratic party' absurd.
138
She was and is still the best out of the bunch....
18
I don't have any idea how old the author may be, but we Boomers have seen all this before. We lived it, in fact, when we were young.
I can vividly recall those discussions in college, led by ohso-earnest male grad students (Mostly interested as I recall in hitting on young women) about how mthere would soon be an alliance between teh working class and the students, with the students leading the way.
I remarked one day that our Dads' generation- then still young men in their mid 40s- had survived the Depression, beaten Hitler, Mussolini and Japan from a standing start, come home to build the greatest economy that the world had ever seen and sent us all to college- almsot all of us the first from either side of our familes to go.
I then asked for anybody to identify precisely what it was that we had to teach our dads.
Nobody had an answer.
15
Bernie can learn from Elizabeth, if he wants to broaden his base. Don't be so divisive. For example, rail against corruption in government, but not against "billionaires". Talk about a modest wealth tax, don't harp on the evil people who work on wall street. People want economic fairness, but they don't want to go to war. They've had four years of hate, stop talking like you hate certain people.
25
Some of us will once again regret not voting for Ms. warren. She was a breath of fresh air and some of us believed that she would crack the ceiling. Herr plans rooted in facts and d ata. She gave up two years of her life to help the country grow and talk to everyone and be a part of our lives.
Why is it we just cant do the right thing when we are called upon to do it. Why do we want to support the for profit health care industries so badly and for profit insurance. Why do we believe we just aren't worthy to be treated like real citizens in this country.
We should want a better life for our communities and we just don't get it. Whoever the nominee is, we will vote for them, we have to get rid of the traitors who are the GOP however we had a God send individual who was everything we don't have now. We just didn't appreciate Ms. Warren and we will pay the price for our own folly.
us oWe will once ag
10
“They want a new coalition grounded in the multiracial working-class and less dependent on affluent professionals“
Talk about do as I say, not as I do; almost everyone of the (few) Justice Democrats/DSA victories has been powered by white, educated, young professionals. It is generally their opponents who have the multiracial working class support. AOC was a prime example of this. She lost her own working class Parkchester neighborhood by some 25 points, but won because of the hyper support from affluent white Yuppie gentrifiers in Queens. Bernie only wins white left-leaning states and was handed his head by the multiracial working class this past Tuesday.
Maybe they should ditch their Jacobin savior complex and listen for a change.
11
Warren wanted to bridge the progressive and Establishment wings of the Democratic Party. As a woman, she came under intense scrutiny, and needed to clearly define herself personally and politically. When she was rising in polls, Obama, aware of Biden’s rambling, low-octane town halls and seeking an alternative to Sanders, met with and flirted with supporting her, pushing her to criticize Bernie and raise a 2-stage Medicare for All. Her oscillations blurred her standing with both progressives and moderates, and her polls dropped. She was taken down on Super Tuesday by a play aimed at Sanders. Rep. Jim Clyburn, who has taken over $1 million in donations from the pharmaceutical industry and long opposed Medicare for All, endorsed Biden, turning his moderate lead into a landslide win that then swept the South. Obama, the Party guru, read the tea leaves and whispered in Buttigieg’s ear, and his and Klobuchar’s support pushed the numbers nationwide, shoving a startled, grinning Biden onto the victory stage, where his slender wife Jill had to tackle a crazed vegan protester to protect him. (Don’t believe, lookit up.) Biden is a far weaker candidate than Warren, but he’s weaker than Castro, Booker, Harris, et. al. Obama rolled the dice on a Neville Chamberlain personality to lead in a time of crisis, and Sanders may be able to take advantage, but Warren won’t. She has time to reflect, and what she says and does next will show which road she takes.
2
Shocking as it may seem, the 'democratic' National Committee is an Unelected PRIVATE Corporation who MAKES UP THE RULES which they can then follow -- or not:
"DNC to Court: We Are a Private Corporation With No Obligation to Follow Our Rules -- May 2, 2017
Update: A federal judge dismissed the DNC lawsuit on August 28. The court recognized that the DNC treated voters unfairly, but ruled that the DNC is a private corporation; therefore, voters cannot protect their rights by turning to the courts:
'To the extent Plaintiffs wish to air their general grievances with the DNC or its candidate selection process, their redress is through the ballot box, the DNC's internal workings, or their right of free speech — not through the judiciary.'
Rather than reflecting on the consternation everyday voters are having over the conduct of the Democratic presidential primary, the Democratic National Committee is doubling down on the assertion that the primary election belongs to the people who control the party -- not voters.
In the transcript for last week's hearing in Wilding, et. al. v. ... Deborah 'Debbie' Wasserman Schultz, released Friday, DNC attorneys assert that the party has every right to favor one candidate or another, despite their party rules that state otherwise because, after all, they are a private corporation and they can change their rules if they want."
https://ivn.us/posts/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules
GO, Bernie!
6
Ah the Democrats, the party of identity politics where gays, women, POC and other minorities are rejected for two of the oldest white guys to ever run for the nomination..
Both of them come from the same old decades of being the establishment. Yes the Democrats call Republicans lots of nasty names that actually reflect back on the Democrats.
November 2020 will not be kind to the Democrats as both candidates are going further to the left each week. Biden has promised free health care to illegals but wants Americans to pay for it. He wants to stop deporting criminal illegal aliens, Fee education for all, free housing for all. Ban fracking for natural gas which has made the USA the top country for reducing pollution on climate change while the rest of the world has done nothing.
2
Radical? For most of the first world Warren was middle of the road. So tired of this GOP branding being used and the NYT falling for it.
22
One wonders if a country that has never had a queen could ever
elect a woman to higher office.
2
John Lennon had the answer in 1988, when Mayor Bernie Sanders was playing footsie with Russia.
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right, all right, all right
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right, all right, all right
You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be
All right, all right, all right.
Or as David Byrne aptly put it, “Same as it ever was.”
6
No, it's because she is a woman. Unlike other countries, America remains a chronically backward place in so many ways. It'll put an old, average-intelligence-man in the White House, but not a smart woman. Sad, sad, sad.
15
The media loves a "kick them when their down" article when the the person being written about has lost.
6
“I don’t belong to an organized political party, I’m a Democrat”
It was true when Will Rogers said it.
It’s still true.
And I don’t want to belong to an organized party - that’s what the current GOP is - organized for the purpose of imposing strict GOP rule on the nation, its candidates for election, the judges its members appoint lock-step - its total lack of sometimes-unfaithful members.
Sort of like the totalitarian parties one finds in effectively single-party nations.
I don’t want to be a Communist Party or Nazi Party member.
Elizabeth Warren tried to prove her bona fides with actual proposals and policies - not promices or vague plans and platforms.
She’s a true Democrat.
I just wish more members of the real Big Tent party - the one that just tries to keep the thugs out, all others welcome to debate, debug and work at building a better nation - and if that means voting opposite the party leadership because you have a complete plan you feel is better for the nation, not the party, good for you - even though I might disagree with you.
That’s the kind of party we need, the kind she (I hope) continues to work with.
May she stay in the Senate another term, and, try again in 2028, when, with any luck, Democrats will be looking for their next presidential candidate after Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders has served out his term limit.
6
Elizabeth Warren was a total disaster!
And also a 100% phony!
13
Sorry, but Ms. Warren didn't collapse because she was a female. Nor did she flunk because of her failing to cure the Democrat party of its terminal failures. In the latter she was no more remiss than any of her competitors, male of female. Elizabeth Warren died on the vine because her treacly optimism rang hollow. And because the voter is smart enough to know that anyone who has a plan for everything has a plan for nothing. And because we all know that somewhere in America there's a genuine native American who did not get into university, and another native American who did not get a plum job at Harvard because this lifelong liar stole their slots by declaring herself to be what even a blind person can readily see that she is not.
11
And this is the wrong kind of analyst.
3
Mr. Shenk is beating a dead horse. Please someone tell him that Warren withdrew from the race several days ago.
5
Yeah. She was the wrong kind of radical, an intelligent, bright and learned woman.
13
Wrong Kind (aka Female)
8
If the Dems desired a woman for President, they should have picked Nancy Pelosi who had already befuzzed Trump with impeachment and would have destroyed him in debates.
6
It was sexism. You will say anything to deny it but you know it's true.
8
May be the problem is her alone. It is the whole party. Obama Biden et. al
Nevertheless, she persisted. I'd for a Biden/Warren ticket. Let's go ladies.
3
What kind of postmortem rot is this? Warren did not get traction in a country that cannot stand smart, intelligent, accomplished women with great ideas. The democratic party is un-reformable given its large segment of far left idealists who have no notion of milestones and baby steps, and would rather burn the house down if they cannot get their ideals in one snap (see Bernie voters who will giddily vote for Trump after Biden gets nominated, assuring a Trump victory).
This party, these lovers of victim porn, these sad sacks that never met a lost cause that they did not want me to pay for, cannot bring a gun to a gun fight and loves losing.
The point I am making is this: It is not Warren's responsibility to change the democratic party; it is the democratic party's responsibility to support new visionaries like Warren by changing itself, and ridding itself of the large number of poverty porn loving, class-envy driven losers.
7
Warren did what she was paid to do.Split the progressives votes.Why do you think a billionares super pac fed her 10 million dollars ? Get real.
4
Calling her "radical" indicates--proves--the bias (illogical, unfounded perspective) of the author.
It is itself "radical"--extremist--an ad hominen slur, now synonymous with presidential tweeting, hardly responsible journalism.
5
What I saw in Warren's campaign supports nothing in your article, but thanks for a myopic piece.
6
As if it couldn't be worse, we get this eulogy from a mansplainer in chief. He's going to tell us what to think.
Normally, I brush this stuff off but today it's hard.
5
Tell me again why you term Warren a "radical?" Have you internalized the Fox News propaganda? Are you from Mississippi? I'm not from Denmark, where Warren wouldn't even be on the left. It's the so-called "conservatives" that are really the radicals here, and you should reserve that word for them, not for someone who wants universal health care, a climate change program, and to kill the filibuster, which keeps low-population US states in an absurdly powerful position in a world they scarcely know, or even admit exists.
Bandying terms like "radical" for Warren is not worthy of the editor of a so-called "leftist" magazine like Dissent. Can we restore some meaning to what is termed left and right in the US, please?
13
Warren lost because she abandoned progressive thinking and tilted towards the foggy middle. Too bad it was packed full with Joe Biden and his bland, muddled pap. There was no lane for Warren and her Mediocre for All.
3
She as well as every one of the 20 some candidates, other than Biden, did not attract African American voters ... period ...
1
both this article and most of the comments strike me as distracted.
the comments harp that despicable people abound -- misogynists, sexists, "the elite," billionaires, party hacks -- who manage to screw things up every time. or the fault is warren's for being ... too warren.
mr. shenk thinks warren wasn't radical enough (!) and was unable to pull votes from sanders -- but don't worry, AOC is coming. yes, AOC is a quick study and very skillful, but she's also naive about what change really requires -- a trait she and sanders share.
to me, the party establishment acted decisively to squelch sanders. that's what party does, that's what party is usually for and, along with mr. shenk, i only hope the party establishment rolls over a new generation as soon as possible.
but the keyword here is: fear. "electability" is a dog whistle for "i'm afraid." you can't vote for your real choice, you vote for who you think is someone else's choice. you think trump's a bully and a woman can't take it. of course, your choice gets no votes. you get biden instead.
the rot here is that the american people are fearful. in my youth, the future was an ennobling challenge. now, the future only promises more people, more planet destruction and living as digital corporate chattel.
at the bottom is the deep, stubborn denial of the fact that we have to change. warren is and always will be about substantive, structural, basic change -- and that scares the majority of the already fearful voters.
10
Will shred either Bernie or Biden, doesn’t matter
1
To all you Bernie supporters: When Biden whomps Trump in November and delivers the Senate, what are you gonna say?
Oh, I know: "Boo hoo! Bernie could have done it too."
Well, no he can't nd no he won't.
5
This is silly. Warren struggled for the same reason Bernie is struggling. Because there isn't room for two, so they split the vote. Bernie had the edge from name recognition and because his bluster and appearance makes him a very engaging personality. But it was a slight edge. If the race had been only Warren, we wouldn't be pontificating on her "faults" right now.
7
Amid all the conjecture about sexism, dare I offer this- reprehensible- thought: if Warren had not looked & acted like the schoolmarm from the old westerns- if she looked more like AOC - would she have faded the way she did?
5
Obviously substance is a main factor and Warren has plenty. But don't forget that while beauty is only skin deep, that's all you get to see. By "beauty" I refer to stage presence. Compare hers to Ocasio Cortez, to pick one example. Warren has stiff and awkward movements; her voice is often whinny. This is all superficial but that's what we are. Entertainment is key.
1
Or was she right and the electorate wrong? Too many people thought other people wouldn’t vote for her.
4
Last night in an interview with Maddow Warren was pretty clear (although for the sake of an old friendship she still was trying to be ‘nice’ about it) regarding the harassment and vitriol directed at her by Bernie followers, and, pointedly that Sanders, aside from some feeble “I don’t condone it...” has refused to be accountable. Sexism in its worst form...if a woman points it out she’s a whiner, if she doesn’t every woman wonders why you haven’t...and here we are. AOC aside, not too progressive at all.
6
Warren would never have won the Presidency -- she alienates people and hates too much of American society. She hates the tech companies, the banks, Wall Street, corporations, self-made millionaires, and more than half of America. It has nothing to do with her being a woman -- it's just the person she is. She hates.
Liberals have to understand that they are a minority of people in America. Maybe they have a third. The only way they will make change is to compromise & build consensus with the rest of America. Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and their leftist populist allies would be attractive to America only if they agreed to work together with people who don't think like they do. We haven't seen any of that compromising spirit or ability from them, and therefore they will fail to achieve their goals. It's sad because they have a few good ideas, but their abrasive, hating, exclusionary, purist, uncompromising, identitarian, and haughty attitude will doom them, just as the same attitude will doom Trump on the populist right. (Sure, he got elected in a fluke, but he has achieved little and he is unlikely to repeat unless the Democrats self-destruct.)
10
I was a big Warren supporter and, to the dismay of other commenters here ("broken record"), repeatedly argued that she should partner up early with Booker or Stacey Abrams and run as a team. But, the truth be told, her severe hair was the problem. Well, that and how she reminded me of Ann Minnehan. In Miss Costello's High school English class, just before the bell, Ann raised her hand and said, "Miss Costello, you forgot to give us homework".
3
As Norman Solomon argues, Warrens Progressive credentials are on the line. Everyday she delays an endorsement of the Progressive platform of Bernie Sanders, is a another day of de facto support of Biden’s anti-progressive campaign.
2
In the 2016 primary, a lot of us voted for Sanders over Clinton. Once Clinton was the nominee, however, I grew to loathe Sanders for his delay in endorsing Clinton. His intransigent supporters helped elect Trump, and it is sickening that to think it'll happen again.
11
WOW! A lot of rationalizations going through these comments. None that take into consideration the facts. The more people learned of Warren, the more they decided she could not be trusted. She fell into the trap of saying whatever the crowd wanted to hear. It came back and slapped her in the mouth. She changed positions on issues so many times, no one could tell where she stood on anything . . . just like the Democratic Party. All we know for certain about the Party or Warren is that they want to see Trump gone.
4
Failure of Medicare for all done immediately crushed her run. Period. For such a smart politician it was a shock to me. Most people know do not trust the government to have a Monopoly running anything. Other countries have both. We should also. This showed Black and
Latin people she didn’t care about them. This ended her run. Too bad she was
A qualified smart effective leader. Shame.
Elizabeth Warren was the best candidate, the most knowledgeable, the most articulate. Her only failing was she is a woman in a male supremacist country. As long as women are inferior to men in every religion they will be paid less, and denied the rights men take for granted. The abortion issue is a religious issue that is exploited to deny women healthcare privacy and rights. Framing it as a moral issue is as false as framing sexual activity as immoral especially for women. Elizabeth Warren may have forgotten the dual standards, and provided the cost of her plans in an objective way. That was what was used to deflate her momentum. Why didn’t it deflate Bernie? Oh, he never gave the full costs of his plans...and he is a man.
6
One wonders why Senator Sanders and his "bros" don't form their own political party instead of attempting to co-opt a Democratic Party that clearly does not want to "go there."
5
If Elizabeth Warren were a man, she would have been the runaway nominee. Nobody gets punished in government more and more often than an accomplished woman with plans to solve problems.
For those who say they would vote for a woman, "just not this woman," call me when the unicorn you would approve appears. This arena's outrageous expectations and catch 22's can not be satisfied by any woman. Everyone loses as a result. What remains is the status quo of old, white men telling us how they can save us from a society and government they created and dominated for 200 years.
6
I agree she picked the wrong lane, if she had ran as a reformer, but one with integrity, details, energy and a breath of fresh air, she could have stolen the moderates like me from Biden. As revolt light she never had a chance - when she went all in with radical proposals like getting rid of private insurance and free taxpayer sex changes in prison, she lost me and could split the Bernie fanatics away.
The author is dead wrong about AOC and bernies support however, their voters are not a multiracial working class, it’s white college educated elites. AOC lost her own working class neighborhood when she ran. There are only so many self hating self righteous affluent young college educated voters.
6
Warren is the wrong kind of anything. As someone who lies to further her career, she was always going to go no where.
Unfortunately, we in Massachusetts are stuck with this no it all, disliked, arrogant, unfriendly, and do nothing politician.
6
Too much fanaticism in Warren's recent final statements. For her to claim her loss was due to sexism is ludicrous. What exactly was sexist? The fact that she was not chosen?
Why can she not admit that she made errors or did not do enough. Bernie nearly always had more support than she did, and her campaign was seen as "Bernie lite". She did not differentiate, and she did not give reasons why she was better than Bernie. Her vitriolic attack on Bloomberg in both debates hurt the party, and made her look desperate - just as Buttigieg's attacks on Klobuchar made him look desperate. She never attacked Bernie as she did others. Why not? Many people saw these behaviors in Warren, and wondered what she was doing.
The most serious lapse was her inability to differentiate herself from her alter-ego. She was mimi-Bernie, and she believed that just because she is a woman, that would be enough to catapult her above Bernie. It was obviously not enough.
And now, claiming everyone is sexist and against a woman becoming president is denial of facts. Most people who are against a female presidency are older white men in the republican party. They were absent from these democratic primaries. Every man that I know wants a woman, but not blindly a woman. They look for accomplishments, strengths, leadership, character traits... of the person. If a woman is slightly behind a man, they would rather support the woman.
Warren was Bernie lite. She never overcame that fact.
2
If Ms Warren had pointed to Finland and told voters it was possible to save America...
...from greedy American corporations and capitalists...
...but only if we would do what Finland has done to get capitalism under control, then she would have had a better chance to win the nomination.
I am not interested in her idea of “saving capitalism”. Mr Trump is doing a good enough job of that.
I want a president who will save America from these greedy corporations and capitalists.
If they want to continue doing their business in America, then they will have to share their wealth with those who help them create the wealth...
...just like the corporations and capitalists are doing in Finland.
It’s not rocket science. It’s easy.
1
The Democrat party has become Republican Lite. Bernie's group wants to return it to its roots.
I would never deny the systemic, pervasive misogyny that is deeply embedded in individuals and institutions. And that goes for well-intentioned people who deeply, and mistakenly, believe that they are somehow immune.
But as a former enthusiastic Warren supporter, I hope you might leave room for the fact that some of us, desperate to rid ourselves of a racist, fascist human disaster of a president, made the best electability calculus we could and found her wanting.
I know, by the way, that the next year might prove me totally and horribly wrong. The consequences of that poor judgement will be beyond nightmarish.
I simply made the best decision I could and, believing that anything smacking of Medicare for all would be deadly in the suburbs, moved away from Warren.
I still think I'm right, but I wouldn't bet the college fund on it.
1
Warren is too intelligent to ever be acceptable to most voters.
3
Sounds like you are making the argument, and a good one at that, for a social Democratic Party, with sanders at the head, and AOC and young people... and a Democrat party of the center, which is where the democrat elite truly want to be.
1
America doesn't need to "vote with your heart" as Ms Warren advised. This is exactly what got us into this mess with Trump and his gang. Americans need to vote with their head.
6
How interesting to observe that the Bernie group abhors the elite - those Harvard and other University, know it alls. How trumpian.
5
I thought this piece was just more egg-headed political analysis, and didn’t realize it was satire until I read the last sentence.
3
Warren was not the right woman - her supporters were not the poor and disadvantaged but the “wine rack and Chardonnay” liberals. She never got past the Harvard prof image - condescending and superior. Woman professors are worse than men. Ironic that she tried to shame Buttigieg about his wine cave fundraising then tapped into a Super PAC when her money ran out. Her concession talk was very poor when compared to Pete’s and Amy’s. It’s still a people’s game.
6
Warren's first fault was projecting herself as a bit whiny. Her second fault was suggesting she deserved special attention as a female candidate. You can dice up the politically philosophical relationships of change and challenges, but people [esp. our people] vote more from gut instincts. They know what they they do not want more than what they do want.
7
There is ONLY oneway forward:
Biden/Sanders 2020!
Where is my red, whit and blue bird emoji?
Biden won't like it.
Sanders won't DO it.
It will *unite* the party.
Biden and Bernie CAN beat Trump. *Together.*
In the primary, you vote your heart. In the general, you vote your head. Biden should vote with his head.
1
This is the same “masses are going to rise up” rhetoric from the last century, like 103 years ago.
I do not doubt AOC will make a formidable candidate for President. She should accept the Secretary of State job from Biden when he offers it. And if elected she will be able to do marginally more than Obama did, if and only if her party controls both chambers if Congress. If her party only controls 1, or none, she will accomplish less than Obama did.
The working class has been getting shafted for...ever. She may be able to shorten the shaft. Some.
That is the nature of our Republic. If you want more rapid change than this, the Constitution as it is now makes that unlikely.
"Underlying all of this was her conviction that she could rally the Obama coalition — young people, African-Americans, Hispanics and liberal white college graduates, with just enough of the white working class to win the Midwest — behind policies that took on the 1 percent. Then she would staff her administration with the best of the Democratic wonkocracy rather than the next generation of Goldman Sachs alumni."
Except of course, no one likes her! And it's not because she's female. After all, she couldn't even win a majority of women voters in Massachusetts! Came in third in her own state, trailing far behind two Old White Guys!
All these people who say they love her policies and her plans need to understand that people vote for people who they like as human beings; they don't go out and vote for people whose "policies" and "plans" sound so wonderful on paper.
Let's just say that Senator Warren's personal appeal was limited for a long list of reasons. Not simply "the wrong kind of radical" but the wrong kind of human being.
3
Emotions, in the end, elect presidents. Warren, to me, came off as an unpleasant person.
5
The author opines that If only Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hadn’t endorsed Sanders………….”he could have quietly wrapped up his candidacy”. Wrapping up his candidacy seems, if not a bit chimeric, then at least unlikely. Instead, I’m guessing Mr. Sanders will still be tilting at windmills until his last breath.
As for populist revolutions, I think they will always be with us. However, their proponents are usually young idealists who all too quickly grow up, have families and decide, for obvious reasons, to join the middle class a la Jerry Rubin of the Chicago Seven. He too was an idealist and social activist, albeit of another era. In 1968 he was accused of inciting to riot at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Eventually, acquitted on appeal, he went on to become a venture capitalist, donned a business suit and sadly was killed while crossing the street near his penthouse apartment in Los Angeles. Yes, that is correct: penthouse!! Somehow, I doubt Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would have approved,
You’re blaming Warren for the mess that men have made?
2
In my alternate universe, Warren is right -- it is the the voters who chose wrong. Narrowing the field to geriatric white men is a huge risk.
1
AOC running for PRESIDENT in 2024? Please, God, no.
5
Until Black voters, who need a revolution more than any other voter bloc, realize Biden is just another old, white guy rooted in corporate support, there will be no real change in this broken democracy of ours. Why do the most socially and economically oppressed refuse to support the candidate most interested in loosening the clutches of their oppressors? Hello plutocracy, oligarchy is on deck.
Senator Warren was simply the wrong gender.
3
Yes, she was the wrong kind of radical. Female.
3
"Elizabeth Warren Was the Wrong Kind of Radical."
Even the title of this piece reflects a small tent, intolerant movement.
1
I and MANY others are so sick and tired of blaming "because she's a woman" for Warren's race drop.
Warren had to quit because not enough people believed her garbage, lies, and pandering.
The only thing she going for her was her Golden Retriever, knowing that everybody loves Golden Retrievers. She used that dog to curry favor because she is unrelatable.
She even uses pets! Disgusting!
5
I felt that Warren was well qualified. She would have driven Trump into an apoplectic rage. She has programs galore. However, I don't know how she could have squared the negligible Mexican murder clearance rate with her promise to abolish immigration enforcement. Gonna look the other way?
1
If Bernie loses Michigan will he withdraw and make no trouble or will he wait until he's pummeled and finished off in Florida?
Here is Vice's report on Bernie's campaign tactics, eg. make people believe Biden is mentally unfit/unwell, which started in earnest today. All downhill from there.
A humble word of advice to the Bernie campaign: employ these tactics and for every voter you may gain you're going to lose at least one (probably more) and for zero advantage (and probably a loss) in votes you will have the Dems and Progs at each others throats.
3
No Democrat can win the nomination without African-American voters. Full stop. Biden crushed Sanders with African-Americans and suburban women. To call them “people who run the party” or establishment is willfully ignorant and carries a whiff of racism and sexism. Grow up, Sanders supporters, and be honest- Trump or Biden? Because your guy is done.
5
We “liberals” should read “Why Southern Democrats Saved Biden” by Mara Gay a NYT editorial board member, to fully appreciate how many Southern Blacks fear another 4 years of Trump. They have witnessed first hand a return to open racism under Trump in their daily lives. Yes they want change but not at the risk of Trump being re-elected.
I’m a 71yo retired white liberal, who supported Bernie in 2016 and Elizabeth in 2020. I believe Elizabeth would be the uniter we will need following Trump administration turmoil and would work within the system to bring about change. I’m now leaning to Biden because I better appreciate what’s at stake and hope he will bring in Elizabeth and others to work on change within the system.
6
Oh, and this has nothing to do with these recent findings?:
"A new study shows that almost 90% of people worldwide are biased against women, and around half perceive men to make better leaders."
https://www.dw.com/en/gender-equality-most-people-are-biased-against-women-un-says/a-52644994
1
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will turn 35, the minimum age required to serve as president, on Oct. 13, 2024," and she, too will then find out that most boys never have and never will like smart girls, nor will most uneducated white women." These folks will see her as they did Elizabeth & Hillary -- strident women who need to be taken down a few pegs.
This is by no means a pitch for AOC. I'm not a fan of hers because like Bernie, she is an extremist. Going to extremes never gets us anywhere but stuck in a polarized world, and party. It's ironic that those on the extreme left doing damage to the Democrats, are following a person who is ONLY a Democrat when he wants to run for President. AOC would also pander to the far left, but would not be viewed the same as Bernie for the mere fact she is a woman. She will find out the hard way that all those enlightened people really aren't FULLY enlightened.
The world is upside down when an extremist & loser like Bernie is seen as better than a woman like Elizabeth who was certain to thoughtfully and methodically get important things done. If Joe wins the nomination, I hope he puts her on his ticket. Then, if he beats that idiot Trump, I hope he gives her meaningful projects that will let her show her stuff.
If Bernie gets the nod, I hope he doesn't put Elizabeth on the ticket because then she would be finished.
1
Well she finally got a taste of who she really is. How she was such a narcissist is confusing to me. I imagined she used everything to cut a path including her gender and many lies. She duped herself into believing it was all real. She belongs in the out basket with Hillary, her good buddy and comrade in falsehoods and distorted perceptions. The public is smarter than she thought.
2
Sanders is so left he comes around to your right!
1
Senator Warren is more than just Senator Sanders in drag. She takes the socialist policies and puts details to them, while Sanders can only wave his arms?
In other words, Senators Warren can put lipstick on the pig!
1
This take is ghoulish. Warren was the best presidential candidate, regardless of party. The NYT and several pubs I read covered Warren’s “electability” problem as if they’re above sexism by using quotes. Seems like a big part of the problem. All people should be judged by merit. Now we have one candidate who sniffs strangers’ hair without permission and another who doesn’t have a thoughtful thing to say about anything. I’d love an opinion piece about why I haven’t had a say in any of this because our democratic system is broken, bro.
Progressives are tiresome scolds. Their constant lecturing and fighting have exhausted us all.
4
Why is so much being written about someone who didn’t even win her own state?
4
I am not a fan of Elisabeth Warren, but she is miles better than the corrupt and decrepit Biden. Did the Democratic Party believed that her Pocahontas story was more damaging than the affairs of Hunter Biden in Ukraine and China? They were wrong. It goes to show that it is still much better to be a man to succeed - too old, too young, gay, black or whatever - than a woman. Warren is way intellectually superior to the fruity John Biden who is a zero It shows how corrupt and inept the Democratic establishment are.
1
To me, the Sanders cult has gone off the rails. Probably about 30 percent of them will vote for Trump out of spite. I read the internet. I'm not an idiot - I see what they're writing. They're lunatics as far as I'm concerned.
I actually support Bernie's polices, except on trade. I despise his moral absolutism the recalls authoritarian dictators and the self-righteous intellectual and moral insularity of his supporters.
They are going to burn the house down if we let them. The more time I spend on the net the more I am convinced of this. This Che Guevara and stale bong water dorm room politics, self-indulgent, stupid.
I normally wouldn't mind so much . Some elections aren't the end of the world. But Trump season 2 IS THE END OF THE WORLD. I'm barely exagerating there. These spoiled hipster clowns, who will not take the real material brunt of Trump's policies, who will still keep publishing drivel here, are going to do the poor the greatest service since Stalin or Mao or Castro started blabbering about "social justice."
2
1. Warren is not a radical. Healthcare for all and free higher education is not radical to me. We have 12 years of free education--what is 4 more years? What *is* radical is my enormous monthly insurance payment. What *is* radical is being 45 and still paying off student loans.
2. Tabloid headlines from NYT make me want to cancel my subscription.
4
Warren is much more qualified than Sanders to be the Progressive standard bearer. She is so much smarter. She can site specifics and give numbers.
As a matter of fact, she is much more qualified than most the the candidates that ran against her.
If anyone had seen her last appearance with Jimmy Kimmel before she withdrew, they would have seen a woman full of both compassion and intellect. That is a combination I would chose over any number of candidates still remaining.
There are too many complaints about her being shrill, but Sanders gets a pass as some sort of lovable curmudgeon? Please!
8
It's not wrong to want to change the Democratic Party. The Sanders-led insurrection though is all just rhetoric. What would the changed party look like? Sanders can't describe it. He does, however, promise that it will deliver fantastic things for those who justifiably feel underrepresented. How will it do that? We're left to guess.
Sanders and his cadre really do want a revolution. It's a dicey proposition though. He calls it a "political revolution" to make it seem less scary, but there really isn't such a thing. A revolution is a revolution. Pretending that you can limit the disruption that it causes is fantasy.
History shows us what happens after you throw out those in power and replace them with others, most of whom don't know how to govern. You get a period of chaos, followed - sometimes very quickly - by repression and authoritarianism. Sounds kind of trumpian, doesn't it?
3
The inescapable political fact is that there was room for only one radical liberal in this race, and either Senator Sanders or Warren was going to have to give up. It turned out to be Senator Warren, who simply did not run a good campaign. It had many strategic and tactical missteps which caused one to question her political authenticity, and the strength of her campaign organization. If she had another chance, she might do better, with more consistent messaging and effective organizing, but do-overs in presidential campaigning are difficult when you start at age 70. Nothing more should be read into why Senator Warren decided to "suspend" her effort for the nomination.
1
"Elizabeth Warren was the wrong kind of radical."
For starters she was a woman. The criticisms of both Ms. Warren and Ms. Clinton in 2016 were that they: lack empathy, are not authentic, are shrill, are stand offish, condescending, etc. In short these are the typical criticisms which people make against women candidates.
In 2016, if Ms. Clinton had been a woman she would have gotten about 5 to 10 percent more votes and might well be in the White House today.
Neither person, Ms. Clinton or Ms. Warren, is perfect and none of us are, but their biggest handicap in running for the presidency was/is probably their gender.
4
Their biggest problem is not being different enough from Republicans.
Many in the electorate likely felt EW was very sincere; too sincere, for many, as regards some of her objectives.
Why does she seem to hate much of what has made America great through the years?
Programs like the GI Bill, GI mortgages, Pell Grants, etc. have helped make this nation become stronger and easily could have been "bootstrapped" today with a bit of modifications.
But, imo, the reality: very few citizens admire a "scold" much less want to put one in power.
7
Isn't the reality that American voters are centerist and not interested in politics of the far right or far left. Populist and Progressives are two sides of the same coin and after Trump and the rantings of Sanders and Warren, people are getting tired of the politics of polarization. That is why Biden is moving out in front and Sanders is not really drawing beyond his core. It's the people's views that matter, not the parties and certainly not the politics.
7
It seems to come down to comfort and trust and in Warren's case, the message always seemed to be too shrill, she never seemed to listen; her actions had one objective: to get elected. Then natural stepping stone for a woman to get elected might be to become VP first.
4
I don't understand how the writer wanted Warren to "reform" the Democratic party. Does he mean that Warren failed to convince people to follow her ideas or that she wanted to change it too much? And since when have parties existed without factions? In "normal" times, factions tend to be small and without clout and this allows the majority to "present" a semblance of unity. What we have now is that a small faction is increasing in numbers but not sufficient to carry the rest of the members. It will have to be seen whether it will eventually get control. It all depends on whether Republicans will persist in their unbalanced view of society to the point where they will lose their political support.
1
Based on the 2016 Election and Obama's reluctance to go all the way with the ACA or penalizing those Wall Street Financial greedy Gurus, who pulled down our economy I would say that the Democratic Party has failed us.
The only way there seems to be progress in this Country, like the Civil Rights movement, not that it is perfect yet, is to get Progressives into the Congress and the White House.
Biden is going to be more of the same, if he gets elected. Unless he has some awakening.
They should replace all of the DNC gurus with real people who can change the Platform that will reflect the World as it is now, not the way it has been for the last 40 years.
I admire Elizebeth Warren but even she piggybacked on Sanders ideas. And she has a true focus on income equality and how to overcome it. But now that she ha dropped out, the only way she maintains her credibility is to support Sanders.
Bernie has been very effective in making all of these necessary changes, into the mainstream conversation now.
Time for real change, not the pablum we have been getting.
1
Well, except ...
"They (Bernie supporters) want a new coalition grounded in the multiracial working-class and less dependent on affluent professionals; a new donor class made up of grass-roots contributors; .."
I don't think so. Sanders approach is populism ... just blabber what "they" want to hear without regards for practical implementations.
As long as the American Society is grounded in democratic capitalistic ideals to which both parties have been wedded for eternity (as the people), Bernie's populist revolution - in his own words - is not possible.
There is nothing on the horizon that tells me that Americans want "socialistic principles infused with capitalism". They want "capitalism infused with socialism". The parties differentiate themselves only by "how much socialism". So the pendulum swings with every elections. Decade after decade, century after century.
1
The problem is that we do need significant structural reform in this country, but the reforms can't work well unless they're reality-based. There's plenty of history of wonks deluding themselves about reality, sometimes with disastrous results (see Robert McNamara), but it remains true that the right wonks (such as Anne Case and Angus Deaton, referred to in another Opinion article today) are especially likely to have necessary technical knowledge that needs to be combined with first-hand experience of on-the-ground suffering and frustration. Senator Warren was trying to create that combination. Her critique of our society has gone well beyond Obama-style policies (which presumably is why Joe Biden has indicated that his administration wouldn't touch Senator Warren with a ten foot pole--"We need her in the Senate"). Senator Sanders seems to assume that sincerity and passion will solve problems. Sincerity and passion are necessary, but not sufficient. If there is a Sanders Administration, I hope they'll bring Senator Warren into it because they'll need her brains.
1
What isn’t news is that the US, like Brazil and some other formerly liberal countries, is not liberal anymore. Only the West coast has numbers of constituents that care about a social network, healthcare, education, and environmental protection for all. The low-population states who get so much federal assistance, seem to have turned their backs on their progressive roots and are taking Trump’s handouts and lies instead.
3
I went door to door for Warren in MA when she ran against Scott Brown for Senate - but we have moved to Rhode Island since. Felt at the time that was important.
Recently, although I agree with most of her "program", her general presentation has just not been aspirational in tone. Would far prefer her to Sanders, even Biden, but who wants to be lectured all the time ... "I've got a plan for that" yada yada ?
So I can understand why her campaign failed.
5
Or, As Carl Jung observed occurring after World War I in Germany, people were isolated, betrayed and angry. NYT itself posted a piece about how anger blocks reason. We are over confident and more fallible when sensitive. Why do you think psychopaths keep us thrown? "Thrown" is Martin Heidegger's description of our fight, flight or freeze mindset. Travel forward to today, and you have current leaders in the field of social sciences, like Grant, Kahneman and Dweck describing the need for reflection due to a fixedness of thinking that shows up when we are thrown. Ask Cambridge Analytica about that mindset - the way to attract it is to align with it. This isn't a higher ordered issue. This is an issue of emotions, lack of critical thinking, it's the opposite of all these higher ordered details. People are angry so they are aligning with anger or familiar. No room for thinking. Too bad because pretty sure a bunch of people who voted for Trump are thinking he is a Warren, a person willing to be agreeable and care. But he's just an awesome liar. Which is what compels me to propose a thinking movement. Let's ignite a peer based volunteer driven community and resiliency building movement by taken San Francisco State's small group critical reflection practice and spread it through coffee shops. Have some fun, reconnect, build deliberate thinking habits. Sayadaw spread meditation in his day for the same reason. Today, I propose we need a talking meditation practice because of isolation.
2
Yes, I'd like a man to explain to me why Liz Warren was the "wrong kind of [fill in the blank]". Please, mansplain away.
My takeaway about this brilliant political leader, with an all-American childhood story, and many political accolades: people just don't see women.
I leave super Tuesday wondering: if people don't see Liz Warren as a viable candidate then truly, what do people see when they look at *me*? I am more convinced than ever that nothing I do will make me more than a potential housekeeper/mom/wife.
8
I identify as a feminist. And I love Elizabeth Warren. But her presentation was not particularly presidential (the main asset Mayor Pete had going for him) in my view. Sad perhaps, but debate and public speaking skills do go a long way to inspire public confidence in political races. Warren’s manner of speaking reminded me of myself as a young activist, impassioned and barely taking a breath as I talked about injustice. I wished she had talked less about “the fight” and the many (real) outrages in our systems, and more about how things would look different if she were president. That would have inspired more confidence in her leadership, I think.
3
Sanders' current supporters will change as they get older. Yes new ones will be attracted to his ideas. But they will always be a minority. Who will be the standard bearer for them? Someone will come along to scream and shout, I'm sure.
Where is this Democratic Party that hasn't changed? There is no there, there, as they say. No more 'smoke filled rooms' and 'old guys in charge'. No one is running the show, Tim.
Change is inevitable, that's what got us Trump, of course. Hang on, it's always a bumpy ride.
This commentary strikes me as a paean to Sanders and a slap to Warren. Perhaps I've misread it. I'm deeply disappointed she will not be the nominee. I'm fearful Sanders might be. I reluctantly and sadly voted for Biden in the primary, part of the desperate movement to select someone who might prevail over the unhinged Trump. Yes, we need a strong move leftwards. Warren could have taken us there; Sanders cannot win; AOC's time will come but it's not here yet.
3
What Sander's is selling the majority of voters are not going to buy. This reminds me of the Boomers during the 1960s and 70s. We got Nixon, Carter and Reagan instead.
The voters that will put a Democrat in the White House are not looking for a radical change. They do want a reasonable health care system that does not drive patients and their families into poverty, jobs that can support a family, and a better chance for upward mobility.
They want a government that makes getting an education less financially burdensome but not necessarily free. They are not wanting to "eat the rich" or be rich but expect a fair taxation policy that makes the rich pay a fairer share. They are not expecting the government to provide services without some cost of their own to bear.
A revolution is too chaotic and the outcomes unpredictable. Incremental change and improvements of what we have is more easily digested.
Bernie like Trump is nothing but chaos. But between the two Trump is more dangerous and an existential threat to our constitutional government and freedom.
This election is more about saving our way of governing than about creating a revolution.
5
The writer is on to something. There is an abrasive quality to the Sanders faction that thrives in places like Portland Oregon; they eschew finesse, compromise and methods Arthur Brooks suggests in his wise tome, “Love Your Enemies.” Disagreement with their views quickly moves to contempt. This is hardly the stuff of tent widening, coalition building, or unifying an electorate that needs and wants unity and civility. The essay moves the meter in Biden’s direction for this undecided voter.
5
I agree wholeheartedly.
1
What this really shows is the limitations and inefficiency of the US political system in general. There is no possibility of a viable third party moving the scales - there can only be two parties in our system, so internecine squabbles are bound to be ugly. In a parliamentary democracy competing parties have to find means to work together. There is no incentive for that in the US. The system in other countries does not always work perfectly, but our system is particularly flawed, as the rise of autocratic, minority-based rule demonstrates. We really need to stop congratulating ourselves on being the best at everything (which we are not) and to hold a new Constitutional convention to examine what is working, what is not and to revise the whole system! I know America is too hubristic to consider such a thing, so the decline will continue.
1
"Medicare for all" sank Warren. That went over the top for moderates who liked some progressiveism in their coffee, but not too much. if she'd hewed a bit more mainstream, she might have gained momentum. instead, she lost it.
4
@Publius Agreed. Part of me thinks if she had just come out in favor of a public option and not to decriminalize border crossings she might be sailing towards the nomination as we speak.
5
It's a lot simpler than that. She was the wrong kind of gender. Full stop. A man of her age, with her ideas and plans. would have been unstoppable. But we're left with two old white men to choose from, a safe choice who can probably expect some votes from never-tRumpers and former Republicans, and a radical choice who constantly attacks the party that is hosting him. I will support whichever one gets the nomination, but as a former Bernie, HRC, Harris and Warren supporter, I think Biden is more likely to get the widespread support. It's not what I wanted, but here we are. Had Bernie dropped out after his MI and thrown all of his immense support behind Liz, she could've won. But one thing about the old white men you can't deny...ego tRumps common sense.
14
@anniegt, Strong words considering Warren would lost to Trump, bigly.
1
It seems to me that a true leader would immediately and unequivocally endorse a candidate if they are forced to drop out (except in the rare case when there ARE no preferable options).
1
It seems to me a true leader is in fact strong enough to use her own mind and not be pressured to endorse anyone she doesn’t want to.
6
@Melissa H. Refusal to endorse either Bernie or Biden = 4 more years of Trump.
3
Even though I remain a supporter of Senator Warren, this article raises some good points that make me think.
But that said:
1. I get sooo tired of repeating this: Senator Clinton WON the majority of votes by a margin of at least 3Million voters. She is not a loser. Our Electoral College is what failed the majority of Americans yet again; that is one thing that definitely needs reform.
2. I don't see Obama as a failure either. Win or lose, I always felt he was on my side. People, we need to win back the Senate. No matter who is President, if Mitch is allowed to continue his relentless dictatorship, this country will rapidly lose any remaining semblance of democracy.
3. As for the Democratic Party: Surely that firebrand visionary Uncle Joe will push the Democratic Party in a more, well, democratic direction rather than its current track as the feckless Republican-lite auxiliary of the GOP oligarchy. (Snark). But hey - I will still vote for Joe if he's the nominee. Our country's survival depends on ousting that....creature....from the WH.
4. Only 4 more years until AOC is old enough to run for President! Good news.
5
Warren was a good candidate and unfailingly bright and determined .
I was surprised to see her quit. I took her at her word to never quit. I believed her story of how she went from down and out in Oklahoma to Harvard Law School.
I thought she would stay in the fight, like she said she would, all the way to Milwaukie, and that there she would trade her delegates for some meaningful concession by the nominee.
That she didn't do that is for me the essence of the problem I have with her.
She promised a lot, but when pressed, she couldn't deliver, and in the worst way--the way politicians always let you down by not doing what they say will do.
She said she could explain where the money for her plans, Medicare for All would come from. She couldn't and didn't.
She said she was not going to criticize other Democratic candidates in the debate before the New Hampshire primary, that such sniping helped Trump.
The next day she lost badly in New Hampshire, a state she hoped to win.
And in the following debates, she came out like a doberman, biting everyone except Bernie.
She is so clever, and so determined, there is suspicion that she's always thinking, always scheming. Intense as a flickering flame.
"I have a plan for that." she said over the length of the campaign. That she was indeed a cornucopia of plans did not serve her well.
Warren often begins speaking with the command of a college professor, "Hear me now..."
That tone is not what most people yearn for.
4
I couldn't care less whether it is Mr or Ms or None-Of-The-Above Warren. I do care when someone asking for my vote seems afraid to tell me the truth about who they are. The "white lies" about her ancestry aside, hemming and hawing about raising taxes proved to me she was no different, no better than your average, calculating politician.
If you're asked on national television, "will taxes go up on middle-class Americans?" (to pay for M4A) and you respond by deflecting the question into a lecture about household costs you fail the authenticity test, which is obviously critical for a candidate to pass. It's the only one Trump passed in 2016 and it was enough.
2
I voted for Warren in the California primary but the truth was, her campaign was not very effective. Instead of bringing the message of why I (or others) supported her, her posts and ads (the few that I saw in comparison to others) emphasized how she was slighted in interviews. One can have the greatest ideas since Gandhi but if they can't campaign, they will lose. And she lost
5
Commenters just continue to embrace the bogus narrative that 'the evidence is in' that Bernie can not appeal to "enough" new voters... the tried and true "electability" issue. Nobody seems to have an answer to the glaring fact that this presumption which concerns the voting behavior of the ENTIRE country is based on voting outcomes from a handful of closed and semi-closed primaries that is restricted to just 1/4 of the voting public and nearly 1/8 of voting-eligible Americans. Clearly, Bernie's success in the general election and any major reforms thereafter will hinge on his popularity to the 7/8 of adult Americans who are non-Democrats. And here, the polling data (like his trustworthiness and integrity measures) look great!
2
I voted for her because I like her strength and policies and I hope she runs again in 2024.
I think Warren has been onto Trump for a long time and now it’s easy to see why she called for his impeachment early on. She has the courage to actually make plans for her positions and try to calculate costs which is much tougher than just talking about positions. Elizabeth Warren is a tough fighter for what she believes in but she is also a good listener and collaborator.
I trust that she I’ll think long and hard about who to endorse. Ultimately I hope her decision is based on who can beat Trump and best help in the down ballot races and I think that is Joe Biden.
7
Although you'd never know it from the lack of coverage by the media, Tulsi Gabbard is now the only woman left in the race. Her campaign, like Bernie's, is funded 100% by contributions from individual donors, so PAC money drying up is not going to force her out. And she's just qualified for the next debate by finally acquiring two delegates.
It will be interesting to see if she starts to gain some traction.
2
Elizabeth Warren would have been great for this country. Not only is she more qualified intellectually than the two old men remaining in the race to face Trump, she showed grace under duress and she bravely fought when she had to.
8
I'm not a radical and I agree with Elizabeth Warren's analysis and policy recommendations. It is not radical to identify inequality as a problem, except for the extremely wealthy. Not radical to formulate policies to redistribute wealth, support children, provide high quality education, housing, medical services. Perhaps Dissent and New America are the wrong kind of radical.
7
It is an indictment of our society that the best and brightest candidate of all failed for one simple reason - she's a woman!
Some say maybe it's the "we ran a woman last time and she lost" excuse but what it really is seems to be misogyny so ingrained in our society that even female voters do not embrace a woman! America needs to change in a BIG way. This scares lots of people but it shouldn't because it's going to happen, and the result will be a more equitable society. My only fear is the dismay knowing it's going to take all of us old dinosaurs dying because we just can't seem to let go of power. Why else would both parties be running septuagenarians? It's time to let go fellow boomers, we never lived up to the ideals of the sixties and our children know it.
It's their time! Let them have it!
6
I believe the “problem” with Warren was strategic and the origin of the problem is the process not her persona or politics. To gain traction as a first tier candidate among a mob of hopefuls she sought to distinguish herself with her plans for everything while assuming an animated, sometimes in your face, campaign style. For a while it worked very well, until it didn’t. Her message was lost in he details mod her solutions.
She fell into the trap of going all in for Medicare for All. Bernie gets away with the the ideology of single government payer healthcare by fudging the details. Warren is detailed oriented, so to distinguish herself from Bernie she got bogged down in the detailed funding for her plan.
The rich and business need to pay a fair share of taxes which means more revenue from those sources, but by proposing a wealth tax she got bogged down in a theoretical debate on viability of her plan instead of the essence of her proposal.
Bloomberg became a (very worthy) punching bag for her attacks; her relentless, righteous attacks may have been intended to put her fearlessness on display, but a dead horse can take only so much of a beating.
Sadly, Warren’s strengths were obscured by campaign weaknesses. Bloomberg used Madison Avenue in a failed attempt to erase his personal and policy deficiencies; Liz could have benefited from some polishing from the Mad Men.
2
So basically, what you're saying is that leftist Millennials have bought into the anti-intellectualism-and-distrust-of-expertise disguised as anti-elitism that the Republicans have been using to manipulate the white working class for decades. Wonderful.
7
First, you're assuming that Ms. Warren was a radical; she was a reformer and never the twain shall necessarily meet.
Secondly, what do you mean "Democratic establishment." I have always found this term offensive. Yes, I get that there are elected Democratic leaders from mayors to congress, and the leadership of the Democratic party that make up this amorphous entity. But what about me, my friends and family and all the folks who voted for Joe Biden? Are we fools who have no agency and have been brainwashed by the cabal, coup plotters, ad nausea.
I am a 70 year old life-long Democrat with roots in the SDS, anti-war movement and George McGovern's campaign. I not only have considered myself a liberal Democrat but a flaming liberal Democrat.
So, here we are in the 2020's and now I'm a demographic (old white guys) which explains why I voted for Joe. That is just so insulting and annoying. I voted for Joe because Bernie subtracts rather than adds and has not an iota of compromise in him. Bernie NOT Elizabeth is the radical.
Bernie would do better defining his friends (the Democratic Party) rather than his enemies (Democratic voters who didn't vote for him).
7
Professor Senator Warren was the right choice to implement a basic social safety net and financial regulation.
Bloomberg feared just that.
‘They’, You the NYT have done a pretty good job destroying any social equality because? Too much change? Look what you are doing to Bernie under the fold: triumphant misdirection to keep the oligarchs in power.
The NYT and Mitch McConnell for Trump 2020.
1
I cannot believe we are discussing AOC’s run for President. No wonder we have to have the conversation about what is wrong with the Democrats. This is what is wrong with them.
6
excellent analysis and Biden has this in the bag now. One (of many) confusing Warren policy points is that she would give free PUBLIC college to all, defund charter schools(public money for PUBLIC schools) and forgive all PRESENT academic debt. When asked how free public college would hurt History Black Colleges(HBCU) she as an afterthought said "we will add them too". There are almost 1.5 million employees at non public colleges and except for elite schools make less than public employees(I am adjunct at both and make double at public college) She had no answers for charter school parents so intoxicated was she by the roaring approval of the AFT. When asked by a parent who had paid off loans at great sacrifice what would be his reward, she basically said "the fact you could afford to do it is your own reward". Not a single credible answer and ver overbearing and condescending
4
What the heck? Isn't it enough that she is a brilliant woman who did well for a while in the presidential race? I know this one. She is a woman, and women can never do it right, correct? Is that what you are saying? How much does one woman have to do?
7
Sanders, Warren, AOC and the rest of the left have once again demonstrated how clueless they are in understanding how to solve America"s problems. History will consider them a mere footnote.
5
People tend to talk of gender in explaining Warren’s loss. But she falls in a long line of Harvard educated Massachusetts politicians who suffered similar losses—Kerry, Dukakis, Weld, Patrick and Teddy Kennedy.
It seems to me that the lesson to be learned from all these failed candidacies is that Harvard blue bloods are not as popular as they think they are.
2
why does the author need to call Elizabeth Warren "radical" ... no one would use that term to describe Bernie Sanders. She is not the wrong person ... it is the sexist society that won't back a (smart) woman.
4
You don’t revolutionize a party overnight; the millennials are bright and energetic but like the trumptards, they ignore history. We old moderates that they despise were one you g McGovern liberals who saw Nixon destroy us with a massive win. The nation, like it or not, is centrist - and they won’t vote for a socialist. Trump will face and history will shame the GOP for their spineless actions. Bernie will never be the answer just as McGovern wasn’t
2
The Sanders campaign is incompetent, plan and simple. Taking important purple state voters for granted, alienating the Democratic base and focusing mostly on threats and negativity is simply a recipe for losing.
Try registering young people in purple states to vote, building a coalition with *everyone* and get past the arrogance and threats. Instead of navel gazing about which college someone went to or media they read, instead of another Phish concert or on-line apostate hunting expedition - knock on doors and get real. You have no convinced many people you know what you're doing or even care to.
3
@Jill It seems like maybe you're projecting? Phish concerts? Which college someone went to? Bernie Sanders has millions of supporters from different races and classes. I'm pretty sure the majority of working class Hispanic vote that he got isn't into Hippie culture and doesn't care about who went to what college.
How can so many bright and educated people be so wrong about Elizabeth Warren? Harvard Law School hired her as their first faculty member “of color.” The New York Times endorsed her candidacy for President. Now Mr. Shenk pens this glowing political obituary about her. The truth is Senator Warren is just another in a line of Massachusetts liberal politicians since John F. Kennedy was elected President to fail to impress a broad swath of American voters. John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Mitt Romney and now Elizabeth Warren’s Massachusett’s version of progressive liberalism simply doesn’t play well in most of the country. Beyond that, each of them have come across as phony hypocrites—persons of status and wealth decrying the country’s policies that enabled them to achieve their status and wealth. Mr. Dukakis famously promoted an image of him commanding a tank, while Ms. Warren will forever be remembered guzzling a bottle of beer. The Presidential campaigns of these candidates exposed them for who they really are—unauthentic self promoters. Even most of the Democratic voters in Massachusetts could not bring themselves to support Warren’s candidacy. Her gender and policy positions were not the real source of her political downfall. In the end, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, like Donald Trump, with their virtues and shortcomings on full display, seem more authentic then Elizabeth Warren.
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@President Merv
How does drinking a beer make Warren ‘unauthentic’???
She likes to have a beer sometimes. Many people do.
1
Dude, Joe and Bernie seem “more authentic” to you because they’re men. You’re used to perceiving men as authentic and women, especially women who are asking for power, as untrustworthy. The end.
How can so many bright and educated people be so wrong about Elizabeth Warren? Harvard Law School hired her as their first faculty member “of color.” The New York Times endorsed her candidacy for President. Now Mr. Shenk pens this glowing political obituary about her. The truth is Senator Warren is just another in a line of Massachusetts liberal politicians since John F. Kennedy was elected President to fail to impress a broad swath of American voters. John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Mitt Romney and now Elizabeth Warren’s Massachusett’s version of progressive liberalism simply doesn’t play well in most of the country. Beyond that, each of them have come across as phony hypocrites—persons of status and wealth decrying the country’s policies that enabled them to achieve their status and wealth. Mr. Dukakis famously promoted an image of him commanding a tank, while Ms. Warren will forever be remembered guzzling a bottle of beer. The Presidential campaigns of these candidates exposed them for who they really are—unauthentic self promoters. Even most of the Democratic voters in Massachusetts could not bring themselves to support Warren’s candidacy. Her gender and policy positions were not the real source of her political downfall. In the end, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, like Donald Trump, with their virtues and shortcomings on full display, seem more authentic then Elizabeth Warren.
She would have been transformative.
But why on earth did she insist on being pro-illegal immigration?
The world is overpopulated. No country wants illegal immigration.
This is not post WW2.
Huge mistake.
6
@scientella
I agree with you. I’m a flaming liberal, but I cringed when she chose this hill to die on.
Not that it would have mattered. As a woman, she could have been inhumanly perfect and the closet sexists among would have found *some* excuse not to vote for her.
Dear Ms. Sanders,
I donated early to your campagin, and then requested that not receive a bunch of emails per day, witch was honored. Said I would vote for you in the CA primary and did. Please keep up the good fight, am from Ohio, so can relate. I know you will never see this NYT comment, but love you so. My Mom had to work 3 jobs in the 70's to keep me and my 3 brothers together. She did it! I hope one day that can meet you, just to say that you are a great woman!
3
Sanders can't get Trump voters. Not enough working class, just young radicals and Hispanics highly motivated but don't vote in high enough numbers and almost no blacks.
@dave Most Hispanic people are working class. Most of the working class is non-white. Sanders also won the under 30 black vote. Weird how when people say working class that somehow only means the minority of working class people who are white, male, conservative and rural.
1
“Black people” and “Hispanic people,” or sub folks for people. It probably makes no difference to you, but it is dehumanizing to hear things like “the blacks” or “the Hispanics,” even when it’s coming from someone who doesn’t know your heritage/experience. You haven’t heard “the whites” yet, I hope. I haven’t
1
I call balderdash on all of the over thinking and amateur analysis about Warren.
The 2020 primary voters are driven not by intelligence but by fear.
“fear” about which candidate is best to beat the Donwald.
Who do we know? We know Joe! Let’s vote for him.
I dare say that voters have been and are most personally affected by the credit card and banking policies championed by Elizabeth Warren. But who the heck is she anyway? Never heard of her.
3
Of all the articles written today on Elizabeth Warren, this is the one that she will probably appreciate the most.
2
So now the Democrats are going to run either a candidate who has limited cognitive abilities or one who goes around praising Castro.
The DNC knows they are going to lose but at this point is just deciding which of these dim bulbs will cause the least negative impact to down ballot candidates. The DNC is concluding Biden will not take all of the Democrats down with him. Biden gets to be the fall guy.
4
@Jonathan:
Exactly.
Biden does not have the mental capacity anymore for the job he is seeking.
I doubt he will be elected but if by some chance he is, Vice President Bullock or Klobuchar can take over when Biden’s incapacity becomes apparent.
Between him and Trump and Sanders that would be the best possible outcome.
Pretty grim, eh?
1
You don't get it, Mr. Shenk. Warren was used against Sanders and then thrown away. Same as Kamala Harris. Same as Cory Booker. Same--and I know you're reading this--as all those women suburban voters were in 2018.
That and $1.00 would have gotten you on the subway once, except the cost has gone up and they don't take tokens anymore.
1
Warren was the candidate I had been waiting for since Bobby Kennedy. Unlike Bernie, she understands that the goal is to save capitalism from neo-liberals and laissez-faire libertarians, not hostility towards it. But, she was ignorantly attacked by certain media types as a radical when she was the overdue voice of reform: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/9/1917818/-The-Misguided-War-Against-Elizabeth-WarrenT
3
This analysis of the problems Warren ran into because of the Democratic Party is too facile by half.
I think this analysis is closer to the real story:
"...Instead, and accepting that sexism and misogyny were marbled throughout everything about the campaign, I think what did her in was her ideas. She committed herself to a campaign specifically to fight political corruption, both the legal and illegal kind. As an adjunct to that, she marshaled her long fight against the power of money in our politics and monopoly in our economy. And, opposed to Bernie Sanders, whose answer to how to wage the fight is always the power of his “movement,” which so far hasn’t been able to break through against Joe Biden, she put out detailed plans on how to do it. That made her much more of a threat to the money power than Sanders, who is easily dismissed as a fringe socialist by the people who buy elections and own the country....
...This was most obvious in the campaign’s most curious episode—how she was “disappeared” from news coverage after finishing third in Iowa. This was the period in which an NBC poll refused to even include her because, basically, the pollster didn’t want to. Amy Klobuchar was included, but Amy Klobuchar wasn’t going around explaining how media monopolies gouge their consumers and marginalize certain issues and the people fighting for them."
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31250037/elizabeth-warren-drops-out-2020-race/
1
We were lucky to get to know her. She is the real real.
1
Scant difference between the socialist left or the semi-socialist left. The larger American electorate won’t buy either.
2
American Men are very weak, in mind and body. That is why they cannot and will not support a female in power. additionally, it is why they don't know how to satisfy as lovers.
2
@MaryTheress, Too bad women can't vote. Oh wait, they can and they turned her out. Finished. Kaput.
2
I guess that depends on who she endorses.
Sanders and his supporters are merely the left version of 45 and his cult members. The same narcissism , the same urge to destroy. The y will never support Biden, preferring to allow the destruction of this country. They didn’t even come out and vote for Bernie, so he blamed the”establishment.” Oh yes, and rich people, said the man with 3 homes.
2
Like Israel, we need a two state solution. And like Israel, geography makes it impossible.
The Sanders social democrats might get to try out their plans in the Independent Borough of Brooklyn, the United Soviet Bay Area, or the Peoples Commune of Seattle. But the United States of America will ever tolerate such drastic change. If only we could move the Northeast to the Pacific coast....
Although the NYT loves to push the idea, Warren didn't fail because of discrimination against women. On the contrary, she, and Hillary Clinton before her, benefited greatly from being female. I constantly hear people, mostly women, say that they would vote for Warren simply because she is a woman. I have never heard anyone, publicly or privately, say that they would never vote for a woman, or that they preferred a candidate simply because he is a man.. Anytime a women doesn't get what she wants, she and the media claim sexism is to blame. Likewise, anytime an African American doesn't get what he wants, he and the media claim racism is to blame. Of course, they never imagine such an explanation when a man or Caucasian is disappointed.
I'm sorry, but the failure of Warren had nothing to do with her sex, and everything to do with her dishonesty, double-talk, shifting political affiliations, and unworkable strategies designed to get her elected but not necessarily solve any real problems facing the nation.
1
Warren struck me as the humorless vinegary self-righteous sort, with an unfunny retort at the ready for men or other annoyances. Her willingness to play the DNA game and proclaim her 1/364th Native American status was appallingly ill-conceived, not the stuff of a presidential candidate. Her advocacy for reparations was yet another shallow and transparent bid for the African-American bloc. Is this the best that the Democrats can do for putting up a woman presidential candidate? Then it'll be some time before a female sits on the throne.
3
To Many of the Commenters Here:
Really, don't you think all the talk about Warren not being taken seriously enough because she's a woman … Warren being at a disadvantage because she's a woman in a field of men … etc., etc. has gotten old to the point of fetid?
Writer Timothy Shenk's opinions about Warren's failed candidacy are clearly rooted in a critique of her political performance, not in a critique of her femaleness or how she is treated as a female.
It's time for everyone who keeps playing the "she's not treated fairly, because she's a woman" card in this campaign season (and every campaign season) to focus, rather, on qualifications and stances on issues that make one either a worthy candidate or a not-so-worthy one, regardless of gender.
2
Let's be honest, the only reason anyone ever supported or talked about Warren was because of her gender. I would not complain about a female president, but I care more about a leader that will do a good job, than one who is a member of a certain demographic. She really did not have any good policy ideas, and used her gender as her main booster for publicity, whether or not anyone is willing to admit it. I am not sexist or anything, and I do not oppose women running for office, I just do not think someone's membership in a demographic means one should go out and vote for someone. It seems like a better idea is just to go and support someone who you like because of their ideas, and not their membership in a demographic of which they have no control of their membership in.
3
This comment is repetitive.
And it also says the same thing over and over.
And then it doesn’t say anything new, again.
Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, Sanders doesn't turn out voters. Until his movement can do that, it's all a bunch of hot air.
1100
@robco74
Ding ding. Winner chicken dinner.
39
@robco74 He's a little bit behind Biden. He's one of two remaining candidates out of a huge field. He won California.
"Didn't turn out voters" is a bit of an overstatement no?
83
@robco74
Yes, unfortunately there may be a bit of a gap between liking grandad Bernie on social media and actually turning up to vote.
My son thinks Bernie, like climate awareness, is 'cool', but I'm constantly turning off lights he's left on all over the house.
217
From my perspective, Elizabeth Warren was by far the best choice. But, I think a major decision was made by Sanders very early not to endorse Warren and throw his considerable organization behind her but instead to run himself. I do think there was a conversation that's been alluded to about the electorate's willingness to elect a woman this cycle. I think Sanders calculated that he would have a better chance. He doesn't. If the progressive wing had united behind Warren, this would have been wrapped up already--just add their numbers together. And as we'll see, many of her votes won't go to Sanders. She was the opportunity to grow the Sanders base and that road was not taken. When Warren failed to overtake Sanders on the left, her campaign was effectively over. There was only room for one progressive, as the moderate camp figured out coalescing around Biden--difference being that Warren can pick up moderates while Biden is truly uninspiring for the left. And the problem has always been that the Sanders camp has been myopic about his ceiling. It's been reached and the real opportunity to nominate and elect an effective progressive has been lost.
1835
@jsf This remark is fair, informed and looks at all the contingencies and roads not taken that shape politics. And doesn't treat politics like a horse race that only the fasted horse wins.
Bravo.
128
@jsf Why should Sanders have dropped out in favor of Warren, when Warren didn't even do him the courtesy of endorsing him back in 2016? He's built a huge, motivated movement, and he should have just handed that over to Warren for nothing?
Sanders wanted Warren to run in 2016, and she didn't, so he did the job himself. Now he's going to finish it. Warren should get on board, not expect his work to be handed to her.
158
@jsf
"Biden is truly uninspiring for the left"
Compared to Trump he is very inspiring. And that will be the only comparison in November.
272
Welp, thanks for mansplaining how the lone female candidate in the race was once again insufficient when in reality she's incredibly well qualified. AND she's healthier and younger than the two remaining men. Our politicial system is so deeply steeped in misogyny that voters will vote against the female candidate they really like because they think a woman can't win, thus self-fulfilling their prophecies. This country should be ashamed of itself for failing to support Warren and all the other women who were running. And yes, I'm talking to you, fellow American women, too.
2463
@Diana And thank you for pointing out the mansplaining; you're right, and I couldn't put my finger on it.
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@Diana
Nicely said. Senator Warren deserves far better than she's getting in the press and from the bros.
302
@Diana I don't support male candidates because they have the same genitalia that I do. I support political candidates of any sex that share my concerns, values, and hopes.
She's a leader, yes- but she isn't an executive. And yes, there is a huge difference. Legislators hide among their fellow herd animals and blame others when lions come around. Those, male or female, who sit behind the desk and get all the glory or blame are different animals all together. And no amount of elementary school teacher style lecturing will change that on her part.
I used a bankruptcy law textbook that she helped author when I was in school. She is certainly aware of the inherent unfairness in our system- but as a Senator she simply complains, blames others, and consistently fails to make any legislative change. If she can't do her job in the Senate well, how can she put this country back together?
Blaming men for her failure is the epitome of empty minded sexism on your part. I intensely dislike Trump; all I'm looking for is a candidate who can beat him. She wasn't it.
236
it's not over yet! Joe no, BernieBern with OACASIO-CORTEZ!! Or Biden/with OAC. YES!
Radical?
Elizabeth Warren tried to walk the line between the left and the establishment and it gained her no one and alienated everyone. Elizabeth Warren now stands at a crossroads: does she endorse Bernie Sanders and abandon the establishment or does she go for Biden and abandon the rising left? If she sits on her hands like she did in 2016, she will ruin her political future, possibly even making a senate primary a possibility.
Elizabeth Warren was a true fighter for the working class in the beginning of the race and it is the reason she was the front runner in the end of the summer. Then, she staffed her campaign with the Clinton era staffers and advisers and little by little, they brought her away from her underlying pro-middle class message, effectively ruining her chances of getting the nomination and shattering her coalition.
Warren and the liberal media that loved her so much can blame sexism all they want, and that may be part of the problem, but look at Hillary Clinton. She is a woman and she was able to beat Sanders and get the nomination. Women win senate seats, house seats, and primaries all over the country, so there is a way to surmount the gender obstacle. Warren trying too hard to play into identity politics, not her gender itself was the reason her gender hindered her ability to get the nomination.
Not buying it. I do agree that Warren should have clearly delineated herself from Bernie, especially on Medicare-for-all. She was smart enough to never say Socialism or to praise any aspect of Castro when Florida (and its Cuban community) are INTEGRAL to taking back the White House. She did well on the offensive and I think that should have been a bigger part of her strategy. Diehard Bernie Bros weren't gonna switch, but many voters were/are not excited that an aging, white machine politician is now our best hope. Oh, yeah, sexism.
2
Elizabeth Warren would have been the best candidate in 2016. But Hillary Clinton's overall entitlement vibe scared off all viable options. Bernie wasn't a viable option (and still isn't) but it took most of the primary season for Hillary to beat a 70something socialist. Then, despite scoring more votes, lost to a nitwit like Donald Trump in November. Imagine where we'd be as a nation today if Hillary wasn't so full of herself.
1
If young voters increasingly support radical left candidates, such as AOC for example in 2024, the older voters will simply start voting republican. It will be a long time, if ever, the radical left will get power in the US (at least 20 years is my bet). Once the millennials enter their 50s, I bet they will be voting for their social security and medicare. This generation is as selfish as the boomers - it just manifests differently.
1
Politics is a blood sport someone once said, and for all Warren was, is, and will be, the goal she set for the presidency is not hers this time around. This article nicely put Sanders in his place and interestingly placed AOC in a more pivotal place w/her support than I knew. There is something about the cult o'Bernie as in any other cultural icon while Bernie would disdain that sort of comment. His is a loud, populist voice for so much to be done. It's not a voice in the wilderness, but just not the voice for the country at this time. Elizabeth will be in the future of any and all Democratic policy making to be sure.
1
Once upon a time, Warren was not a politician. She was honest with tremendous integrity. She did a phenomenal job building the Consumer Protecting Agency after the financial bubble created by the Wall Street crooks in 2008 reflecting her relentless passion for welfare of the people. Then she became a senator and decided to run for Presidency in 2019. Bernie, the con man successfully pushed her and some others to jump into his “free for all” propaganda. Warren, a non- savvy politician did fall for it and started competing against pipe dreamer Bernie. The pipe dream competition between the two became intense. They sounded good without any feasibility of execution. Voters started questioning her integrity. She became restless and desperate as her poll numbers dropped. Her desperation was evident during the past two debates. Yes, die hard supporters filled her campaign wallet following the debates, but failed to earn support from voters and alienating many others as reflected by her pathetic performance on Super Tuesday. Hope her experience will teach her a lesson and we will see the old compassionate persona, not the one she transformed into,
Are you kidding me? Elizabeth Warren was THE anticorruption candidate. I can point you to more than a handful of comprehensive plans she has on her website that tackled corruption in everything from elections, government, military procurement, etc., etc. She even tried to get a moratorium on independent expenditures amongst her fellow Democratic candidates for this primary and she had no takers. I think what you mean was she wasn't the smash-mouth, incite with red meat anger and alienate them with insults and bullying candidate that Bernie Sanders is. But as we saw from Super Tuesday, that only gets you so far. If you want a chance to make real change, you do have to be diplomatic and find common ground with those whose politics don't entirely match your own.
2
Hillary was smarter than Trump.
Elizabeth is more thoughtful than Sanders and brighter than Biden.
But if America voted for the smartest, the most thoughtful, we wouldn't have Trump.
Warren's problem was not her gender.
The fault, dear Brutus lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.
She was too much plan and not enough punch.
4
Elizabeth Warren was by far the most qualified candidate, with a wonderful life story from humble beginnings to U.S. Senator. Compare that to Donald Trump’s $400 million spoon in mouth, an inept businessman who conned and bullied everyone and cares about no one but himself.
This country has no hope if it buoys dark, horrific human beings like Trump over brilliant fighters for families like Warren. Whoever becomes the Democratic nominee, November will be a test of the soul of this country.
1
She was not "the wrong kind of radical." She was the most qualified of all the Democrats to be put themselves forward to be considered for the nomination. Had the press not fixated (as it always does) on "the shiny thing" (Sanders and his noisy but hollow revolution) and wanted an easily characterized and easily reported two-person (two-man!) sports-competition-like race, they might have given her better coverage. And, my very strong belief is that if she had been a man, they might have. But sexism and misogyny are endemic in our politics, and especially in our media's coverage of politics, and it showed in the way Warren's run was reported. She was the right radical but she got the wrong press, this op-ed being a shining example of the latter.
3
I have no skin in the Democratic game. Here's an outsiders perspective of Liz Warren after the fact.
Warren gives the impression that she follows whatever the other candidates are pushing. She tried a lighter version of "Medicare for all" but came off as if she was grabbing Bernie's oxygen. To me, she looked petty during the debates, particularly to Sanders, afterwards to Bloomberg. It doesnt matter that what she was arguing was true, that's just how she appeared.
Trump may lie, be a boor, a bully, and an orange baffoon. But of those Americans who are not sickened by him, those are impressed by his individualism, self-centeredness and backbone, something most of the other democratic candidates lack. Trump always appears to care less what everyone thinks. His opinion is his and he is proud of it, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. To a casual observer of the Democrats, the candidates are all the opposite, and are all similar in texture. Bloomberg had some backbone as a citizen before he threw his hat into the ring, then started apologizing to anyone who would listen, and it came of as insincere.
Biden is safe, and appeals to the broadest segment of Americans. He has the best chance of beating Trump. He just has to overcome his image of a doddering old man. Trump will hammer that image into the ground.
I don't see any radicalism in Warren. She is the fresh air in America's politics which we badly need today.
Shame on America for not nominating Warren. She is the best qualified candidate of all. Complacent Biden and hot air Sanders are a few levels below Warren's smart and strength.
But I would still support any democrat nominee. I would vote for a cat or dog if it is a democrat.
1
It has become increasingly evident that real solutions to tough problems in our nation and society cannot come from the extremes. Whether those are extremes are left / right, Democrat / Republican, or within a party. Yelling, lying, and expressing contempt is just painful evidence of arrogance. At best, one side cancels out the other. At worst, when we ignore humble, competent, committed citizens in the middle, things grind to a halt.
Ms. Warren inherently understands and lives that reality. She's capable of doing so because of character, life experience, and intelligence. Mr. Biden, thanks to his own experience and close proximity to Mr. Obama, has a chance against Mr. Trump. I hope he enlists Ms. Warren in that cause and we can be rid of the most perverse president and administration in our country's history.
3
A mixture of truth and nonsense. Socialism is something completely different than what Sanders is proposing. None of his policies are radical or unaffordable. They're actually quite "normal" in western democracies, except the US. Why is that? You are perpetuating biased talking points created by those who benefit financially from the current situation or are simply ignorant of the facts. The fact is that the Democrats rely heavily on funding from those same groups and therefore support status quo candidates like Biden.
2
Progressive blew their best chance at winning over and transforming the Democratic Party by backing away from Warren. AOC could have endorsed a fellow Progressive woman, who has demonstrated herself as hardworking and smart, but instead she aided in kicking her down right when people were actually paying attention to what she had to say. Now in defeat Progressives will once again be kicked to the side. Of course any Democrat is better than Trump, but boy did we mess up.
1
Warren was the best of the lot. She would have accomplished many of the changes people want. Bernie is all bluster. She had the intelligence and thoughtfulness to fulfill a progressive agenda in a rational and well thought out way. She actually had a good sense of humor and was always had a quick, intelligent answer to all the stupid questions asked of her. I wish she was younger so she could run again. Someone mentioned AOC but she's just another Bernie. She's great where she is now. Remember Bernie voted 3 times against gun control and didn't support Bill and Hillary Clinton's healthcare overhaul in 1997. Think if that had passed then what healthcare could have been today.
1
Elizabeth Warren is exceptionally smart. I liked many of her ideas. Unfortunately, she ran a terrible campaign. I'm tired of the "it's because she was a female" mantra. It just isn't so. The notion that a candidate should be supported because she's a woman is no less bigoted than saying a candidate should be supported because he/she is white.
Elizabeth Warren would have been the best President in our history - if she were given the chance. None of the rhetoric about her is ever said about men who run for POTUS. I can sit here and blame the white men, but it's not just them. Some women in this country are just sheep following whatever their husband does, or they watch too much Fox news.
Trump's economy is false and ready to take a nosedive now that the coronovirus has hit. Warren explains that very well and how he is putting money into wall street and running up the debt like a manic drug addict, leaving us with a falling economy for the bottom 90%.
Warren was so good, perhaps we didn't deserve her yet. I hope Americans finally wake up and realize the GOP, Trump and even the corporate dems are taking us for a ride.
2
@Patricia
Vote her during the CT primary to send a message anyway.
Ever since I was little, when Eisenhower attacked "eggheads", people have attacked expertise, intelligence, honesty, and hard work.
Fact is, we need to fix government, not get rid of it. "Privatizing" things just makes money more important than people.
I strongly recommend Raworth's Doughnut Economy. We've gone astray, and Elizabeth Warren was part of the solution not part of the problem.
Tax cuts for the rich fix nothing. Yelling and holding rallies creates mobs. Lies are lies.
The planet bats 1000; the truth matters. Working together to solve problems is the only possible way forward.
1
Blather. As a former Republican, her story totally resonated with me. Right woman, right time, right message. Wanted her in 2016. Disappointed we can’t have her in 2020. I suppose that I’ll take 4 more years of corporate Democrat mediocracy over Trump, while the country and the planet continues to burn.
I love the idea of a woman for US President. It really is about time. There are a lot of highly qualified, intelligent women who would not only do that job well, but would also bring us back from the international edge Trump has taken us to. But - and it is a big but - these women need to be presidential. And that is no small task.
In this age of 24/7/365 news, women need to be more cogniscent of their image and their voice - literally. Screeching, the appearance of being erratic or even irate - is not presidential. I know I'm not going to make any friends here - but I personally believe that's why Hillary was challenged. Elizabeth Warren was very similar. We live in a media celebrity age. It doesn't matter how smart or qualified you are. Sadly - likability is a huge factor. And if middle America can't get its head wrapped around you as president, kiss it goodbye.
So, I did we end up with Trump? I heard women in Michigan being interviewed on CBS. They were asked how (in God's name) could they support him. Answer: "I'm married to someone just like him...for 26 years. He's a good guy." (Stockholm syndrome?)
It doesn't matter that Trump is a giant goof who is obliterating democracy. There are women voters who "like" him. They get him.
People don't get Warren or the other women candidates.
BTW - I am a woman.
If no one step up to the plate to support her within the party is wasn't her fault.
I sure wish people would stop referring to Warren and Sanders as radical. It’s the worst kind of parochialism. Anywhere else but the US they‘d be moderates.
4
I am commenting as the old liberal that I am.
#1. Right or left, the US has utterly missed the boat time and again on healthcare-for-all. There are simply some things in a well-run society which will not/cannot make money without being warped completely out of all usefulness. Everyday I wonder why I am driving on free roads and was bankrupted by healthcare. Legislators for decades have refused to step up and struggle with the obvious and widespread problem which 49 other nations have coped with to better or lesser extents. Sanders, to my 60s liberal eyes seems so limited, so far behind the curve...and even so, practically alone in calling for a "radical" change. (Radical only in our pathetic situation.) No wonder his support comes largely from young people -- who have not had their hopes crushed repeatedly for improved solutions to obvious needs.
#2. Conservatives in the US were utterly raddled (shockingly, pathetically) by having a powerful, articulate black man run the country well. But, even the remarkable Mr. Obama could only do so much against opportunistic blatant opposition.
No way they are now going to allow a woman in. I mean, ya gotta draw the line somewhere! Let's fight Roe v. Wade all over again.
As frightened as Americans are by boogy-man taxes and susceptible to get-rich-quick nonsense, I never predicted that Ludicrous Trump could have inspired a cult following.
We are still in deep trouble.
4
I blame the voters...all voters. Most voters are low information people. White, black, Latino. Asian, Native American, LGBTQ, almost all of them cannot tell you anything except a couple of talking points about the candidates they support or the candidates they are against. We are our own worst enemies.
If the voters had really taken the time to study what the candidates plans and proposals were about they would have seen that Warren's were the most thoroughly thought out, clear, workable and benefited the middle, lower middle and poor people of this country.
Sadly, the voters never did their homework and instead waited for someone else to tell them who was important and who they should vote for. It's all down to Biden and Sanders and the middle of the road corporate Democrats will carry the day once again and we will stall and look backwards for our futures.
I blame the voters.
2
Warren represents all women who have been shut down and attacked when everything they wanted was good, not so much for themselves but for others.
That the USA would prefer two old white guys both of whom are far from fabulous to a spunky, intelligent, confident woman (again) is awful. It's not surprising, given how many people, including Democrats, who think that women are the second class gender and deserve second class treatment across the board. Even many women think this way. They are programmed from birth to have that idea.
Strong women are criticized for being strong. That was clear in the early 70s. We are still there. If you are not strong, you are criticized for being flaky or slightly. We, are a people who are generally unconscious, not knowing how to look below the surface at anything. Taking things at face value, we live in a material world where the person with the glitziest show wins. Looking for something different requires that we look inside. Who does that? The flyover folks?
We have a very long way to go. But still, we persist.
TULSI GABBARD is the last woman standing!
Stay strong Ms. Gabbard -- you have fans around world!!!
@Concerned EU Resident
Kindly stay out of our election. We have enough meddling from other countries.
1
Yes, Warren being a woman was an issue with some voters, but lots of men also ran and didn't go anywhere. Warren was my first choice because of her intellect, ideas, and personality, but unfortunately, most voters are tribal in nature. That's the appeal of Trump to the white working class that watches reality TV and beauty pageants, goes to NASCAR races, and believes that immigrants are taking their jobs away. Warren's tribe is mostly highly educated white people who believe in expertise, facts, and a multicultural future. Unfortunately, those people don't live in the few places where the racist electoral college determines who becomes president.
2
If people would just look at Sander's track record (and if Sanders himself would take off that big 'S' t-shirt and cape), then perhaps many would realize that he didn't forge a "socialist" Vermont, but he does have a record of doing things for The People, of debating issues rather than simply voting by party line, and generally considers money a tool, not the be-all, end-all thing to which most Consumption-Corporate-American politicians (Democrat and Republican alike) bow down and pray.
He has commonsense, folks. That's a rare thing in a politician.
3
Warren earned only 29% of the women’s vote in Massachusetts. The idea that her loss is due to sexism is just not viable.
4
Tonight I was listening to Rachel Maddow interview Warren. She mentioned Warren had been credited with ‘taking out’ Bloomberg in the first debate he appeared and destroying him. Rachel the asked Warren if that was her intention to which Warren replied’ yes,’ with a half smile. It was remarkable the satisfaction Warren displayed then saying Bloomberg needed to be taken out and didn’t deserve to be there. What?!! Who the heck does she think she is? Warren then went on to say how horrible Bernie’s supporters were for going after women leaders in Nevada who weren’t supporters. And how ugly are politics have become. Here Warren delights in tearing down Bloomberg and decries Bernie bros. I used to admire her. She’s so blind to her self righteousness.
4
Precisely why I couldn’t get behind her. Not what I want in a president. We already have that. I’m not interested in 4 more years of that from anyone.
1
American men and women do not want female leadership. Warren, who this papered endorsed, was wise to tackle income inequality; however, she is the wrong messenger.
Hearing the cries of sexism is interesting. It’s the Democrat Primary. So does that mean democrats are sexist? Can’t blame Trump or Republicans for this one. Politics have changed. It’s not about PC or identify anymore, it’s about being authentic & real. Warren is neither.
2
She came in third in her home state. After years of work and thousands of passionate educated and very capable followers she came in third. What does that tell you? A completely failed strategy. Her man hating attack on Bloomberg with those nasty innuendos sank a good man. She crushed him. But she came in third. Too many pinky pledges and elite policy proposals combined with meanness- and she came in third, winning only a third of college educated women in her home state.
3
Her crazy over the top portrayal on SNL by Kate McKinnon did not help. Done week after week it was worse than anything Trump or rivals tried, ultimately destroying her as a legitimate candidate..
1
You heard it with Hillary and again with Elizabeth Warren. Too intellectual. Not warm enough. I didn’t realize so many voters want a sweet, loving mommy figure in the presidential office.
My hope? More people spend time exploring their perhaps unconscious biases toward female presidential candidates.
2
Timothy,
Baloney...
Of course, the problem and the shame of the Democratic Party this year is not about ideology. If being ideologically pure we’re the issue, Bernie would be a shoe in... He is not. No the problem is that with four competent women Senators running, the Democrats we’re afraid of nominating a woman. That is pathetic! Nevertheless, we will have a woman a President soon. It is, fortunately, inevitable. That can’t happen soon enough!
Given our nation's rules which lock out all except the Republican and Democratic parties any political deviation from capitalist dogma will be smothered and delivered to the public stillborn. We have nothing but two tired, decrepit, ossified political operations incapable of little other than serving up the same old, tired status quo. Senators Warren and Sanders never had a chance.
With friends like the DNC, who needs bullies like Trump? Where was the DNC all this while? Warren did their bidding - loyal to the DNC to her core: she endorsed Clinton instead of running herself (only Bernie had the audacity to run against Clinton); she probably will end up endorsing Biden. The DNC probably would have chosen to put their whole weight behind Biden from the start - but out of concern for the optics to not do things like they did the last time when they all but coronated Clinton. So the DNC was never going to coalesce around Warren. I so wish she would endorse Sanders now that she has ended her inspiring campaign. I think this article proves its point - that trying to change the DNC from within is a fool's errand.
1
Thinking this article over, what most bothers me is the idea of the perfect "radical" is always based on male ideas of dealing with he world. In this article the "true" radical can't compromise, can't transform, can't talk to people and change their stance, not even to address concerns.
Nope it has to be an aggressive, burn it to the ground, take no prisoners and never compromise. How many women do you know behave that way? And how many of those who do get any positive approval? By anyone? (Lefty circles are no exception.)
Even when women are talking about their own specific issues, they are besieged by demands to consider others. Kristen Gillbrand's chances at the Presidency were tanked simply for standing by her principles re sexual harassment, and being one of many in suggesting Al Franken resign. The metoo movement is considered to have "gone too far" when a handful of men have to take temporary leave of their careers.
So we expect women radicals to complete destroy institutions? No. This vision of radicalism is heir to the angry young man theme, a macho leftism that saw women's contribution in the kitchen and the bedroom. It has nothing to do with how women actually move in the world. And so...it isn't actually very radical.
It's depressingly the same. Warren was exactly radical enough.
1
It wasn't her job to reform the party.
Neither Bernie Sanders, nor Warren . . . not now. Bernie has affability, where Warren does not. Biden, Buttigieg, Harris, and Klobuchar all have, IMO, a nice balance between competence and connection to the widest constituent of voters. Warren will never engage the "heart issues" of the sensible American voter, I believe
What I get from this rhapsodic opinion piece is Mr. Shenk's joy in having leaders with depth, sophistication, resolve, passion, and urgency. How he revels in actually engaging in insights about Ms. Warren and her fellow campaigners mixing up in earnest, just like American politicians should battle. Disturbingly, I think progressive (me), moderate, and conservative Democrats are all in a time-warp severed from who Americans are now.
Harper's Magazine March 2020 article by Kevin Baker, "Losing My Religion," addresses that the time Benjamin Franklin predicted when the Americans become corrupt and need corrupt leadership is here.
Warren did her homework well before each speech. She took every problem that she figured needed solving and built a plan to solve it. However her biggest plan to solve the healthcare problem was based on financially unsound premises. It was clear that she understood that her plan was financially unrealistic she still stuck to pushing it as her solution. She knew she was bluffing when she kept defending it as financially sound.
A worthy leader would be leader enough to see the writing on the wall and admit that out of all her sound plans her healthcare plan was out of wack. In the end she did tweak it a little without admitting that she is wrong.
It is clear that the president is not expected to be an expert on everything but she tried to show that she has the best plan for every problem. Well her healthcare plan was defective, she knew it was defective and yet she kept selling it as perfect.
She did not lose because she is a women she lost because she is not leader enough to admit when she is wrong.
1
Warren did not lose the race because she was a woman.
She lost the race because she could not stop talking about being a woman. Klobochar made the exact same mistake.
Obama never made an equivalent mistake. He never brought up the issue of being an African-American unless he was asked about it. He also understood how to talk to Whites because he grew up in a White family.
Her failure was in overplaying the identity politics card, especially the scene in which she accused Sanders of privately telling her that a woman couldn't win. This entire scene displayed a lack of emotional intelligence.
Warren is clearly good in math and verbal skills and righteously destroyed Bloomberg. She would probably make a very good president, but she was given very poor advice by her team on how to campaign. The best way for her to redeem herself is to demonstrate that she is a good team player, by endorsing Sanders and run as his vice-president. If she tilts to the other side she will further damage her credibility.
The odds are that she will outlive Sanders...but not a certainty.
Tired of hearing criticism for Donald John thrown at the Democratic candidates.
Elizabeth Warren only could blame herself.
She could have been less detailed of her intended disruptions.
Warden could have spoken to the inequities, the problems, who deserved to be listened to and continued to present her passion, intelligence, problem solving, her record and her leadership.
Obama did it that way.
In fact Obama held his cards close to his vest also in the Senate.
Warren will finally square this circle by endorsing Biden who represents everything she has been fighting against for the last twenty years, just like she did when she endorsed HRC in 2016.
In the end, she will stand for nothing, the quintessential nihilist and a far cry from the defender of the progressive left.
2
Wall Street feared a Warren presidency. They feared her promise to use the power of the presidency to serve the people instead of Wall Street by cutting drug prices through using march in orders. Warren had the guts to tell big Pharma their gravy train would come to a screeching halt during her presidency. They knew Warren could actually deliver on that promise. After all, she was able to get rid of Mike Bloomberg. So they employed misogyny to marginalize her campaign. It always works.
I supported Warren and I’m disappointed by her defeat but I don’t believe this reflects a fault of the Democratic Party (it has many others). We ended up with two old white guys, again, because that’s how people voted. There is no Democratic propaganda organ equivalent to Fox that programed the voters; they made up their own minds after starting with a very diverse group of candidates. The problem problem here is cultural but I believe it will be corrected. If the Democratic nominee selects a younger woman of color for Vice President, that could jumpstart the cultural revolution that will eventually bring diversity to the office of President.
Dear Progressives: stop waiting for Superwoman. Poor Mr. Shenk is tortured by the reality that not everyone thinks his way nor loves his candidates with his level of ardor. Teased apart, his and other progressives' rhetoric of revolution bares an unease with rules. It's a form of whining. Politics is a battle of ideas and personalities. Mr. Shenk's favorite couldn't win by the rules, so he invokes a phrase connoting a form of change that necessarily steps outside of the rules. His favorite regularly promised things she would do on Day 1 through executive orders, because she too knew she could not deliver the normal way. The whole of it reveals a kind of contempt for constitutional government without any acknowledgement that their preferred tactics are what empowered the present toxic inhabitant of the White House. Trump's ability to wreck America stems from the precedents of past executive orders; he has been much less successful legislatively, but that has been true of most presidents. Americans don't need an executive branch revolutionary; we need a more assertive legislative branch. Stop waiting for Superwoman; start fighting the down-ballot battles with the same passion and determination as anti-abortionists, white supremacists, and gun-rights activists. That's where real and lasting change will come, and accept that the fight will never end. And for the love of Pete, stop whining!
3
A little bit of Hillary a little bit of Bernie just didn't seem to work for most voters.
1
It's not that she was the wrong kind of radical...Most of us can except someone thinking new thoughts. Its that she displayed the same savage desire to obliterate an opponent with hateful comments that Trump does (thought granted her rhetoric is not as ugly). Warren knows she does not think Bernie does not want a woman for president. She knows that Bloomberg had not molested any women. Yet she immediately played the sexism card on both, her worst moment being when she said on camera deliberately, that Sanders had lied about not wanting a woman for president. I was done with her then, and had been thinking about being a supporter.
I cried when Hilary Clinton won the Dem nomination. I was devastated when Trump won the electoral college. But I keep reminding myself, a woman did win the popular vote for president; it has already happened! So we are there---we just need the right candidate to nudge us across the line.
Hope Biden picks Klobuchar. He is too old for two terms. Let's set her up for success in 2024.
Politics is heads or tails in the United States; either or; door number one or door number two. Let's call heads the Republicans. This group generally believes that taxes are bad and if you like religion and all its attendant isms and antis and guns, we've got your back. Then there's tails and they believe that there is a long list of things that are bad and a shorter list that is good and if you disagree on anything about either list, a great deal of voters who call themselves Democrats will likely lose interest, cry foul and stay home. Welcome to the Republican States of America.
1
I believe she made a big mistake with her Medicare for All proclamation. She had very poor advisors. The unpopular Congresswoman from Boston was a Co-Chair and was unable to deliver the City to her on Super Tuesday
Dig into your history books and ponder the fate of the original populists,who could not get workers and intellectuals to join in their agricultural-based (and at times racist) radical take on Amercan politics. There are not yet enough Sanders acolytes to remake the Democratic Party. Nor is it likely such a remade party would find a majority in either house of Congress or the Executive Branch. The U.S.is a profoundly conservative country, Coping with that is the issue—not merely capturing and remaking the Democratic Party into a left/liberal one.
2
Nice close! AOC qualifies age-wise to be president less than a month before the 2024 election? It brings a smile.
Ms. Warren's nervous demeanor projects anxiety, and at times near hysteria.
The harsh, shrill voice, void of nuance, is hard on the ears.
And Warren's attempts to show her "heart," sound cloying.
Compare this to Amy Kobuchar's low, warm, calming voice, her total composure, and her sense of humor.
Biden's candidacy was manipulated behind the scenes.
Klobuchar was swept under the rug way too early.
I can read that you admire and respect Elizabeth Warren. I have been a supporter since she first ran for Senate in 2012. She is the real deal, as Seth Meyers said last night, pretty much too perfect a candidate for president for Americans to support her. The misogyny in this country is maddening, as people follow divisive and incompetent old white men. Warren's message of unity and her actual plans were not her undoing (plus she is not simply handing in the towel; wait and see). Her undoing is that most Americans are stupidly uninterested in true leadership. And she will persist.
Said it before, say it again. Warren's free everything for everyone is what did her in. Those who want that want the revolutionary Bernie. And that is not a majority even within the Democratic Party.
I just hope Biden has the vigor to knock out Trump, and finish out a term...maybe a female VP to then take the second term. (Klobuchar?)
I see a repeat of 2016. We will now have to somehow get through four more years of Trump.
Myself and others believe Mayor Pete, Amy, Beto et al are backing Biden to gain influence and/ or good jobs in a possible Dem. administration. No proof? Of course not, but wait and see.
I am wondering who Liz Warren will back? I hope it will be Bernie who seems to have the beliefs closest to hers.
Both Biden and Trump who are doing well because of Citizens United, are taking money from Super Pacs and Wall Street.....they are the enemy of the average American. ONLY Bernie refuses to take that tainted money which comes, always, with strings attached.
2
A Biden-Warren ticket is my preference at this point. The reverse would have been better.
Elizabeth Warren is a good leader and an inspiration for women everywhere. Hope she can find a way to work with Joe Biden and maybe run education given her experience. From a recent piece in #NewYorkTimes .
No wonder the Trump and Bernie (while I respect and like him) supporters online sound the same and spew the same rhetoric against Joe.
“And if you are trying to sow chaos in an a vitriolic election, Mr. Putin can hardly hope for better than a face-off between an incumbent with a history of race-baiting who is shouting “America First” at rallies — while suggesting that the coming election is rigged — and a democratic socialist from Vermont advocating a drastic expansion of taxes and government programs like Medicare.
“Any figures that radicalize politics and do harm to center views and unity in the United States are good for Putin’s Russia,” said Victoria Nuland, who in a long diplomatic career had served both Republican and Democratic administrations, and had her phone calls intercepted and broadcast by Russian intelligence services.”
the messenger was flawed. Elizabeth Warren was perfect when attacking Wells Fargo CEO, more so since we all wanted meat. Her attacks on Michael Bloomberg went far beyond the norm, certainly playing to her female backers.
Dr Warren forgot decorum and this made her appearance no different than the folks who get lathered up at Donald Trump's gatherings, at the WH and beyond.
Elizabeth Warren has served this country admirably.
At her Cambridge doorstep, Warren speculated that her assumption there was a “Middle” lane alternative to Sanders’ “Progressive” and Biden’s “Moderate” paths to victory (of liberal Democratic principles over Trump’s version of Republican conservatism) was wrong. As others have pointed out, the manifesto of needed reform of the Democratic Party was borne out of the Harvard-based Democratic Renaissance Project (DRP) and its intellectual predecessors and progeny, whose successful “scholar-politicians” included Obama, Warren, Buttigieg, and (Katie) Porter. What the DRP and its Harvard-trained practitioners need to do to find the middle path to victory over Trumpism is to move out of the Green Zone of safety to win the real “battle of the streets.” I think Betsy from Oklahoma, rather than Professor and Senator Liz, will still do just that (perhaps as VP, Attorney General, or Secretary of Treasury - her choice - in a Biden or Sanders Administration) once she and her still redoubtable team help the default candidate of choice of the Democratic Party better define and embrace the populist Last Mile of Heartland America where most of the dispossessed live - and die. Betsy, it’s time to decide whom to endorse and then to move on. No more agonizing.
I really think that the USA needs to have a female President just so we can bring about the realisation that female leaders can be just as bad as male ones which I learned having lived through Thatcher. Its bizarre to see comments in this section saying that the USA should be ashamed of itself for failing to support Warren and all the other women who run for office. By that rational I should have supported Sarah Palin in 2012 as the only female candidate or Theresa May who is a woman and yet was a horrible PM. The irony is that the left Labour party has never had a female leader. I wouldn't vote for Warren because I don't support her policies as I support the candidate and their policies rather than blindly supporting someone due to gender or race. Warren's biggest problem was not that she is a woman but that she is a left wing intellectual in a nation which mocks and alienates intellectuals and conflates socialism and communism. Even the conservative party in the UK supports universal healthcare
1
The only thing that might give Biden a chance is Elizabeth Warren as Vice President. I’m so disappointed in Democrats.
Elizabeth Warren sealed her fate when rather than focusing on the two deadly viruses we face; being Covid19 and Donald Trump she decided to double down in her 2nd debate with Mike Bloomberg. She had already finished him off the 1st one. Talk about beating a dead horse when each minute of the debate was precious. Talk about bad judgement.
1
Speaking as a Brit, this all looks dreadfully familiar. The Labour party in Britain fell into the hands of Jeremy Corbyn and his acolytes in the aftermath of the 2015 election, and their programme looked very similar to what you describe for Sanders - take a mixture of some sensible left policies and some economically illiterate fantasies, label them all with hard left slogans that will alienate most of the electorate, mix in a long history of dodgy international associations and damning quotes, and then try to win a general election. Corbyn failed twice to win, the second time losing to the most incompetent, shambolic, openly dishonest car crash of a government in British history. American left-wing voters please take note. Asking for everything will get you nothing but four more years of Donald Trump.
2
Today I wept: the smartest, most genuine candidate for president withdrew from the campaign. In the last 3 presidents the USA chose ordinary, then they chose a smart man of colour but fairly risk averse (those responsible for the GFC escaped accountability), then they chose a man who is unprincipled and vile! Elizabeth Warren is the real deal but 2 days before IWD it is clear that there is conscious and unconscious bias against powerful women and that bias is, sadly, keenly displayed by both women and men. Countries in which women are notoriously oppressed can elect Madam President but I suspect the USA never will. By all means Mr Shenk have your say, but smart women know that when a woman becomes what you or I want her to be, she has lost herself and will no longer be a warrior. President or not, Elizabeth Warren will continue to wage war against the “entitled” and in doing so will effect her own change of the DNC and the politics at large. Why do men prefer war over people nfluence?
Why am I so interested in USA events? If the US continues to diminish itself on so many levels we will all be at the mercy of ruthless, autocratic, greedy rogues in politics and business.
Why did she change her message? She turned into a casualty of identity politics. Why did she steal Bernie's medicare-for-all plan? Did she think no one would notice? Why did she attack Bloomberg with such force. Was she going for #metoo points?She has no one to blame but herself.
4
I'll feel safer when a democratic woman is making decisions for my family and neighbors. In the meantime, Joe has my vote. He will choose intelligent, thoughtful people to fill his administrative posts. He won't choose Barr or DeVos or Miller-types or throw paper towels after a natural disaster.
But, don't get me wrong. I sure miss Pres. and Mrs. Obama. Let's flip the Senate and get rid of I-won't-approve-anything-by-Barack McConnell.
1
What's the opposite of OK Boomer? The author needs to live life a little longer or take a closer look at the history books. Most revolutions dont work out that well.
1
By the "wrong kind of radical", do you mean the kind who is a woman? A male candidate with her qualifications would've won the primaries by a landslide.
This op-ed proves the adage "a little bit of knowledge is dangerous.' Mr. Shenk gets a little bit right here and there, but the totality is way off the mark. This does not ring true.
The primary process is a mess, and navigating it can be treacherous -- too much guesswork, luck, fortuitous news, and institutional inertia.
Warren's policies or methods were not what hurt her. It was not a level playing field, and not only because she is a woman. The analysis will require some serious study, and this op-ed will fade into the dustbin of letters written, should not have been sent.
Her promises were ridiculous and it is sad to see how many educated Democrats fell for them hook, line and sinker.
And apparently they lie to pollsters.
1
Circular firing squad, enough already.
Time to get the real villains out of town. Nobody is going to be able to make everyone toe the line to their particular vision, nor should they be able to.
Please stop blaming Democrats for what Republicans have done.
1
I just couldn't have looked at those pastel sweaters and black pants and top for four years.
Ideologues like Mr. Shenk always can come up with a story that explains away reality. Unlike Sanders, Warren was too honest to be a successful demagogue, yet like Sanders, her advocacy of revolution shows she is out of touch with current political reality.
1
Ah, yes. The Dems need a candidate who can transform the party in the same way Trump transformed the GOP. That's working out really well for democracy. Clinton had excellent policy plans. Warren had excellent policy plans. For all their talk of equality, the Dems don't really give a rat's patoot about policies that will help level the playing field - especially if it's a woman pushing those policies. The Democratic party is broken beyond repair.
1
Lets be honest, Warren committed political suicide when she called for a wealth tax.
Americans are the most optimistic people in the world. They believe that they are one break away from their ship coming in.
A wealth tax scare most people. Warren should have known better.
Just what part of “Any port in a storm” do you not get? Warren would have been nice, but Biden is what we’ve got. It’s him or Trump. Which do you want?
Bernie and Liz just isn't Romeo and Juliet and it wasn't written by William Shakespeare. The creaky septuagenarians can't dance or sing their parts in a Democratic Party revival of West Side Story. Liz won't agree to play a part in the revival of Grumpy Old Men which will debut in Milwaukee.
1
I think that if Michele had decided to run for president she would have won the nomination already.
I hope that going forward there will be more science in the reporting, more balance and less opinionated, even imperious pronouncements from the syndicati. A woman candidate who survives as many cuts as Warren did is in precarious position as it is without an avalanche of doubtful rhetorical questions that undermine others' confidence in her, particularly other women. It is simply irresponsible to have three negative articles in a single day about a candidate, particularly a female candidate. Instead of noting that some voters find a candidate "shrill," why not look more deeply into reasons why. Why not editorialize about the imbalance? And hold the doubt, please, unless the identical foibles of the male candates are reported alongside too. It makes the Times' endorsement of Warren seem cynical and calculated in retrospect for the ensuing reporting - what there was of it - was indifferent at best and at worst, petty and negative. Like this hindsight mansplaining.
God bless you Senator Warren, for your service to this nation and to women everywhere, even those that do not recognize that service...or reject it.
Sadly, until women are willing to support and empower one another politically - as well as economically - in the same way as illustrated in this past week's article - in this publication - about female ultra runners...we will never have a female President.
I have worked actively - coach, intensive facilitator, elected official, Washington D.C. marcher, Planned Parenthood board member, etc. - for women's empowerment for 20+ years. Until we are willing to stand by our gender despite our differences - and stop victimizing men; why would we think victimizing men would be any more effective or productive that men victimizing us? - and claim our power via our own individual empowerment and coming together whole-heartedly (and without judgment) with other women...
...we will never take our rightful place at the tables of power, especially the White House.
I sure hope AOC is on the phone reaching out to EW at this time. It's important at a time like this to not take things personally. It's important at a time like this to remain true to your core values...to align yourself with others whose mindset are parallel to your own. That should be self-explanatory.
Elizabeth Warren wasn’t the wrong kind of anything. She is a true American patriot fighting for what’s good and right/just. Wake up, America!
1
Until women are willing to support and empower one another politically - as well as economically - in the same way as illustrated in this past week's article - in this publication - about female ultra runners...we will never have a female President.
I have worked actively - coach, intensive facilitator, elected official, Washington D.C. marcher, Planned Parenthood board member, etc. - for women's empowerment for 20+ years.
Until we are willing to stand by our gender despite our differences - and stop victimizing men; why would we think victimizing men would be any more effective or productive that men victimizing us? - and claim our power via our own individual empowerment...
...we will never take our rightful place at the tables of power, especially the White House.
God bless you Senator Warren, for your service to this nation and to women everywhere, even those that do not recognize that service...or reject it.
If you're in your 20s, then you seriously need to reconsider your relationship with the United States. I spend hours reading and the consensus is that young people feel cheated, overworked, and underpaid. One man wrote that he was bankrupted by medical bills after being shot in a robbery, that was with insurance coverage. One woman said on Reddit that her bill for a rape kit and overnight psych eval was $850. Rents from trailer parks to Harlem are high, and many people don't have family support systems.
Indiana and Michigan need new roads and bridges, Newark and Detroit need new municipal water mains, Alabama and Ohio need levees and rivers to be dredged. Unless we agree to meet each others' needs and commit to a social contract, then this country is done for.
This election is a vote for the future course of the United States. People either vote for each other's well-being or they vote for the establishment and special interests. Based on the 2020 election outcome, prepare for a future where you cannot live and retire in the United States.
2
Riiight, so it’s her fault. Of course! Because when it came down to it, neither Hillary nor Elizabeth were as capable or prepared as Donald, or Bernie, or Joe. Riiight.
The rhetoric is weak. The “culture” is not “misogynistic” because we no longer have a female front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination.
Cut it out. Even a little logic goes a long way.
The problem with Biden is that he is not a change agent. The best move he could make now is to have Warren as a running mate. She was far and away the most qualified candidate up on that stage. Smart, articulate, had real policy ideas and willing to redefine codified structures that exist, are wholly inadequate and in fact...don't work (yes, I am talking about healthcare, education, housing). If Biden does not choose a female running mate we may as well acknowledge that this country cannot and will not elect a woman in a leadership position. If that is the case, maybe we should start talking about reparations for women...of all colors, faiths, and socio-economic status. Women appear to be the lowest of the low in the eyes of this nation both among men and women. Ridiculous and sad.
1
So, what happened to that multi-racial coalition? African-Americans went big for Biden and the young failed to turn out for Bernie in sufficient numbers everywhere but California. As things stand, the progressive left still needs to appeal beyond its base if it wants to do anything but pose. Compromise isn't a dirty word in the real world of politics.
3
The Democratic Party has been the same old same old for a long time. Ever since the Reagan reactionary movement took hold, the Democratic Party has tried to show that it can be just as conservative as the Republicans -- witness the Clinton presidency. I had to hold my nose to vote for Hillary, just because I was afraid that Trump would win. He won anyway. Warren was the best candidate the Democrats had to offer, but the Party itself is moribund, and cannot raise any excitement. That is what Trump did, even if it ran the wrong way. I think many people voted for Trump for that reason, and now regret it.) Young people will leave the Democrats and vote Green Party -- and good progressive candidates should do the same. What might save the Party is to have Warren on the ticket.
2
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Warren or her campaign. She would have made a wonderful president. Hillary would have made a competent president too. It is our loss not theirs.
6
Granted would like a younger candidate that was more nimble on the debate stage, however, in the last few weeks the democratic party practiced the statistical process of regression to the mean---a process that the GOP has yet to experience. In general, the American public wants an average candidate--which Joe Biden is---they are tired of black swans, of outliers, of disrupters, of revolutions---they just want to pay attention to their average life---go to work, attend little league games, host a family barbecue...Sadly, as the article today describes the plight of the middle class, many of our citizens have given up on the government's ability to improve their quality of life.
2
Don't be sure it will be Biden and not Bernie. We still have months before the convention to persuade the country to do the right thing.
2
The Democratic Party leaders have always thought that Tramp was the problem and Bernie has always seen that the system is the problem (of which the Democratic Party is a significant part). I think Liz sees this too but has not been as obviously-hard-nosed about revolution. If Biden were smarter or courageous or more progressive, he would select Liz as his running mate. Alas, he's not all that smart, and not very courageous. But he is pragmatic, and if he sees that he needs progressives, Bernie's and Liz's people, he might be persuaded to name Liz his VP.
1
@farhorizons
Biden doesn’t need to Court any faction of the Democratic Party to win in the general election.... ‘Anyone Blue’, remember.
1
Mr. Shenk,
Please read Joe Klein's op-ed in yesterday's Washington Post entitled "I was the 1968 Version Bernie Bro, I Still Regret It." I have been a so-called progressive Democrat my entire life, but the problem with Liz Warren's, Bernie Sander's and the future AOC campaign you long for is not the realization that the Democratic Party has it all wrong, but it is the lack of humility, compassion and a love for all Americans that stands at the heart of America and yes, the Democratic Party. It is often said that "the enemy of the good is the perfect," and while you at Dissent look for the perfect you seem all too willing to destroy those of us in our party who replace Donald Trump to simply restore the good.
The pundits got it wrong. Liz Warren did not win the last two debates; she no doubt took down Mike Bloomberg, but she looked like Donald Trump in the process; the same problem that afflicts Bernie Sanders. Call it "dogma," "rigidity" or whatever, but at heart it is a lack of an appreciation for the fact that the good can achieve much if we unite, but it might not be the so-called perfect.
I hope you will join us in our quest to elect Joe Biden, strengthen our House majority and win back the Senate. If we do, perhaps we will do good for climate change, for reasonable gun control. for dreamers, for healthcare, for income inequality, for women's reproductive rights, for our courts and so on, as we look to form not "a perfect union," but "a more perfect union."
10
Elizabeth Warren is a fantastic public servant and a fantastic candidate for president in any year, but she misread the campaign this year - badly.
The 2020 election was never going to be about detailed plans or policy details. Our current president is Donald Trump - famous for his "best healthcare plan" and his "secret plan to defeat ISIS in 30 days" - both of which were never revealed during the campaign and are still yet to be revealed 4 years later.
Warren pinned her campaign on a technocratic blitz of the "right plans" for nearly every ill facing America - thinking this would win over the electorate. But it lacked pathos. Americans just wanted to be reassured. To be delivered from Trump's polarizing style of governance. To vote for someone who embodied dignity, presidential traits, and steady centrist and slightly progressive ideas. Detailed policies were never going to win over the electorate, especially in 2020. America didn't want a professor.
We know Elizabeth Warren is a student of policy and has read more books than anyone else, but in the 2020 campaign, she badly lost the plot.
6
@Jeff I am sorry to say you are correct in your analysis. Having all the proposals, but she must know that many will not stand, for we all know that proposals are hard to keep and get through congress. Most Americans are either too lazy are too inept to follow her, or too wrong-headed. While Biden has not the brainpower of Warren, he seems t be a good "Joe." On the other-hand Harris has great human appeal too, and she went nowhere.
There will be a democratic socialist president but it won’t be sanders. It will br Ocasio-Cortez. And it won’t be until my generation is gone. The new voters are going to be more open to this ideology and they will then be the majority.
2
@Vivi No, there will never be a socialist anything president of our country. Socialism, democrat socialism or whatever you want to call it is toxic. Winston Churchill famously said “the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries “
1
Were Warren a principled progressive she might have supported Sanders 2016 run- but she did not. Today, she seems prepared to sit on the sidelines yet again. That leaves Joe Biden, the DNC and MSM favorite a clear path to the nomination.
The country teeters on the brink of recession, battles a pandemic, has millions without healthcare or a dime in savings, and must ramp up a Herculean response to the climate crisis. Joe Biden’s incrementalism is not up to the task. And neither is his failing cognitive capacity.
4
@Bob Dass
Excellent comment. While Sanders may be down his ideas such as universal healthcare vs a for-profit system are about to be tested like we never imagined. Same goes for Status Quo Joe and the Democratic establishment that has demonized Sanders and his perfectly reasonable policies to rescue this country from its headlong drive to disaster.
2
Neither is Bernie's failing heart, requiring him to travel 24/7 with a cardiologist, but stubbornly refusing to share his medical records. Bernie is the only candidate out there who competes for the title, "Biggest Narcissist" with donald trump. Sanders is living proof of the Horseshoe Theory in politics.
1
Or maybe "revolution" is not the way forward, but is appealing to young people who don't understand that revolutions rarely bring about the change they seek. Hard work, in the trenches (the invisible kind that women do--the kind of work Warren does), is what leads to lasting change. You overlook/downplay sexism and misogyny (which the Left historically has done) at your peril. AOC understands how to bring about change; Bernie understands how to scream revolution.
3
I would like to advance the thought that Warren is a tremendous asset. She says things, and gives her facts that make me think. I may or may not like them, but they get me thinking about my previous views and positions. I am sorry to say I do not believe she would be electable. But we NEED her voice, she states positions that need to be thought and talked about. Her value is that. She makes people think. She certainly is a free thinker, but she is also grounded. She is not in the clouds like Sanders. He lives on Fantasy Island. But even then, Sanders voice needs to be listened to. He has some good things and ideas he talks about. Warren is more practicle and thoughtful. She is more eloquent than Sanders. You can tell her voice is very powerful by how many powerful people and corporations do not like her. She really send the apple cart careening down the hill. She forces them to update their business plan, that the old way is not longer valid. And businesses do not like to work that hard, they like things to stay the way they are as it is easier to make money. Of all the voices in DC hers is a powerful one. She talks about issues that are important to many people, and she upsets many people also as they will actually have to think up new ideas and work with new concepts. And republicans are of one mind on that: they are terrified of change and will do anything to keep things the same. That is why it is the party of old white men and subservient women.
5
Senator Warren was the wrong woman with the wrong politics. Warren was a socialist-climber who chose that politic to get the votes but couldn't tell a proletariat from a pro-lifer. She is Hillary in it for the win at all costs evidenced by her stated American Indian heritage and the wholly discredited statement (there's another word for that) about her teaching position being refused over pregnancy. Sanders for all his faults really believes in his socialism (very scary that he would be so naive, but genuine). Senator Klobuchar was the right woman with the right politics, a moderate who would win all the independents and, of course, the entire 'anyone blue' party (Democrats used to be the thinking person's party...can you say '1984'). But the Democratic party would rather Trump win again by betting on two out-of-touch grumpy old men. As an Independent, I was hoping the Democrats would offer me a viable option. Might as well start chanting "four more years".
1
I recently read an article in The Atlantic that I think was spot on. The author thought that Warren made a big mistake trying to hide her conversion from former free-market Republican to Democrat. I think this is a great observation. She should have taken a page form the Reagan playbook and explain why the Republican Party no longer worked for her, how she discovered the shortcomings of free-market capitalism while trying to prove it worked. If she had really pushed this core value, that she believes in capitalism but has proof on why the government does need to intervene in certain aspects she would have presented the most compelling case for her conversion and her well thought out policies. I really hope Biden will give her the VP nomination.
1
Lots of comments from men here, interesting.
The Equal Rights Amendment passed through Congress in 1972, I was a 12 year old girl. It still isn't ratified. A capable, passionate and progressive woman isn't "electable" but a couple of old men and the current old man in the WH are. Says a lot about where we are as a country.
I hope Elizabeth Warren continues to challenge the status quo and our entrenched misogyny. I think she would have been a brilliant president.
18
Women may lose control over their own bodies soon. MEN will make that decision. Senator Warren was an exceptional candidate who would have made an exceptional president. She would have placed public health and safety over profits, as well as represented people rather than banks and corporations.
23
It’s ok for Warren to hate Bloomberg. Her attack in the first debate was on target. But then it became her cause celebre. Her vicious attack in the second debate was praised by the press. But to the voters, it was self destructive.
On the other hand, Clinton won the Democratic nomination by a large majority. Yet he implied to his supporters that he was cheated by the “party”. If Biden wins the nomination fairly, Sanders should campaign vigorously in his behalf, But I fear that he won’t. His history, not just in the last election, speaks against his supporting the nominee.
2
If you don’t want to reform the Democratic Party, rather than tear it down, then don’t run in the Democratic Primary. Warren was a very good candidate. It’s the voters, including the Sandernistas, who let her down.
6
one difference with the huge exception of AOC is that the Sanders camp, taking a lead from the boss, really don't give the impression they like people. Sure, they want Medicare for all (why not Senate care for all?) but they really don't like the All as human beings. They're not happy people. Leadership hasn't lead supporters from anger, to productive energy, instead encouraging destructive conspiracies or trash talk. But the strategy is so unthought out that they aren't using that anger in a practical way, to drive down overall voting to ensure their movement could win in the margin. So success then gets defined by who can be destroyed online, which naturally allied politician can be savaged and which conspiracy can explain the losses the best. AOC has better, happier political skills that are destined to build bigger winning coalitions; looking forward to that
6
I voted for Warren. I talked to a lot of people for whom Warren was a second choice because they bought the constant media talking point that she couldn’t beat Trump. It would be a great service to the country if the “news” media got out of the prognostication business. How about if they had actually talked about and compared her plans and platforms to Bernie’s, or Joe’s?
20
@Maggie
The Media are not just prognosticators . They have a vested interest in the outcome which is against the "rules" and sways certain people who would be considered "low information voters."
I have been railing against the Media until I am blue in the face. They either don't see themselves as having an "agenda" or they are lying.
It's fine to read. I encourage all young people to read news from many sources. Consider you own point of view but do consider the news source and question their motives.
2
Senator Warren is now facing a true test of her leadership ability: make a difficult decision, guaranteed to upset a lot of people; explain it; and stick with it. Make an endorsement.
The campaign is far from over, so there's no safe choice. She has disagreements with both Bernie and Biden, so there's no easy choice. Her political career is at stake, but so is the future of the country.
Let's see if she's really qualified for the job.
1
She will wait until one person wins the nomination. She would never stick her chin out like that.
This headline made me angry. But then I actually read the thing. It’s very insightful, and explores well the divide in the party, and questions whether the center can hold. Warren was a chance at bridging the gap between the progressives and the center, and it didn’t happen this time. I’m not willing to give up on her style of politics - a gritty, intensive competence working to bring about a revival of an FDR-style progressive capitalism, but one where racial and economic justice are central to its outcomes - in favor of a Bernie revolution that stresses purity and dismisses the necessary political tools of rigorous plans and persuasion. It’s unclear what’s ahead for the party. If Biden wins the election, we are just kicking the can down the road. AOC will probably be an important factor in whatever’s next.
5
Remember Occupy Wall Street? Lots of sound and fury that ended up changing mostly nothing. Not that nothing should have been the outcome, as the issues OWS highlighted are real, and still need to be addressed. But it takes hard work, organization, and smart strategy, and above all methodical patience, to effect real change. I don't sense much patience in the Sanders base, and of course patience is a trait acquired only with experience. I'm approaching seventy, and in my years I've come to recognize the US as mostly a plodding society, mostly muddling our way to a proper outcome. Unfortunately, climate change has a different agenda, and a different timetable. But with 40% of the electorate sleepwalking backward as part of Trump's show, and with clearly more than half the Democratic voters (notice I said voters, not social media users) rejecting a radical left agenda, it's just not going to happen overnight. I was an early Warren supporter, but in the heat of the contest she became somewhat shrill, and she thus lost a lot of her support. That's a shame, because I think she would have made a great president. But at this point any of the Dems is vastly better than the current situation. Trump "digs coal". Do we want four more years of that? I certainly don't.
17
The post Mortem of Senator Warren’s campaign is now being dissected.
1 She competed in the same progressive lane as Sanders Yet never took him on. Except of course the childish confrontation at the debate over who said what about women in politics.
2 No one has a plan for everything, except of course Miss Warren.
3 Likability of a candidate is very important and she came up short. Lecturing with arms flailing and talking about fighting and fighting was uncomfortable for everyone.
4 When you are rejected by your own home state, finishing third, should tell you something.
Her lack of traction had nothing to do with her gender, she was just a very poor candidate.
11
I agree with you about points 1, 2 and 3, I want to point out what number 4, her “rejection“ by Massachusetts voters should tell you. We simply saw no path forward for her, and we were correct. We love Elizabeth Warren and believe she’s an absolutely first rate individual and senator and political thinker and policy maker.
6
"Lecturing with arms flailing.."
Well, that's a rich piece of cake.
Sanders is unable to communicate anything but rage, which might be mistaken as cool by gamers and white dudes who also like to scream, while drinking copious amounts of alcohol, watching Chapo Trap House, and whining about boomers. This is the most lame impersonation of a Revolution that I've ever witnessed.
1
I’m tied of this. I don’t want change. Like a lot of people I want improvement and it is amazing that no one running for political office can grasp this tiny point.
10
Listening to neighbors and reading comments on line, Warren had one overarching problem. She was smart and her policy papers and positions were excellent reading for those with college degrees. They were never condensed or articulated (and real policy and real solutions are complicated) so that the average American who has the attention span of a gnat and cannot comprehend complex processes, never understood her positions and how it would help them. They did not create emotional responses. Four word (and now three word) slogans are the key to attracting voters. Americans can't think or won't think.
12
Sanders* is the future of the Democratic party. He might not be doing well overall, but he is dominant among voters younger than 45.
* in terms of policy, not him personally.
2
But ... they didn’t come out to vote.
1
Why aren’t they coming out & voting for him?
1
@todji source?
Thanks, Mr. Shenk, for attempting to make some kind of sense out of Elizabeth Warren’s exit from the campaign for President. That said, I feel we have lost one of the best potential presidents I have seen, ever. American voters continue to be beyond my understanding. Their ability to vote against their own best interest is truly awe inspiring. Even more awe inspiring would have been the prospect of seeing Elizabeth Warren debating Trump. If it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch, I could see her as a great vp candidate and running mate for either Biden or Sanders.
16
The Democratic Party has multiple constituencies that are quickly learning to come together in order to defeat the monster in the White House. It's right out of the GOP playbook.
5
It is really quite simple. When Biden wins the Democratic nomination for President, he names Elizabeth Warren as his VP running mate. When Sanders wins the Democratic nomination for President, he names Elizabeth Warren as his VP running mate. The Democrats need to keep this wonderful woman high up in the democratic administration.
14
@James Lochrie. Warren's better suited for the Biden VP slot. They can tell each other wonderful stories about their respective pasts that are both self aggrandizing and not true. She would clash horribly with Mr. Sanders' approach to the truth.
3
@Steve Bruns It sounds like you might be scared of Elizabeth Warren as VP. You should be, because after Biden or Sanders have served their term (s), she would likely step into the presidency. You also seem to think and communicate like Trump by attacking and demeaning people and spitting out lies like Trump, as you did here.
2
The wrong kind of radical to do what? Lose the nomination to a moderate? Lose in the general election? I predict that many Bernie supporters will spend a lot of time blaming “the establishment” if they lose the nomination rather than engaging in any kind of introspection about whether they should have backed a more sensible sounding yet equally progressive candidate who doesn’t carry all the baggage Bernie does.
13
@Alejandro F. And sadly some of them will cling to their “principles” and not vote or waste their vote. What is it about doing the same thing twice that Einstein said? Oh wait, wasn’t he an elitist?
1
The two who perfectly timed when to run in the past fifty years are Bill Clinton and Barak Obama.
Clinton went against a sitting president who just had a military venture in Iraq. And won.
Obama didn't take the advice of waiting "your turn".After only two years in the Senate, he ran against a war hero. And won.
Late Gov Mario Cuomo was the favorite in 1990 to take on Bush 1. He passed. He never recovered.
It was there for Sen Warren in 2015 to take on Hillary and Trump. She could have easily beaten both of them.
Now, it's history.
8
I realize this is the system we have, but someone tell me what winning a primary against "like-minded" opponents has to do with beating the nominee from the other side? All that matters is how 2 million voters in 12 states, +/- will choose between Trump or Biden/Sanders. It doesn't matter an iota which one wins the nomination in NY, CA, IL, NJ, CT DE, MD, etc. Those people who will otherwise stay home, or vote for Trump DEPENDING on the democratic nominee are all that mattes IF getting rid of Trump is the goal. I think it's Biden because I think Bernie would cause more to stay home or vote for the other guy.
6
The number of pieces capable of causing great anxiety published by the Times the last 4+ years is staggering. If you think about the volume of “previously-too-awful-to-even-contemplate” material - kids in cages, et al - that we have come to cope with daily and normalize to which we have had to try to build a response strategy, it’s truly frightening. But this piece takes the cake. I didn’t think anything not coming out of this White House could destroy the United States. But the idea of an ascendant progressive platform so far to the left that I now need to worry about AOC soon turning 35 and rallying them to a frenzy is too terrible to contemplate.
8
The bulk of Americans do not want a radical or a revolution. Elizabeth did not lose because she is a women, but because she could not get much support for her ideas. She sent Bloomberg packing, but in the end that was not enough even though the pundits thought that act alone meant she won the debate.
5
Much as I like Sen. Warren, I think she misjudged the temperament of the electorate. I know many Republicans who voted for Obama because he seemed thoughtful, literate and (most of all) quiet. Warren was out there waving her arms and talking about fighting. That's a losing message. We are all weary of fighting. We want somebody who can reasonably sit down with people they disagree with and with forceful arguments, supporting data for your proposals, etc., broker an agreement and move on. That's the candidate I'm looking for in whichever party. Mayor Pete was sort of there, but he needed to be seasoned. Just my 2 cents worth, but there a many like me.
19
Elizabeth Warren has been a fantastic Senator. I am proud that she represents my state and I'll vote for her in that role again and again and again. She spoke eloquently at Boston Common for the Woman's March, where I stood alongside my wife and daughters. Maybe, I thought, she could become President.
But I was never convinced she fit that role. Too sincere. Too professorial. Warren doesn't have the "IT" necessary to win the office of President. Nor does Michael Bloomberg.
The fact that Warren is a woman is not why she had to bow out. It is simply false to say that a woman can't win. But for her inept campaign Hillary Clinton would have surely won - even with James Comey's interference. (Hillary Clinton, by the way, does have "IT". But I can't forgive her for losing an election she should have won - especially because of what she saddled us with).
Warren's policy positions were not the issue (nor were Clintion's). Warren did, in fact, strike a wonderful balance between the moderate and progressive wings of the party. Which brings me to my final point:
I'll vote Sanders over Trump until the earth stops turning. But the day that AOC becomes the leading voice of the national Blue Party is the day I'll become an independent and start looking for refuge in a Purple Party.
9
Ehh, we can't
When do the media stop labeling Sanders and his policies something negative. Why for instance is it called 'utopian radicalism' in this column? To define a healthy future that includes also blue collar workers and their offfspring is radical? or a utopia?
Sanders is treated similar as Trump in his early campaign. I am sure that when Sanders is chosen the other DNC representatives follow the people and also will support Sanders. The way it is supposed to be however, because that is their job, is that politicians define a route forward that aligns with the needs of the population. Now it seems that the politicians are following the people to see 'what they can get away with. Except for Bernie.He defines the needs of large parts of the US population and makes a plan based those needs.
4
@Stok Maybe because it is "utopian radicalism."
1
Warren and Sanders are pioneers of the left. Their ideas are taking hold. They will come to fruition in a decade if not sooner. They not only change the Democratic Party as we know, they will change the nature of politics in America. The change is upon us as the boomers are exiting, one by one.
8
If Warren had been such a good candidate, why didn't she do better with female voters and the very groups she fights for? The voters voted. Progressives didn't do a very good job.
8
I admire Elizabeth Warren and her stated values. But now what? Is she going to stand on the sidelines and give her implicit support for Joe Biden or stay true to her self and her message and give her unabashed support for Bernie? Is she authentic or all politician? I’m not holding my breath.
4
Elizabeth Warren was the right kind of candidate and would have been the best kind of president but the majority of the country votes emotionally not intellectually. Millennials maybe most of all. So far they are proving themselves wildly impassioned and absurdly entitled, quick to criticize or just reject anything established and devoted to causes particularly economic and racial with which they have little first hand experience. They have an enormous amount in common with the hippies of the late 60s that they now mock as boomers. Just remember young college educated female millennials voted more for Trump than Hillary. The revolution the Left longs for will never happen overnight, not with Bernie and not with AOC because it requires building from within not destroying. The Republican party however will bulldoze violently, destroying everything that doesn't serve it's financial (mostly corporate) interests at the expense of the rest of the country.
9
They’re not mocking former hippies with a withering “OK, Boomer.” Former hippies have remained progressives and today are allies of progressive Millennials and Gen Zers. They’re mocking boomers who supported the Vietnam War and mocked hippies.
This is so funny. If only the Democratic Party could be rebuilt in the image of the progressive left, all would be well. The problem is the progressive left accounts for about 20-25% of the electorate. You don't win national elections with those numbers, son.
7
“son”?
In my opinion what tripped up Senator Warren was her explanation for how she would pay for medicare for all.
There were other factors and having Sanders in the race did not help. I think that she has a great future in the Senate
and could become a key player if a Democrat is elected this November. Senator Warren may not be running for president but there is a possibility that some of her ideas could become reality. Unfortunately there was only room for one of the two Sanders or Warren and she could not break past him. Too bad for the party & the country.
3
Given the headline, I wasn't ready for this type of opinion piece, especially the day after Warren dropped out. Warren, in my eyes, is the most competent. But upon reading it, it was an excellent analysis of the situation. If we remove Trump from the equation, there's still an obstacle every candidate must surmount in the Democratic party - it's machinations, especially on a local level. There's an old rot in the DNC that is part entitlement, part establishment and part corruption just like you would see in any old party. That makes it hard for new ideas and new blood. It's a barrier that prevents citizens from sometimes choosing the best candidate. AOC understood this and was able to fight this machination in NYC through grit that wore down the soles of her shoes. I don't want to see this as a defeat for Warren. She brought good ideas and a good attitude. I've learned a lot from her. I hope her energy and momentum continue in one form or another. It's silly what I'm about to say, but I dream of a day where we put down our party affiliation and just get to work and fix things in the US.
10
A stimulating analysis of complex processes.
Of diverse active and more passive beliefs.
Of ranges of political behaviors.
Sustained as well as not.
We may Be insufficiently sensitive to the built-in limitations which
reality’s ever-present, interacting, dimensions- uncertainties,
unpredictabilities, randomness, outliers, impermanence, and
lack of total control, notwithstanding one’s efforts, timely or not-
can and do effect what occurs, or doesn’t, politically.
What do we need to understand when 2 out of 5 American adults,
who had the right, privilege and opportunity to vote in 2012 and 2016,
CHOSE not to?
What is the “weight” of any political ideology and their manifestations?
Analyzed as well as not.
1
Warren was clearly among the best prepared candidates in the field. Her intellectual rigor and zeal in her fight did not, however, translate to the mass of centrists, which clearly includes the African American community. As a concept, revolution is appealing to many, but the centrist will always feel insecure at what is perceived to be radical change. If Warren could have honed her message, a la Katie Porter, her success might have been greater. But then, there is always sexism. The U.S. electorate has a long way to go, no matter how brilliant AOC may be.
5
By far the biggest problem of this campaign from the progressives is Warren and Bernie not uniting together. They and their supporters both had valid reasons to criticise one another, but it is a big shame that they failed to set aside these differences in an earlier stage, because that is what has lead to probably no change within the party at all. It will damage the party for decades.
3
I can save readers some time here, especially Warren supporters.
This isn't about Warren at all.
It's someone advertising Sanders.
10
The analysis of Sen. Sanders support is spot on. Many of us are reaching the conclusion that we are not Democrats at all. We were always a small part of the Party. The past 3 years for us have been spent, politically, enduring a neo-fascist President while being told by the Democratic Party to get in line behind moderate rhetoric and proposals we do not support. We were as much a part of flipping the House in 2018 as suburban Republicans. But you wouldn't know that given the Democratic Party's embrace of one group and dismissiveness of the other. I think 2020 is the time for those of us who are accurately described in this piece to drop our support for the top of the ticket. We should help flip the Senate and hold the House, but "stay home" at the top of the ticket by writing in Sen. Sanders. That is moderation and compromise. If the Democratic Party can beat Trump without us, we should congratulate them on November 4.
7
I knew right from November 2016, after Hillary lost to Trump, that A Female Presidential Candidate Will Not Win in 2020 Because People Are Suffering From Hillary's Lost Post-Traumatic Syndrome (HLPTS). I said right from November 2016 that it's going to be Bernie versus Biden, and I know that Democrats Will Lose If Bernie Sanders Is Not The Nominee just as it was in 2016. I said the same in Summer 2016 after Bernie Sanders dropped out, that Trump will become the President. And It Came To Past because most Sanders' Independent supporters that I met here in Pennsylvania chose Trump as their second choice. They Have No Love For Either Republican or Democratic Establishment; just like Bernie Sanders himself who's also Independent.
4
Warren and the other women candidates have all dropped out because at the end of the day not enough women supported them. Maybe something buried in our deep political, social, and religious pasts? Living in upstate NY, I am always struck by how relatively few women, even well educated, have gone to Seneca Falls, or taken their children to that historic national monument.
9
"If only the Sanders campaign wasn’t a personality cult"
This is an orwellian statement. If there's a politician on earth that is popular solely due to policy, it's Sanders. Young people don't like Warren because when it was time to choose a side, she "triangulated".
1. Didn't support Bernie in 2016.
2. Ran *against* Bernie in 2020, after he won over 20 states.
3. *Refused* to support him after quitting the race.
She got exactly what she deserved, which is really sad for the tens of millions of americans (plus the planet itself) currently suffering thanks to the power triangulations of people like Warren, Biden, Hillary and Obama.
The vitriol and condescension directed at Sanders and his voters ("personality cult") will act as fuel, just like it happened with Trump voters, and we all know how that turned out.
13
You mention the vitriol pointed at Sanders and his supporters but fail to mention the vitriol by Bernie's supporters levied at union leaders in Nevada. It is important to recognize it is a two-way street and no political party should enforce purity tests. The various wings of the party must unite or we move backwards. By Ralph Nader running in 2000, Gore lost (albeit with help from the Supreme Court) and the justices appointed by Bush cemented the majority for the Citizens United decision. Likewise, the votes garnered by Jill Stein in 2016 in 3 crucial Midwestern states prevented Clinton from winning the Electoral College. As a direct result, the U.S. under Trump has pulled out of the Paris accord, revoked CAFE standards on cars and trucks set by Obama and sought to get rid of the Clean Power Plan, the most ambitious set of restrictions on power plants ever devised. Hence, history demonstrates demands for purity undermine actual progress.
16
Insisting that the Left unite with moderates every 4 years is a Party purity test that you, and many "moderate" Democrats, are invoking. You have tripped before tyng your shoes. Even worse, you are blaming the Left for the actions of Republicans that were enabled by the failures of moderate Democratic Party candidates. Candidates cost themselves elections. To insist otherwise is to endorse the belief that somehow a candidate is entitled to certain votes.
6
The problem with Warren that none of her media adorers like to touch is that she is inauthentic, backed by evidence, and leaned on identity politics to buttress her credentials, rather than letting policy speak for itself. She is never going to appeal to the far left Twitter mob because she is trying to thread a needle and get mainstream support. Those people want to crush the mainstream. Who will simply laugh.
This far left movement already succeeded. It reformed the party. Not enough for some but for most.
4
A brilliant, talented, for the people Senator. The Democrat party is frightened of her for no justifiable reason other than she is too radical, America is not ready. America was not ready for a DJT, but got one instead. Same old wisdom, same old mistake.
Yes, win in 2020, lose in 2024 again - why? Same old, same old thinking. By then Nancy won't be around to hold the fort. Who in the Democrat franchise can stand the onslaught of a reformed GOP?
@aboutface
She dropped out for her own faults and deficits:
- Her HC course had been a roller coaster. From M4A to - what? An overcomplicated "option" model in several stages nobody understands that obviously contradicts 3 basic rules of universal HC: No option to opt out completely, pooling to achieve bargaining power required for cost cut and simple handling in all individual cases. The Warren model was a typical paper brainchild of an academic.
- She was not honest about costs. Universal HC never comes for free. The only option is higher taxes or special compulsory contribution of those who are benefiting from the insurance effect. The is offset by saving self-payments and exclusion of existential risks but it has to be paid by premiums in non-tecnical temrs. She tried to hide it.
- Focusing on feminist issues and small minority issues according to pure doctrine of identity politics is overlooking that the downside of this focus is always the systematic neglect of all others who are not members of preferred minority groups. So she scored wiith high-skilled white college women and urban hipsters but not with a majority living an ordinary life.
- She first ranted against all PACs but she finally relied on one.
- Advocating a radical shift but shooting on the "head revolutionist" Mr. Sanders permanently (sometimes below the belt) on corporate Dems instead isn´t really "progressive".
And so the inevitable happened: Blunders and withdrawal due to her own deficits.
No it was misogyny. Voters included women concluded she could not win. Sad but true.
A theory here about why Warren couldn't get more support despite her qualifications. It has something to do with her being a woman, but it's not misogyny, or perhaps not only misogyny. It's that the majority of men sense that high-achieving women don't like them. Study after study shows that women are much more interested in relationships with high-achieving men than men are interested in relationships with high-achieving women. Warren's policies may serve the economic interests of ordinary men, but in personal terms most men--most by deinition here meaning ordinary--see her as someone who looks down on them.
6
@Alexander Menzies, She lost the women's vote, too. Back to the drawing board.
1
What a mishmash. Where are these studies?
Why is AOC even mentioned in the same light as these long term experienced politicians. Let her get a few decades experience then talk - it’s an insult to these others to give any level of comparison now.
15
@Michael, She will lose her seat this Fall. In the words of the late John McLaughlin, "Bye-bye!"
1
The Republicans didn’t worry about saving the Republican Party, they were focused on winning. Now they control all the levers of power and are altering life on earth. The concern shouldn’t be the institution of the party, but on bringing back democracy with a small “d”. People opposed to the Trump regime must focus on the imminent threat and can deal with other issues later.
14
AOC isn’t gonna be president. Stop glomming onto candidates with just as high (or even higher) negative ratings among people as positive ratings. Unpopularity is just as important as popularity in national elections.
11
As a boomer leftie, my politics lean Bernie and Liz, but a shared tin ear problem hobbles them. One message, one speed, one intensity. Cranky Old Dyspeptic Bernie, and "FIGHT-FIGHT-FIGHT" Liz. Biden may stumble as he constructs a thought on the fly. But he is usually, actually, trying to say something. Bernie and Liz, well-meaning, stay robotically on script. Unrelatable, impolitic, and unbearable.
Bernie's deep truth is a Song of Innocence, black and white, and, his plan doesn't pencil. A middle road will get left faster. Liz has a plan, but we won't listen to her for four years, much less eight.
Recall the Bachelor drinking game: take a drink when:
-a helicopter shows up, or
-when someone says s/he's there "For the Right Reasons."
I was tempted to drink every time Warren said "Fight." I'd have entered a program.
I so miss Amy Klobuchar..
10
Are you suggesting that Warren had really no interest in MFA. that her support was some kind of political ruse to gain support on the left. Tell this to DR. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, one of the founders of Physicians for National Health, a Warren supporter.
Are you saying that AOC , the Justice Democrats, and the DSA are the backbone of the Sanders movement. These groups gestated into existence in 2016.
Are you saying that mayor Pete, of all people, was somehow in political union with Warren years ago.
I simply do not buy your narrative.
4
The United States has already proven it is ready for a female POTUS. Does no one remember the 2016 results? Despite Sen. Sanders splitting the Democratic vote, Hillary Clinton received the overwhelming majority of the popular vote. Sen. Sanders and his "feel the Bern" supporters gave us the current occupant. Gender had nothing to do with the results.
10
@June, Every candidate builds a coalition based on political calculation. Clinton made a play for suburban moderates and took for granted the support of the Obama coalition and part of the Sanders coaltion. As even Trump has noted, the one person that he didn't want Clinton to pick as VP was Sanders, because of trade. Instead she went with Tim Kaine. It was like watching Al Gore picking Joe Lieberman. In 2008, Obama overcame a much higher primary defection rate -- estimated at 20% (including Clinton donors like Donald Trump). He was able to overcome the primary defections because he built a large coalition that included independents and irregular voters. The person who loses the nomination is not responsible for the calculations made by the nominee in the run-up to the general election.
7
‘Americans will always do the right thing....after exhausting all the alternatives.’
The right thing was so close....but then Americans chose yet another alternative, again. Just how long is this going to take?
4
Elizabeth Warren is going to be missed and would have made a better president than any other candidate. She was the most qualified
22
@Dr John
"Dr John" says she was the most qualified. Biden was senator for generations, where he was Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for years, and a two term vice president.
Warren really hasn't done much in her time short in the Senate. He therefore was light years more qualified than Warren. She was certainly a better student than Biden, but being class president (which Biden also was several times) doesn't qualify one to make a good president.
Feminist hyperbole often ignores the facts, but this one is glaring even by modest standards.
3
More qualified than someone who was Vice President for 8 years and a life time of politics before that? I think not.
1
@Chris M Warren put together the proposals and the financing, on everything.
Our [robloem is simply stated by my wife:
“Americans simply want to be entertained”
For instance, I’ve made appx. 400 calls for Sen Warren; how many have you made for whomever is your choice ? ? ?
"While Mr. Sanders offered them red meat, the other candidates were trying to sell an Impossible Burger."
That pretty much sums it up succinctly. That's the reason why the Bernie Bros would never cede to Warren, no matter what she does.
To be honest, AOC being the "shiny new object," I'm not even sure if she can survive a re-election. Apart from soundbites that grabs news headlines and being noisy on social media, what has she really accomplished as a lawmaker? The Green New Deal is just a pie-in-the-sky without any real hope to getting passed.
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with climate change. Income/wealth inequality is just as real. There's a big difference between just being a noisy activist and a lawmaker. You can keep making noises and still accomplish nothing. (The same issue with the 16yo Thunbger, as a matter of fact.)
Warren has started out with reasonable positioning and posture early on in her campaign. But as she kept tacking left to court Sander's supporters, she's increasingly anatagonizing those in the center while she's never considered "woke" enough by the far-left. In the end, she's abandoned by all but a small group of original supporters. And the rest is history.
9
@tiddle
Yes, she maneuvered liberally in the campaign to position herself better but she has had far left leanings for awhile. One might be reminded of her 2018 foreign policy speech at American University where she derided capitalism's allure in the former Soviet Union. She's always had opportunistic ambition and I'm sure this will translate into a high level position if the democrats win the White House, but she played the gender card and that will be a ball and chain for her in any future elections.
1
@Chris M, Agree. As a woman myself, I find her playing of the gender card rather petty, even though sexism is all too real. In comparison, Buttigieg plays his hand perfectly when people tried to thrash him for being gay.
I feel the same pettiness when she tried to thrash Bloomberg for the unsubstantiated sexual harrassment issue, and harangued him for the releasing the women from the NDA (which he already did). Main media tried to make that her moment in thwarting Bloomberg's rise, but I simply don't see it that way. In fact, all things considered, he did respectably in his short campaign (propped up by $500m notwithstanding).
I worked in a field that's very male-dominated. As a woman, we have to rise above the fray. Stick with the issues, and don't get personally. That's the way to go.
1
I was close to tears when I heard of Ms. Warren dropping out of the race. Sanders/ Biden visually guarantee a landslide victory for Trump.
3
I imagine “millennial” is too broad a category for Bernie’s supporters—I think they are proponents of the idea of socialism when the kind of society we want to create can’t really be characterized by either the terms socialism or capitalism/ Both Warren and Bernie supporters probably want the social democracies that many European countries have created which socialize needs and capitalize the extras. I’m a broken-hearted Warren voter who is astonished by the animus online by too many (not all!) Bernie supporters toward her—the ignorance of her positions is awful and dispiriting for the future, the misogyny (from both men and women) left me agog. We can’t make our identities synonymous with a candidate, we are part of many groups.
10
add. Quite right that AOC’s endorsement of Bernie was a blow to Warren and surprised me. Naomi Klein’s came after. And I also agree that Mayor Pete was instrumental in Warren’s loss—as she had begun her ascent, Pete attacked several times in the debate and the media loved it—“he’s showing strength!!!”. The media and for other reasons, the people, want a strongman.
Our first woman president may likely be Nicki Haley. She’s experienced, intelligent, articulate, and knows her way around government and global politics. She also might appeal to moderates in both parties. Extremists on either side create extreme divisiveness. We need someone who can unify the country, not tear it apart.
4
No one who was part of the Trump administration will still have a political career ten years from now, if there is any justice.
22
She threatened other countries in the UN saying she was ‘taking a list’ of those who didn’t support the US motions..that doesn’t seem very moderate to me for someone who was meant to be ambassador to the UN at the time.
17
@Michael Nikki Is smart, tough and likable, unlike Senator Warren. She has a very bright future!
Agreed. Senator Warren's supporters are convinced gender discrimination was the main culprit for her campaign's failure to resonate with more people, and while I'm sure there's some truth to that, it's kind of an abstract thing to quantify. She certainly enjoyed more favorable media coverage than Sanders ever received.
2016 was her best chance. Bernie Sanders only entered the race to challenge Hillary Clinton after Senator Warren made clear she wouldn't run. Fast forward to 2019, and Warren decides to run for the progressive lane after Sanders already had an established grassroots campaign that nearly won in 2016 against all odds. He even single handedly forced the party to acknowledge single payer health care may not be such a horrific thing. Something that'd been anathema inside the Washington beltway for decades.
I'm very disheartened that the media and establishment candidates seemed to have succeeded in their full court press to stop Bernie, while Warren drops out and plays it cool. I can't decide whether she's lost her way or was never the selfless progressive politician I thought. A non-endorsement of Bernie is essentially a tacit endorsement of Biden. Fine if that's what you want.
12
This "Sanders can't beat Trump in the general" trope that keeps going around is based in what, exactly? The recent polling shown on realclearpolitics show Sanders winning in 9 of 9 polls, with spreads of between 2 and 8 percentage points.
I suspect it's all projection: "_I_ can't imagine voting for Sanders, so I can't imagine anyone else can, either!" Wake up and smell the zeitgeist. There are a lot of people who don't find Sanders' anger off-putting precisely because they are angry, too. If you haven't caught onto to this yet, well, I guess you have really not been paying attention for the last decade or two.
17
@Abraham
Apparently, most Democrats voting on Super Tuesday did not agree with you.
And the 18-29 voter age group failed to show in large numbers. Where is the deep support for Sanders hiding?
9
not a question of electability. the majority simply prefers Biden. tired of hearing Sanders is rejected because of electability. he is rejected because of his policies
7
I remember when Sanders supporters didn’t believe in polls.
5
A nice piece with a lot of history I haven't seen anywhere else.
2
"Mr. Sanders’s core supporters are intent on remaking it from the ground up."
On the contrary, if they wanted to remake the party, they would get involved in party politics at the local level and effect rule changes and seat progressives who could on to become delegates, etc. That's how movements take hold and shape and become enduring. They've had four years to do that. But they want none of that boring busy work. They want to cut off the party's head and seat a new king. It doesn't work that way.
16
@Michael - - - But that is precisely how Lenin and Stalin gained control of Russia, and how Trotsky ended up with a free ice axe.
1
I am a "Warren bro." She would've been a great executive and America would have been much better for it.
The U.S. has never chosen competent leadership - celebrity always wins, the old names recycled again and again, long past their sell-by date (Clinton, Biden, Bush, Trump - names from an era when Nirvana and Seinfeld were the hot new things). It was always going to be Biden vs. Sanders, and then Biden vs. Trump.
We don't need them to actually speak coherently, formulate great policy or lead, as we just need their names/brand. Might as well just use their Madame Tussaud wax figure - less hassle.
18
Warren is an extremely bright, energetic, and articulate person. She knows a great deal bout almost everything of importance that is needed to govern except for one thing: simple arithmetic. Trillions roll off her tongue like a summer breeze - balmy and sweet. Who could resist? But when she focuses on the input side, there is the stench of something rotten. All this assumes that the Democrats will win large majorities in the house and senate. There is no evidence of that. So with either Warren or Sanders there would be years of continued legislative stagnation.
And neither Elizabeth Warren nor Bernie Sanders can do basic math. And if you don't think that a superpower can go broke, just contemplate the Soviet Union. Yes, we are embarking on a whole new bunch of problems: climate change, refugees on the march south to north, AI destroying middle class jobs, and now the possible destruction of the global economy by the new corona virus. And none of these problems can be solved by a bunch of angry young people who feel they are entitled to be participants in a working economy and a comfortable culture because, because, well, because they exist, that's why.
4
And yet it has been the Republicans who have spent us into a debt way beyond anything a Democratic administration has. And what have we to show for it?
11
@Mary Smith
I am not a Sanders’ fan but he has definitely touched upon the weaknesses of an economy that provides an ever greater concentration of wealth by a small billionaire class and ever decreasing share by most everyone else. That is not sustainable. Sooner or later such a gross imbalance will lead to a breaking point. We are seeing the signs of it now with populist revolution of Sanders.
6
AOC could learn a lot from Nancy Pelosi and hopefully doesn't miss the chance by thinking she knows it all already. Multiracial base for Sanders did not materialize so far, except for some Hispanic support in Nevada and California. His angry attitude and his surrogates' angry attitude turns people off from some of his very good ideas - he plays the victim card too much and people are sick of it. Should run as an Independent, then he could stop complaining about the Democratic Party. Warren or Abrams for Biden's VP could save the day. Wish Warren was president but there is still 2024.
6
Warren was and is the best person for the job in my opinion. As a Wisconsin resident I never even had a chance to vote for her. The primary system is a sham that disenfranchises anyone voting after super Tuesday.
18
Warren as Commander and Chief? That’s the factor that folks who want a woman POTUS never consider...What in the heck does a groovy Harvard professor (who would be awesome in a Cabinet) know about military leadership?! Now Tulsi does has an edge in that department... I agree that the first woman POTUS will probably be a conservative Republican ...Or a female Democratic ex-fighter jet pilot...Gotta have a unique macho edge...
"...but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action..."
7
I’ve thought about this post and I’m not sure who the MLK quote is supposed to target. Is Warren the white moderate? Is it Biden? Is it white people who refused to vote for Warren?
Yet it is the descendants of Dr. King, the sons and daughters of the civil rights movement, who put Biden the white moderate ahead of Bernie the class warrior.
1
Yes, Warren had the more polished policy chops. But she has revealed herself to be a niche candidate supported mostly by academic, professional and managerial liberals. No harm in that, but that coalition doesn’t win elections ... even in Massachusetts! Going forward, Warren’s main problem will be holding on to her seat and her political career. How much more fruitful and profitable would it have been if she had decided early on to join forces with Bernie in order to strengthen the progressive causes they both claim to champion. At least the two camps then could have avoided vomiting all this bile. Biden on the other hand will show himself to be a continuous unfolding disaster, particularly as a nominee. Here’s hoping Warren will choose the future instead of the past.
8
She’s smart and qualified. I look forwards to seeing her again after the one-term Biden Administration.
9
The point of this piece is to dissuade Warren supporters from turning to Sanders. The point is to shame reasonable progressive voters into supporting Biden. Warren was my first choice. I was hoping for an authentic encomium after a hard-fought campaign. Instead, the author uses Warren as a weapon against her own values. The DNC isn't a big tent; it's a wine cave.
17
@ARB
Same as it ever was.
Where do you think Warren fits in all this?
1
Sanders talks. Then he talks some more. Then he yells. He yells, but still, his devotees don't show up and vote.
Warren is a gifted craftsman of policies, which is what America needs. Trouble is, the Democrats are steeped in Hillary-fear, the nagging suspicion that, unlike every other Democracy on the planet, the USA is not ready for a female Chief Executive. Warren would have made a wonderful President, and it is our lose as a nation that such is no longer an option in 2020.
35
@Michael Song Lim
Warren is intelligent, capable, and talented, but in debates, she failed miserably in trying to overcome strong criticism of her Medicare for All plan. To counter this criticism, she moved to overkill over drive in her criticism of other Democratic candidates. She lost a lot of votes
4
@Michael Song Lim
Not only are we not his "devotes" but many of us don't belong to the Dim party either.
And you aren't helping bring us in now are you.
But you're not trying to huh.
1
Progressive/moderates, liberal/conservative, white collar/blue collar, left/right, suburban women/inner city minorities - these are the political fault lines that shaped the political landscape for the last quarter century. These political fault lines have been replace by a populist/pragmatist divide. This new and powerful divide scrambles traditional political coalitions and voting patterns. Warren and the other Democratic candidates have not developed an appreciation of this new political dynamic. They do not have a coherent value system or language that functions well in this new type of divided political landscape.
6
Before you start endorsing a wealth tax you should read the Constitution. Here is Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4:
"No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken." (A direct tax is one levied on people or property; an indirect tax is one levied on transactions.) The Supreme Court ruled in 1895 that most income taxes are direct taxes and hence unConstitutional. The response was to pass the 16th Amendment to the Constitution; that says: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." Wealth is not income, so the 16th Amendment does not allow a tax on wealth. A tax on individual wealth would be a direct tax so is forbidden by Article 1. I think a wealth tax might (or might not) be a good idea - but it seems quite explicitly forbidden by the Constitution. And if you think the current Supreme Court is going to start reading a wealth tax into the Constitution you are living in fantasy land.
6
Before you start endorsing a wealth tax you should read the Constitution. Here is Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4:
"No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken." (A direct tax is one levied on people or property; an indirect tax is one levied on transactions.) The Supreme Court ruled in 1895 that most income taxes are direct taxes and hence unConstitutional. The response was to pass the 16th Amendment to the Constitution; that says: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." Wealth is not income, so the 16th Amendment does not allow a tax on wealth. A tax on individual wealth would be a direct tax so is forbidden by Article 1. I think a wealth tax might (or might not) be a good idea - but it seems quite explicitly forbidden by the Constitution. And if you think the current Supreme Court is going to start reading a wealth tax into the Constitution you are living in fantasy land.
3
Wow - the premise of this article, and the subsequent misogynistic comments. Just wow. Let's just dispense with the word "relatable" and instead say "the candidate wasn't a while male". We have, no wait, HAD, a candidate who was experienced, fluent in policy, articulate, and existed in the crazy sweet spot between moderate and radical left. Shame on the process, and social norms, which deprived us of this candidate.
25
Real change is usually incremental, rarely revolutionary.
9
Successful revolutionaries tend to take on the worst aspects of the regimes they have overthrown, to paraphrase something I heard once.
1
Elizabeth Warren tried to be Bernie Sanders, but didn't have the luxury of leaving all the specifics aside the way he does, because her image is one of a policy-oriented person who feels the pain of the Average American -- why , she's just a schoolteacher from the prairie who couldn't have made it without her Aunt Bee. Bernie is an idealistic revolutionary dreamer. She isn't.
Socialism is a good deal more appealing without having to go into too much detail. Sanders doesn't, and she did, and she paid the price for taking some of the luster off the socialist fantasy. How dare she. Though of course Monsieur Shenk, working for Dissent, doesn't see that. The escalator to nowhere that he claims kids get put on is an escalator people the world over die trying to access.
One day, if the socialist Left actually gets power, are they going to enjoy it? They seem to have a rip-roaring good time being out of power. Yes? Isn't it true that today's revolutionary is tomorrow's conservative? Maybe the Left can change the country such that conservatives are soon seen as radicals. But it is a pity they'll have to shed their anti-Establishment bona fides.
Actually, I'm sure us holdouts will have new eyes under the new regime, and see how spectacular and just our socialist paradise really is -- and what fools we were to have ever opposed it.
7
Warren's only mistake was not to challenge Hillary in 2016 ceding the progressive platform to Sanders. Bernie's supporters in loyalty have miscalculated as Biden would have been history had they coalesced behind Warren's candidacy.
15
@Paul
Yeah, no.
Warren signed the secret pledge with the other female senators back in '13 to HRC and her Pres. campaign.
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/10/in-secret-letter-senate-democratic-women-rally-behind-hillary-clinton
She was never going to run.
But she certainly played it up didn't she.
Just like she admitted the '16 primary was rigged.
Then two days latter began to walk that back too.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/02/politics/elizabeth-warren-dnc-rigged/index.html
Just like she turned on an old friend in a cheap political maneuver that ended her chance. Her political acumen is awful.
We've seen the long knifes in action. We know who is bought and who isn't.
Miscalculated?
It wasn't those loyal to Sanders who were played the fool.
1
I liked Elizabeth Warren as head of the consumer financial protection bureau, but she was so strident as a Presidential candidate that I couldn't even watch the debates. I didn't want to hear the Democratic candidates tear into each other like attack dogs, and it doesn't matter to me that Elizabeth Warren did it better. She is not likable as a person as long as she keeps mudslinging, and she stands zero chance of being elected president even if she by some miracle were to get the nomination.
I voted for Joe Biden for two reasons: 1.) I like the guy and hope that he will continue President Obama's legacy if elected. 2.) I hated the way Republicans and President Trump colluded to tell a false story about Joe Biden and Burisma, playing into Russian talking points. As far as I am concerned, I'll never vote for a Republican again after this, the party has abandoned all moral strictures and has become a personality cult. I would have been happy with any of the Democratic candidates as President, but I was totally turned off by Elizabeth Warrren's vitriol and lack of civility as a campaigner, despite the fact that I agree with her platform. She needs to learn more about congeniality and civility in order to be taken seriously, in my opinion.
11
Interesting. The men were the ones who seemed to be slinging the most mud. And Bernie embodies the “screamer/finger pointer” more than any other candidate out there. When a woman speaks with passion, it’s a whole other deal...Wow. Just wow.
My sentiments exactly!
This whole situation would've looked so different if we had ranked choice voting now.
26
@Mattie - No it wouldn't. We would end up with the same two old white guys.
"...and the populist revolution that was supposed to sweep new voters to the polls has failed to arrive."
It arrived in 2016. It arrived as Bernie, and it arrived as Trump. It won as Trump because the DNC made sure Bernie couldn't be the nominee.
That populism wave is still here, in the form of Trump. And strugglingly in the form of Bernie. I bet there are millions of voters who *want* to vote for Bernie, but vote for Biden out of fear. They could try to justify this vote as being cautious, pragmatic, realistic, SANE, but I think it's just another vote for the democratic establishment.
I'll vote for Biden when he's named the nominee. Cuz he will be. So you can stop your Sanders thrashing now. It's sickening for a good hearted Bernie supporter to read. I would have voted for Warren--happily. I'll vote for Biden--happily. I'd vote for Bernie with a courageous heart. And I will in AZ, be sure of it.
14
Trump definitely has the right wing populist stance on immigration down. And his shameless pandering to his base is populist in nature. But his real achievements have been in establishing right wing judicial rule and cutting taxes on the rich and corporate deregulation. Those are Republican establishment principles, and they are what Trump has actually accomplished. Much to my own personal dismay.
I find the idea that warren lost because she is a woman silly. like many i voted for hillary and then obama in 2008 and 2012. warren was not even in the picture when sanders mounted a big challenge against hillary and lost in 2016. i wanted to vote for kamala when she announced her plans to run, even if she was going to lose. my neice said, what is the point in voting for the loser ? even many young women believe in voting for the candidate that has the best chance of winning. simply stated, both biden and sanders are better candidates than her, whether it is their politics or policy. when a woman candidate excites a broad base of voters, and convinces them that she will win by a big margin, she will get elected. it may not happen in my lifetime. at this point, i think if biden is nominated he should chose as his running mate a future president. the mistake bill clinton made was chosing al gore as his vp. he should have chosen the next bill clinton or obama, someone who could excite voters, as his running mate.
6
Warren seems obsessed with two things; a woman president and a war against people making a lot of money legally through the capitalist system. She also believes she's the smartest person in whatever room she's in.
Her big regret, she announced today, was that young girls would have to wait another 4 years to have a woman president. I'll be happy with a sane president, gender isn't really that important.
Instead of questioning Mike Bloomberg about his misogyny and NDA's in a measured way, perhaps privately, she went after him in an ugly way, forgetting that while competing, they were on the same team.
Her animus stems from his being a billionaire. Why not begin with millionaires? What's the cut off between what's acceptable, according to her and what's not? Should we all earn the same, or not earn anything and have our food, clothing, shelter provided by an entity other than our own initiative, like maybe the State?
Warren lost in her home state, she is of no use to Sanders. She's of less use to Biden. Her world view is quite different than his. Her best place is back in the Senate, at least until her term is up.
.
16
“Elizabeth Warren Was the Wrong Kind of Radical
She wanted to reform everything except the Democratic Party itself.”
Right on the first part, but wrong on the second, Mr. Shenk. She’s the wrong kind of radical because she’s a she.
On second thought, wrong on the first; she’s not a radical. There is nothing radical about income equality, healthcare for all, or regulating banks and finance. It’s just common sense in a fair and level capitalist system.
24
Sanders can't win the general election. Biden can. Although I am a staunch liberal, I have friends who are never-Trump Republicans and they told me they would vote for Biden but not Sanders. Whether or not it's unfortunate that Democrats must rely on Republicans for votes-- and I think it is-- their opinion reflects the reality of many Republicans, and even Democratic moderates, voting in the fall. For me, that's enough to vote Biden.
28
@Emily On what planet will Biden win the general election? He is way worse than Hillary and Trump will be better equipped in 2020 than in 2016.
1
@Emily
That is the same strategy that lost Hillary the GE 4yrs. ago.
Chuck Schumer explaining the same impressive political acumen as Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, sagely explaining “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
It was stupid then, and worse now. But we'd expect nothing less than Conservadems thinking with their money.
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/14/chuck-schumer-the-worst-possible-democratic-leader-at-the-worst-possible-time/
1
In my lifetime America has made some critical errors: the VIetnam was, the invasion of Iraq and the election of DOnald Trump being chief among them. But the greatest one of all may well prove to be the failure to elect Elizabeth Warren the 46th President of the United States. At this particular moment in history her intelligence, fearlessness, empathy and competence are the clear antidote for what we are suffering. No one else comes close.
To blame her for a failure to reform the Democratic Party is to blame the victim. The fault lies with the Party and the voters who, out of fear, ignorance or bias failed to elevate the person best suited for the job.
39
Warren would have done the best job undressing Trump on the debate stage (though I doubt Trump would have debated her). Would that have been enough to win the election? Perhaps. Her failure to connect with voters other than white educated women should have come as no surprise if one listened to her. I hope she comes out for Biden soon, because it would indicate to progressive voters that Biden is amenable to incorporating her ideas into his platform without facing socialist accusations from Trump.
9
If Biden has any political smarts, he'll make her his running mate tomorrow.
12
This is a very cogent analysis of the dilemma Democrats face. Rather than hating on each other, like so many here are.. why don't we just listen to everyone's point-of-view and think for ourselves? Like it or not, the Democratic Party is broken. Why? It made a Faustian bargain with Wall Street, because the average American just does not know how to think critically. In fact, the average human does not know. However, and regardless, you can trust leadership like that being presented by Bernie Sanders. He may seem rigid and dogmatic to some, but that's exactly what we need right now. And young voters better be listening right now, because if they don't show up to vote (I mean, really?), then there's no point complaining when 10 corporations own everything, including the government, and they don't need you to survive climate change. The end is near, unless we wake up now.
10
Just as in 2018, every congressional candidate endorsed and supported by AOC lost in the primary. The media may love her, but ultimately, like Sanders, she's all hat and no cattle.
16
A Friday night in October 2016, David Brooks was on PBS NewsHour saying the Republican Party was done for.
A few weeks later, Trump won.
But my opinion is that these chickens are going to come home to roost. The « Trump thing » is going to either slowly implode, or very quickly implode. Mitch McConnell will go into retirement.
Brooks was wrong in October 2016, but maybe 5 or 7 years later, he will be at least half-right.
The only thing going well is the economy, and the things pushing the economy are not sustainable. Government debt and a stock market bubble.
Radical left wing ideas are not needed. Fixing up Obamacare and higher taxes on the wealthy, these are the things needed, but not much more. Or if more, small things. The Democratic Party shouldn’t panic too fast. Their primary adversary is in far more trouble than they are, and a little more time, and it will be clear sailing.
Demographics are in the Democratic Party’s favor. Brooks will turn out to be right, in the long run. It is just going to take some time.
1
I voted for Hillary in 2016, but with Warren I simply could not get past her pretending to be Native American for years. Also, most of her ideas are rehashed Sanders ideas. Nope.
12
@magnolia311 : I actually used to like Warren very much -- read both of her books! -- but she's swung radically hard left this past year -- probably trying to pick up Sander's voters.
She also made an awful mistake with that DNA test.
The only thing that will prevent Sanders’ far left agenda to succeed in future presidential elections is money; big money; Michael Bloomberg kind of money. Mr. Bloomberg wasted no time after ending his own presidential run in vowing financial support to Joe Biden. Likewise, as soon as Mr. Biden showed signs of life after Super Tuesday, the checkbooks of Wall Street’s other big guns came out of their suit jackets. This isn’t just about defeating Donald Trump. This is about the billionaires calling the shots, controlling the Democratic Party, and controlling the presidency behind the scenes.
13
And that’s why the US needs three major parties instead of two. The centre— from both ends of the spectrum— will no longer hold.
7
I feel for anyone disappointed about not having a President Warren or Harris or Klobuchar. But there's an opportunity here. Biden isn't more than a one-term prez at best.
Warren or some other deserving choice ---- Harris Gilibrand Klobuchar ----- may yet get a chance to become VP.
We also saw more female candidates than ever before. That alone is a sure sign of progress.
One of America's Greatest Qualities is its Optimism!
Thank you.
6
Joe Biden stands NO chance against Donald Trump. He is as inspiring as bland water. Sadly neither does Bernie Sanders. But the rise of Bernie Sanders surely signals a natioan-wide shift to the left , which could potential splinter the Democratic party in the coming decade.
3
“Mr. Sanders’s core supporters are intent on remaking [the party] from the ground up.They want a new coalition grounded in the multiracial working-class and less dependent on affluent professionals; a new donor class made up of grass-roots contributors; a new base of activists who read magazines like Jacobin and come out of groups like Democratic Socialists of America”.
They could always start their own party?
10
A radical would fight to change the 2-party-winner-take-all-lesser-of-2-evil system starting with the Electoral College. I know radical and sir and Elizabeth Warren is no radical.
5
I'm tired of people saying Biden is the "establishment candidate." I'm a solidly middle class voter and could care less about the establishment. Biden appeals to me for one simple reason: he can beat Trump. I kept hearing that Sanders was the better candidate and finally looked at the head-to-head polls people like Michael Moore keep brandishing as some sort of indisputable proof of this. Surprise - they show Biden doing as well as Sanders against Trump in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the Midwest states the Dems need to win. I understand people want big changes in how this country runs, but I don't buy the idea that the candidate that gets everyone excited is going to win. Sanders scares people like me who don't think the country needs a radical overhaul. We want steady efforts made to address national problems, not a wholesale makeover.
25
He might not think himself part of the establishment, but the establishment believes he is and so does his opponent. Just a fact.
1
@Joe
You've now had 50yrs. of moderate/centrist Democratic control, shared with an ever more Rightward Republicans.
How's the steady efforts working out for the lower working class of America?!
The state of the nation and it's trajectory isn't because of the Left.
This is on you.
1
Sure yes yes of course, but let's not overthink this. The fact is, the young Bernie supporters didn't show up and the VAST MAJORITY of Democrats, based on the actual humans who could be bothered to vote on Super Tuesday, decide "Nah, we like neoliberalism just fine." I don't how you remake that with any one person, no matter how charismatic. The reason we had FDR was the depression and WW-II which forged a collective narrative of shared suffering and struggle. Maybe coronavirus will do that for this generation - but a mere politician in the absence of some extant tidal shift in the population? Get real. No human being is that convincing, the tide of history is simply deeper that. This moment is about damage control and getting back to something people recognize as normative. Just doing that will be an accomplishment.
18
America needs a huge catastrophe, on the scale of WW II, to get over the current tribalism and come together again. Too bad
Warren had two strikes on her when she started. There has been only (3) Progressive presidents in our history. Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Taft. The last one about one hundred years ago. The second strike was we have never had a female president.
5
She was certainly the wrong kind of candidate for Maine. There are 455 cities and town in Maine, and Warren only carried one of them. Think of that: 1 town out of 455. The town is Northfield in Washington County, where she got 6 of the 18 votes cast. Biden, Sanders, and Bloomberg each got 4 votes.
6
This has nothing to do with her being a woman; remember that she was leading in the polls last fall. She has only herself to blame that those numbers didn't hold, because suddenly she stopped sounding like a problem-solving fighter and started sounding like just another mealy-mouthed politician who wouldn't give straight answers and started attacking everyone else instead of focusing on her own message, which was becoming increasingly muddled.
If she were serious about supporting the progressive cause she would have dropped out before Super Tuesday or endorsed Sanders today. If she were serious about uniting the party she would have come out with an endorsement today for either Sanders or Biden instead of waiting to see which way the political winds blow. At this point neither progressives nor moderates have any reason to trust her.
Last summer I gave my first-ever political contribution to her campaign. I was literally invested in her, and she let me down.
19
@James Jacobs
I believe the way to look at this is, either way, Senator Warren will be disappointing a friend and colleague.
With that kind of outcome decisions cannot be rushed. This is not like Mayor Pete and Sen. Klobuchar who were both in the moderate camp. She has to be deliberative and set the right tone when she does come out.
Senator Warren came out first over a yr. ago and has been campaigning hard and it is no small matter to decide which ship to jump on as she weighs the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Deliberative she is .... no decision from the hip for her. Respect her right to wind down.
6
The premise of this article completely ignores that the first bill she promised to submit was an anti-corruption bill, which practically would have done a great deal to reform the Democratic Party. You can call this a compromise, but if the only true way to reform the Democratic Party is to tear it down and start over, you better know how to actually build a party to win elections and, most importantly, to effectively govern. You need "a plan for that," something that Sanders, for all his strengths, has not explained and not delivered on, which after five years of campaigning is incredibly frustrating. Good community organizing is about showing how you get from point A to point B. It's not just about critique; it's not just about tearing things down; it's not just about dissent. If that's all one values, one can still be useful (critics serve a role) but not effective, not a difference maker. And all the young people I know and work with actually respect results and need to see tangible progress to stay engaged. Over at Huffington Post is an article titled "Elizabeth Warren Has Changed the Democratic Party," makes a much more grounded case.
15
The difference between Sanders, to whose cult this writer pretty clearly belongs, and Warren is between empty revolution and meaningful reform. Between nihilism and hope. Between performative anger to no larger purpose, and hard work to solve real problems.
By the time Warren wrote that check to Obama, Sanders had been in Congress for a decade. Over the next ten years, she went from a revered professor to the leading voice against the obscene "bankruptcy reform" that Biden led in the Senate, to the creator of the CFPB, to a Senator herself. Meanwhile, Bernie moved to the upper house of Congress, considered primarying Obama, and got a couple post offices named.
There is simply no comparison between the two on the merits--nor between their press treatment. She attempted to show her math on Medicare for All--her worst mistake, IMO--and got killed for it; Bernie won't even suggest a number, and hand-waves the real disruption that any such "revolutionary" change will bring. It's almost as if he knows it's a pipe dream!
If Ocasio-Cortez--a generational political talent, yes, who's also never run anything bigger than a congressional campaign--does break through, it'll be because she's much more Warren than Sanders. Here's hoping.
33
If Sanders supporters can't see the brilliance of Katie Porter, who brought Jamie Dimon to complete silence when she asked him how his entry level employees could live off of the pittance he pays them, who confronted the latest Wells Fargo CEO and forced him to try to justify his scams, then there's no hope for them.
27
@Froxgirl Sanders supporters aren't a monolith. I work at a university. Most of the profs I know were Warren enthusiasts. Of these, all have a favorable view of Bernie Sanders. Read these NYT articles with a healthy dose of skepticism. They have an agenda and that agenda does not include uniting progressives.
5
Yes, a well-informed, detail oriented, pragmatic and highly accomplished one who was genuinely of the working class and who eschewed fashionable labels and stances in the interests of making actual change. But I guess that was the wrong kind.
37
Like Hillary, Warren was disliked by many. Women are quick to claim that that is a matter of gender bias. But there's a lot not to like about Hillary and Warren while Klobuchar is an appealing personality. In my opinion, Hillary and Warren were abrasive and Klobuchar was the best of the lot, and so I voted for her. I think Sanders and Bloomberg are plenty unlikable, too, and they were never in the picture for me. And while I don't claim to be gender neutral, I believe my preferences are overwhelmingly based on my personal opinions, pure and simple. And anyone who labels me a sexist for my choices based on my opinions irritates me to no end.
10
We live in a deliberative democracy. A candidate doesn't just "demand" big structural change, as the Shenk suggests, and get elected. Using 3 word slogans ("Medicare for All", "Green New Deal", "College for All") with no viable plan to support these aspirational moonshots, doesn't work with anybody outside the 18-29 year old demographic...who demonstrated once again on Super Tuesday that they don't vote in proportion to the noise they make. No wonder Dissent, Shenk's magazine, has a subscription circulation of only 7000. It generates heat but sheds little light.
20
I supported Warren early on but over time her wobbly reworking of her policies eroded her credibility. She didn't quite have national campaigning down. You can be a Harvard wonk in Massachusetts but not the farm belt. She had good ideas but not easily explained. Sometimes she nailed it but other times it felt like a patched together rhetoric. And who cared what Bernie said years ago about women's chances? She's a women, she had that, until she sounded whiny. That was unnecessary and made her seem weak.
The national press is a hot light. I worked for a popular state official who jumped to national, the difference in press coverage was almost unrecognizable in its intensity. I think that's a lot of what happened to Warren. When every syllable is scrutinized it takes a clear message and solid persona to pull it off.
Most of all we need to not just heal ourselves but our world reputation. That's what Biden offers. She came in with too much for the times, sometimes it's as simple as that. It's also why Sanders is losing momentum. Right messages, wrong year.
11
I'd comment on it but thanks to the deeply flawed nomination process I haven't even been allowed to vote yet as candidates are dropping out left and right.
7
The truth that nobody wants to talk about is that Bernie is a 79 year old guy with a heart condition. Even if he is still around four years from now if, god forbid Trump wins, or four years after that, he probably won’t be in any shape to run a campaign let alone be President. I’ve been of the opinion for awhile now that Bernie’s “movement” and “coalition building” were just so much rhetoric. Instead of heading a movement, Bernie is the head of a cult, one which will whither away once he is no longer capable of mounting the stage.
14
I'm sorry to say tha a two-party system cannot be reformed from within. The political tent will never be big enough because it's a mathematical impossibility within the straightjacket of a two-party system.
People have yet to understand that a two party postictal system cannot accommodate multiple social and political objectives that are often in conflict (a) in terms of the means, (b) the scope, and (b) the tactics.
It is only a matter of time before the US moves to a multi-party system. The current one is collapsing under its own contradictions.
13
@Terence Yhip Or no parties at all. I see no advantage to having them at all. Get rid of the unregulated flow of cash and let candidates stand on their own merits.
5
@Froxgirl That too. Big money is helping to hasten the collapse of the system. It's coming!
The crowd that Bernie attracts is drowning in nostalgia for planned societies they read about when young and believed could happen. This group has no understanding or even apparent interest in how such a society could be realized.
13
@Rodgerlodger Well, if you know enough about it to degrade those who support Senator Sanders please in your great wisdom tell us how society should be realized.
2
@Rodgerlodger : that crowd is well represented in these forums, though, and among NYT punditry!
Look at the salivating worship of "Scandinavia" -- with the idea that the vast diverse USA can be exactly like tiny, all-white Nordic countries of 5 million people (!) with vast reserves of North Sea oil to pay for their fantasy socialist states!
The voters in love with this fantasy see THEMSELVES as recipients of all these wonderful benefits -- free college! free day care! 3 years of maternity leave at full pay! free health care! -- but NOT having to pay the draconian taxes requires to support such a society. That money will come from "corporations" or "the 1%" or "tiny taxes on wealth or stock market trades".
It's hard to even talk to people this delusional.
Tired of the last three years of chaos, I am sorry but I was turned off by Warren's raw emotional attacks on Bloomberg, Amy and Pete's emotional wrangling, and Harris' breathtaking attack on Biden.
Why did they feel they had to descend to the level of win at any cost? That is not what we require in our next leader of the free world.
I preferred they gain points by what they bring to the table, presenting always on a higher level.
I am sorry Bloomberg is out. Maybe he wasn't ready for the heat of the first debate he joined, but he had an excellent platform and record. I believe he is still of utmost value to the Democrats for which we should be thankful.
Now it is up to Biden and Sanders, and their crucial make or break choice of vice president.
10
She wasn’t a radical. She was a run of the mill Democrat with good ideas on some issues like student debt and financial regulation. But regarding major issues like foreign policy she was in tune with the establishment and voted in favour of all Trump’s military budgets. In fact she voted to give him more than he even asked for.
10
If we had ranked choice voting, Warren would have been the perfect type of radical. If you only have one choice, you will pick to burn the system if you don't trust the establishment (Bernie) or seek incremental change if you trust the establishment (Biden). The vast majority of people would rather choose the 2nd alternative when given the 2nd choice- to be neither incremental nor burn the system down. She also, by the way, would have been the better president. So let's reform the way we pick candidates.
11
@JK : probably of the GROUP of candidate -- pretty unimpressive and OLD -- she was the smartest and most level headed. But she ran a poor campaign.
Among the downsides of our system...we reward the job of POTUS to people who run a terrific campaign (Obama!) but who have nothing to establish they have real skills at management or negotiation or leadership.
Doubt many people read the journal/websites mentioned in this article outside political science departments and cocktail parties on the Upper West Side. That's not who will determine our next President.
6
Too many people want to reshape the Democratic Party according to their own personal desires rather than be team players and play to the strengths of the party as a whole. Now is not the time for navel-gazing and recrimination. It is the time to mobilize and unite against Trump.
12
There have been many, many, many qualified men who have run and lost. Men have won because they are the only ones out there running until only very recently. It takes time. Women will win when many women are running, not one at a time, but many at a time. They need to be the among the front runners from the beginning (e.g., Biden and Sanders) not among the group of underdogs. That means it starts from the grassroots and builds until the numbers overwhelm. A woman winning right now is like drawing for an inside straight.
5
Spot on, I voted for Bernie in my first election, 2016. I was initially swayed by Warren but later realized she is exactly how you described, the left-wing of a broken system. I like Vox, but I see them as the same, in favor of Vice or Jacobin. I am also looking forward to voting for AOC in 2024.
It's very refreshing to hear I'm not the only one.
4
Reconciling the Progressive wing and the Moderate wing within the Democratic Party should have been done via the process as designed by the DNC. It hasn't yet happened. She
represented a bridge, and maybe a straddle, but reconciliation was not something she could pull off on her own. This said, I really liked her as a candidate and I like her role as a public servant. She brings conscience to the game.
13
Today, I saw a bumpersticker saying "A functional adult 2020." It's increasingly likely that we won't meet that very low bar in November. We need not dwell on how the incumbent falls short--indeed he defines falling short in that regard. It is increasingly likely that the Democrats will have a candidate sliding down the slope of senility--the question is only the grade of the slope. And we had a chance to put up a functional adult who is the epitome of reason and passion combined, but she didn't have the right gender. Shame on us.
11
When we fear female leaders, we are depriving ourselves of half the talent we could have had access to, to solve our significant problems.
Instead of a Women's March, we need to have an Enlightened Americans Stampede in 2024---and vote in true leadership--and hopefully Elizabeth Warren will be in the mix again.
9
Seems like Democratic Socialism for all its high morals relies on the cult of personality. Sanders is the purest one. AOC is the anointed one waiting in the wings.
Despite Bernie's vehement denials about the comparisons, I am reminded of a similar movement with a cult of personality led by people such as Lenin and Stalin. That's what scares me.
And yes I consider myself progressive.
24
@Vik Stalin didn't have a cult of personality - he just brutally had anyone killed who he perceived might be a threat to his position.
When there are enough Progressives who have added to the Democratic majority in the House and once they've taken a few Republican Senators down the ideas of reforming the party in the image of Bernie Sanders might not seem as laughable. The primary reason for the fall from the top of the field by Senator Warren is because she her funding proposals for M4A. If Sanders produces a detailed and realistic report on how much his plan will cost he would lose support. And he's already hit his ceiling with potential voters, so being short with the details has been a good move by Bernie.
3
Someday women will mount a credible candidacy for the presidency when and if WOMEN vote for a woman candidate. That has yet to happen. In this country a women seem to know their place and it isn't at the front of the line. Tragic.
3
Oh, so how do you define a “WOMAN”? Shall we list our respective barriers? What have your chosen careers been? Try being female clergy, then you can challenge my being a real woman because I chose someone other than Warren.
No one in the world out works Warren. She is brilliant. She is courageous. She has feeling and passion. But politics is show business. If she could figure that part out maybe with the help of TV or Hollywood people next time she could be our first woman president.
7
@D.D. I'm watching Senator Warren on Rachel Maddow as I type. She is so much better in this type of one on one discussion of the issues than what we saw in the debates. The Debate format and it's live audience hurt all the candidates, and Warren more so than the others for reasons that I don't fully understand. She told Rachel that she had talked Biden and Sanders about an endorsement. She said some really nice things about Biden, but didn't want to talk about her current relationship with Sanders. It's pretty obvious that she will either not endorse right away or endorse Biden.
7
@Horace Buckley Senator Warren is a smart, very thoughtful woman. She will think about what she wants to do before she speaks.
2
I saw the Rachel Maddow MSNBC/Comcast interview too. The one question Rachel didn’t ask was;
“The Governor of Massachusetts is Republican, so would you accept a cabinet position knowing that you would be giving your Senate seat to a Republican appointee?” Based in her previous actions I think she would rather have another Republican Senate than miss out on a personal opportunity. I could be wrong, but time will tell. Also, as a resident of Massachusetts, Rachel is too smart not to have thought this through already.
Instead, they talked about sexism. Convenient.
2
I was completely comfortable with Hillary Clinton as president, but not for Ms. Warren. Nothing to do with gender - more about ideas and the practicality of getting from here to there.
4
I admired Warren since her CFPB days. I loved the fact she had a plan for everything. I donated to her campaign. She had a plan for Medicare for All, but then walked it back in an attempt to appeal to centrists. To me that showed a lack of character and conviction. She had me fooled, but she really is just another politician who tells people what she thinks they want to hear in order to get their vote. I voted for Bernie in the primary.
10
What Sanders, and to a lesser extent Warren, don’t understand, is that the United States will never elect a leftist President. There actually is a “silent majority” and that’s why Biden will be the nominee.
7
Really? Let's face it. Her problem was she was the wrong kind of gender!
15
@American Abroad
But then why did Hillary win the nomination in 2016 if gender is the issue?
Speaking as somebody who’s been leftist for around fifty years, the major effect of reading yet another adjective-laden screed is that I’m happier I voted for Joe Biden in the primary.
But by all means, please do feel free to show me the under-30 turnout numbers, and name me the progressive electoral victories putside deep blue districts, that show me what kind of fool I am.
Numbers and names, please. No diatribes need apply, skip words like, “neolib,” and “corporatist.”
Names and numbers. Let’s see ‘em.
Because the whole hope of democracy is that in the end, the People are smarter than the intelligentsia.
13
@Robert Just so you are aware, the leftist vision inspired by Sanders is all about democracy-a social democracy in which there is a level of cost-shared, social and economic security that we deserve as human beings, especially because we live in an economic system that by its nature predatorially siphons money from the working class to the corporate elites. This was the agenda that Democrats were pursuing from the 30s through the early 70s, almost perfectly in step with the rise and fall of the labor movement. This was also a period of substantial transfer of wealth to a mostly white working class of the 1940s-60s (systematic discrimination blunted the redistributive effects of the New deal on non-whites. This was marginally mitigated by the federal civil rights legislation of the 60s). The beneficiaries of these "socialist" policies are now baby boomers, who scream radical at the very ideology that lifted them from the working class.
And isn't it ironic, don't you think?
9
@people power
"Just so you are aware, the leftist vision inspired by Sanders is all about democracy-a social democracy in which there is a level of cost-shared, ..."
I wish you folks would stop acting like the only reason we aren't signing up in droves for your revolutionary movement is our own ignorance.
2
@people power Brilliant!
If you finish a distant third in your home state then maybe the universe is trying to tell you something.
If you pick a pointless fight with a fellow candidate and refuse his handshake and lie about your racial background then maybe you are telling the universe something.
20
The "wrong kind of radical"???
You mean the female kind?
The LAST thing we need today is some dude mansplaining to us why the lone female candidate is(once again!) inadequate.
26
we just lost our best and brightest. shame
18
@buskat : she is still a powerful and influential US Senator -- and likely whoever wins, will offer her a choice of juicy cabinet spots.
Yeah, right. Warren is “the wrong kind of reformer”, Sanders is too angry, and Hillary Clinton was too shrill... Okay, I’ll play: My editorial opinion is that problem really is... the author of this article, and his unexamined, poorly nuanced, shallow argument.
13
Yep.. appears to be the Democrats solution. Wait 'til next election cycle (2024)... we'll get 'em. So sad for the world. Unfortunately this is real life and not a sport. AAUGH!
5
"The Wrong Kind of Radical".... how about we do this without radicalism....?
2
You’d think the country that defeated the Nazis and never leaves an American on the battlefield would be able to do what every other country has done and takes for granted as one of the basic cornerstones of civilization, access to healthcare. You’d think the candidate who is running on a spiritual sense of love they neighbor, uniting the world for a climate future and family values would resonate with anyone who isn’t an utter psychopath.
12
Wonk Warren would have made the best President but she lacks campaign skills. While she maybe a fighter, she was not able to counter Brown/Trump Pocahontas slur.
America is the worse for it. You have to be a TV s.tar
4
By golly this is spot on!
So who--or what--is the right kind of radical? The article never troubles to explain exactly why Senator Warren is the wrong kind. And it seems that Senator Sanders is also the wrong kind. Most damning of all, the article never even hints at the answer to my first question.
6
AOC in '24. OK by me, but if Trump is reelected I don't think he will leave in '24.
I do not have a good feeling about Biden. His speech is slurred and indistinct, and he's confused a lot. He is like Hillary in some ways, but less smart.
If American really dislikes smart women, and likes Dumb men, then Biden has a chance. But Trump is just as dumb.
My fear is Biden vs Trump is a battle of idiots, and Trump will fight dirty. After 9 months of Hunter stories, the average American will think both candidates are equally corrupt.
Out of six or eight middle of the road candidates, the Democratic party picked my least favorite one. He will be afraid to raise taxes on the 1% more than a smidgen, he will 'compromise' with his Republican friends to cut 'entitlements' in exchange for smaller pentagon increases, and he will think he did a good job!
Only way I could be happy with this election would be if he picked Warren or Katie Porter or AOC as a running mate. But my money is on Amy Klobucher.
BTW I agree they will be running against Trump and Nikki Haley. The debates will be a study in contrasts, first two idiots who can't argue with each other because neither one knows what the other one is talking about, followed by two much sharper people.
If the American people judge women by their looks (and I think American women do that as much as American men) then Haley will 'win' the 'debate' in the polling afterwards.
12
Hindsight is 20/20 another mansplaination.
2
When Warren first announced plan for Medicare for All I shouted at my computer for her to stop.
When she yelled and raised her voice I wondered where her advisors were.
When she revealed the results of her DNA proving her ancestry I cringed.
And when she publicly called out those in power I heard the death toll for her candidacy.
Even as I knew she would never win I went to the polls to make my voice heard for support in her own state.
Now however I am just realizing we have just witnessed a smart brave and extremely qualified woman run a campaign based on her own compass, for truth, justice and a realignment of some serious problems facing our once great capitalist society. She dared to speak truth to power and ignored the king makers who would have her sell her soul and her ideals just to win a seat.
If she were a man all of the above would have been viewed so very very differently. Any woman who has tried to break that glass ceiling knows these lessons all too well.
We, as a nation, will be sorry we killed this messenger.
Good for you Ms Warren for doing it your way, consequences be damned.
16
AOC. Debt. Escalator to nowhere. Blah, blah, blah. The Democrats are the party of misery. They need to reboot.
1
In other words, the two candidates the NY Times endorsed are out of the race!
Way to go and pick candidates that may have an actual shot at winning this.
6
@Eric : so....maybe you shouldn't listen to them?
"Elizabeth Warren Was the Wrong Kind of Radical: A woman" -- I fixed the headline for you.
16
Third place in your home state. Oopsie! What a nice target for the GOP at her next election.
6
@Mark What makes you think that the people of Massachusetts are any less sexist than anywhere else? I live here. Just read the comments section of any Boston Globe article and you'll get it.
Elizabeth Warren was too complex to win the nomination.
10
The American people keep saying they want change but when it comes down to voting they choose Joe Biden.
10
The left lane was already occupied by Sanders, who built a grassroots movement in 2016. He had a four-year head start on Warren so it was unlikely she was ever going to pass Bernie, but she did state that she supports capitalism which makes her a little to the right of Sanders, but Bernie had an organization left over from his previous run, so there really was no way for her to capture the left-wing of the party.
1
IMHO, Elizabeth Warren could have prevailed. BUT, she elected to try to defeat Sanders at his own game and poach already entrenched supporters who felt he got a raw deal in 2016. No candidate is going to win the nomination who does not appeal to mainstream Democrats, of which I am one. Sen. Warren was my first choice months ago, but she never once modified her stances on the so-called "progressive" issues none of which I am against, by the way. Both Warren and Sanders made too many proposals that are presently impossible to achieve--simply an unthinking and useless repetition of the endless "chicken in every pot" rhetoric with the twists each candidate added to convince voters that his/her approach would be best. Utter nonsense. When will they learn? Who wants two Bernie Sanders equivalent candidates duking it out over issues that are not sufficiently practical to every be implemented. At least at this moment in history.
2
Larry, if not now, when? Too many Americans cannot wait for the basic needs this economy has denied them.
11
It's interesting to hear this from Obama. He started off so much of an idealist and he really ran on the mantle of progressive change but then when in power, he became another Clinton. It was almost as though he was threatened to not shake up the power structures. Remember how the bankers reacted to his statement about "fat cats", etc.
I mean he did move in the right direction but everyone feels it was a missed opportunity. I think Obama did corrupted a bit due to the proximity to power and gave up on his ideals like Warren also seems to have to a degree.
I understand how it all works. I've been tempted and I've even failed/sold out. Sanders hasn't sold out, that's his appeal. Trump also hasn't sold out but he's not trying to be good.
As far as Sanders, young people need to show up. If they don't, they deserve what they get.
9
"Anyone under 30 who isn't a socialist has no heart, anyone still a socialist after 30 has no brain"
-Attributed to Winston Churchill
4
@OneView
Small words for a man whose country now has universal healthcare and education.
@Viv : the British NHS is on the skids, with doctors striking and low wages -- long waits -- no access for rural residents! it is considered the lowest quality health care in Europe.
British colleges are not remotely free, and don't admit "anyone" -- you have to test in, so only the top 25% or so -- the cost is only slightly less than US state universities (but far lower quality).
@OneView And you believe this enough to repeat it?
All these arm chair opinion pieces masquerading as post mortems need to STOP.
They serve no value, except maybe to the pocket book of the author of said opinion pieces.
9
Why waste time reforming the party when you can actually do something
New York Times, I truly love you. As a committed reader and partner to you, it would help if you owned your recommendation for both Warren and Klobuchar. It was hasty, far too trend-based and wrong. I'm not quitting you, I just want you to continue to be my number one source for information via media.
2
@Mark Try reading many different publications with different perspectives. Match reading the NYT with the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Economist and the Washington Post. If all we do is read or watch thing that say what we want to hear there is no growth . If we want to grow the base of the D party we need empathy and listening skills helped by new perspectives.
2
@david Thanks for a constructive response. NYT is my first stop, but far from my only one.
People...take...so...long...to...change...while others suffer
It's not that hard to be honest. If we could just agree on that it would solve so many problems:
Ohhh...powerful people have often lied or misled us for their gain...that makes so much sense now that I think about it...I guess we have to start changing things today now that we know.
Ohhh...people can be good...with or without all the various religions...that makes so much sense now that I think about it...I guess we have to start changing things today now that we know.
Ohhh...capitalism has many pros, but is obviously leaving a lot of people behind and is often used dishonestly, immorally, and unethically...that makes so much sense now that I think about it...I guess we have to start changing things today now that we know.
Ohhh...sexuality is not binary...that makes so much sense now that I think about it...I guess we have to start changing things today now that we know.
Ohhh...gender is not binary...that makes so much sense now that I think about it...I guess we have to start changing things today now that we know.
2
Warren should back Sanders. Biden, propped up Biden, Obama name dropping Biden, Plagiarist Biden, Anita Hill Bashing Biden does not deserve the endorsement. They only way Warren should back Biden is if she is his VP Candidate and that will never happen
4
@That’sWhatSheSaid - I and many, many others DO NOT WANT BERNIE. Ever.
A highly-paid Harvard professor who taught CEOs how to take their company into bankruptcy while making a financial killing... A former republican... A Multi-Millionaire... A member of the US Senate...
To paraphrase Inherit The Wind: "Well, Col. Drummond, we're growing an odd crop of radicals this year."
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
7
Such incisive analysis! Warren wasn’t ambitious enough, and lost to....Biden? Because the author is absolutely wrong, Bernie the bomb thrower did not eliminate Liz. Biden, the boring, bland, bumbling throwback ended Liz’s candidacy. Liz wasn’t guilty of lack of ambition. She was guilty of overestimating the intelligence and ambition of the typical Democratic voter.
13
If Mr. Shenk believes that Alexandra Ocasio Cortes is ever going enter the White House on anything other than a guest pass, he more divorced from reality that I thought. As Jennifer Steinhauer noted in her column in today's NYT, the socialists lost every primary challenge they mounted except for one: Alexandra Ocasio Cortes'.
7
It’s clear that the voters who gave Biden his victories are clueless about the issues.
They chose him because he served with Obama, and because they’re under the dreadful delusion that he’s a “nice guy.”
Warren is an unfortunate casualty of Biden’s con of the voters. The fact that he entered the race at all further confirms that he’s a scoundrel.
One Warren is worth ten empty Bidens.
13
@Jerry Engelbach . So insulting D voters is a new way to win elections . NOT!
More pie in the sky nonsense from Sanders supporters. These are the same people who would have you believe that the way to prevent a ship from sinking is to hold on tighter. Warren was the objectively better candidate undone by the cult of personality surrounding your dear leader; nothing more, nothing less.
11
Right kind of radical, wrong moment. EW, we hear you. We just can’t support you at this time. Sigh...
What a relief to see a thoughtful op-ed about the presidential primaries in the pages of the NYT.
I have yet to see anything from Bernie that leads me to believe that he wouldn't be the dog that caught the car if he became president. You do (usually) actually have to figure out how to work with others when you're president, which he seems physically incapable of doing. Rallies, yes. Pie-in-the-sky promises, yes, dogmatic inflexibility, sure. Actual administrative ability, not so much.
Ms. Warren on the other hand, seems to be entirely capable of actually doing what working in the government is, hard work. She has even created a federal agency. I don't see one of those on Bernie's resume. She also has had real impact on equality and financial regulations and honestly, I don't really see much on Bernie's resume in the way of big accomplishments as a legislator at all. Its not enough to suggest things that wither on the vine.
And as for Bernie's "electability," the reason the Dems took back the House in 2018 was because most districts put up center-left candidates, not AOC-like radicals, who won with centrist suburban women, not some grand continuing-to-be fantastical youth movement.
I'd really prefer to beat Trump using a template that has worked, than to do what Bernie seems to do regularly, have grand ideas that amount to nothing.
9
Who cares at this point. Just defeat Trump.
5
Wrong type? No way. Warren is the darling of the elite and of the liberal media.
3
AOC as president!
1
@DB - That idea just shows how stupid her supporters are. Just exactly WHAT qualifies her to be even a congresswoman, let alone president. You and Bernie’s many besotted supporters are major reasons I dread his winning.
@DB AOC will never ever be president. I can’t believe we live in a country where people freely look to elect known socialists to office. Have you forgotten your history? Do you not understand Adam Smith and his principles? Do you think our best and brightest would be looking for a Coronavirus vaccine if our healthcare system was socialized?
My hope is that centrist democrats and republicans alike band together to stamp this ignorance out before it destroys this country.
Mr. Shenk needs to read Mara Gay's column in today's section.
1
She is the best qualified candidate, period. But too many U.S. voters cannot bring themselves to vote for a woman.
10
Corporate democrats are addicted to their donor's money and those who want to curtail it representing an existential threat. When Warren said the system is rigged by explaining that political solutions to our many problems must be first get the consent by these donors, the democratic establishment aka corporate democrats had to defeat her.
This message resonates with both the right and left, which is why she was the leading candidate just a few months ago. Wanting to curtail money in politics, also meant destroying the business model of the mainstream media and democrats. They attacked her while elevating marginal candidates like Klobuchar or Buttigieg which caused exodus of her voters to them. Misogyny also played a part in her losing support because they don’t think a woman can be president.
However, the undoing of her of candidacy was due own sidetrack of her simple message, instead she got caught in the minutia of policy as well as fighting all her competitors at every chance. At the end of the day her advisers failed her by not redirecting her back to her main message that she can clean a rigged system which is the cause of our problems.
Corporate democrats are consolidating around Biden and probably win the presidency. However, if the democrats continue with marginal changes to our plutocracy, they will lose the young, progressives and their future because the GOP is the party of plutocrats. There is a lot of Trumps queuing in the GOP!
5
Mr. Sanders' supporters are largely young, white, suburban elites. His campaign can accurately be described as a movement among young, liberal whites to support another elderly white man. The exit polling from two days ago bears this out. Most marginalized groups who have more experience in life recognize that Mr. Sanders does not represent them and may, in fact, threaten their upwardly mobile lives. Sanders is faux radicalism at its worst.
8
Yes, it's true that Warren couldn't break into Sanders' voting base. But the blame for that surely rests less with her than it does with the cult of Saint Bernard. Sanders' supporters are not uncompromising on their ideals (or else we'd hear a whole lot more criticism of Bernie on guns), but rather are absolutist and uncompromising on Senator Sanders. They gaslight and insult every candidate - no, every politician - that is not him. And Shenk's argument mirrors this. The largest of these, I feel, was the media, which, after she accrued front-runner status, hit her hard over Medicare for All. Warren actually had a plan to institute the program - a plan that could be dissected by debate moderators and opponents. The spotlight was put on her, and Bernie Sanders, who has NO PLAN for how to pass and NO PLAN for how to pay for M4A got away scot free. This criticism, accompanied by (reasonable) fears that a woman would lose to Trump, led to the demise of a candidate more capable, intelligent, and qualified than any other. Of course, I wouldn't expect a berniecrat or socialist like Shenk to make note of this. His entire argument is entwined with ridiculous socialist dogma. Warren was not a worse radical than Sanders because she actually had plans. It's galling that Warren is portrayed as compromised - because she wishes to (and actually could) change the system, rather than, in the style of Sanders, tear it down to build a statue of herself on top of it. I'm disgusted.
6
Warren just wasn't as credible as Sanders. She endorsed capitalism and used to be a Republican. At the same time, she made curiously inflammatory remarks, such as telling black college students the system was "rigged against them." She appeared to be talking out of both sides of her mouth. She did not generate trust.
3
Let’s just get it straight: she’s not out because she is a woman. She is out because the country will not buy into her free everything for everybody programs. At least Bernie is more committed to the revolution.
But he won’t last for the same reason.
4
Let’s not make it more complicated than it is. Elizabeth Warren is simply the wrong gender.
5
Sometimes luck is never on your side, there was 8 years of Obama, an establishment backed the most qualified candidate ever in Hillary and in the age of Trump, where people didn't want change but normalcy.
She should have ran against Hillary as Obama ran against Hillary, but hindsight is always great.
Moreover, AOC is not in these women's league and the idea that she is the heir inherent is just an empty liquor cabinet. I would put my money on Katie Porter
2
Warren's numbers tanked when she came out with her plan to pay for her other plans. It was obvious palaver. The best way to win is to figure out what YOU did wrong and fix it. If you spend all of your time blaming something or someone else, you are doomed.
1
First and foremost E. Warren is a woman. Unfortunately the time for female politicians has come and gone very fast. For the next decades, the first place goes to belligerent men, who can match the other belligerent men who run the rest of the world.
2
This country isn't just third world, it's fourth world. We really needed Warren. Now we have two men who are old enough to be my father running. Isn't that a bit ridiculous?
4
There is one person most to blame for Warren’s loss. His name is Bernie Sanders.
5
A correction: "She wanted to reform everything except the Democratic Party itself." should be corrected to "She wanted to reform everything, except that the Democratic Party did not want her to reform them."
8
"They want a new coalition grounded in the multiracial working-class and less dependent on affluent professionals; a new donor class made up of grass-roots contributors"
You mean that donor class we can't know anything about? Those who donate hundreds of thousands to his PAC, that could be in violation of campaign finance laws?
https://apnews.com/345bbd1af529cfb1e41305fa3ab1e604
@JB
Er, it's only SuperPAC donors that can be kept secret by law, not PAC donors. Everyone else has to disclose their donors to the FEC, including PACs.
Bernie was the wrong kind of radical, too.
3
Of course she was the wrong kind of radical. She was a woman.
4
The Democratic Party is also one of the corrupted party, along with the GOP. Dems party didn’t like her because she can’t be bought! Look at the donations for other candidates including the current president!!
3
Wouldn't it be nice if Americans understood the meaning of the word "radical"?
Liz is not a radical. She's a democrat with good ideas. For god's sake, this is why we can't have nice things.
9
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn't presidential material. Not even close.
10
Oooo, a man policing a woman’s behavior! What a fresh take! Maybe it’s time for men to sit this one out for awhile, when four smart and capable female Senators have left the race.
4
"a rejection of technocratic nudging and meritocratic striving" Uh, no thanks. We have had more than enough of promise-the-moon incompetents and shiftless know nothings. We do not need the lefty edition of the Trump family.
1
Yes, she was the wrong kind of radical -- a woman.
1
The problem is --and I am sorry I cannot quote whoit is that wrote "American people cannot think in political terms." This was written by an American political philosopher in an article that I read in El Pais in 2005/06;
the problem also is that American people don't know nor dont care to know about history;
the problem also is that American people can only think about number 1---of course, in general. I am referring to John Doe, not the scholars, professors or intellectuals that are part of this Readers Community---of which I am so proud and appreciative--
My friends are middle class. Some college grads; some not. Of course, I have also encountered people in social groups and its has been the same for me everywhere.
I have volunteered for Warren for her 1st Senate campaign and now.
What as a European really puzzles me is that politics sets the rules we are to live in a society and people dont care about learning about issues that will affect their lives!!!!! It is totally mesmerizing!!!!
Simone De Beauvoir "if you dont make decisions, someone else will decide for you."
3
Senator Warren is a stone cold misandrist. In her concession speech she only mentioned little girls. Below the glass ceiling (lower middle class and below) males fair significantly worse then women - in terms of education, life span and incarceration status.
3
I don't really care about the age of Ms Ocasio-Cortez.
As of today, the majority of both voters and citizens eligible to vote are white people without a college degree. They are reading neither Jacobin nor Vox and have not heard of either Democratic Socialists of America or the Democratic Renaissance Project.
If the Democratic Party cannot speak to these people, Donald Trump will be re-elected.
Dan Kravitz
3
But as another article in today's NYT demonstrates, AOC's supporters are actually white gentrifiers . . . And the paper has also reported that Bernie, whether he wants it or not, is getting support on social media from the Russians.
2
If Trump gets re-elected it's her fault. Her nasty cheap attacks on Michael Bloomberg undermined his chances, now leaving Biden alone to face the mad dog.
5
She wanted to spend trillions & trillions more that we do not have.
2
Nobody is good enough for this guy. Perhaps Vladimir Lenin or Leon Trotsky? When will these people grow up enough to know that the perfect is the enemy of the good?
2
So when Warren was asked at one of the debates, as the very first question...leading economists say that raising taxes won’t lift the economy. Her reply was a blatant..Well their wrong..as she held 2 fingers in the air..shouting just 2 cents...
Her program needed much more detail than that.
It’s not so much the liberal message the as the messengers...
And as fo AOC and the VP 2024 slot...turn up the lights on her...not that bright but radical social media user....kinda like DJT
She better work hard to get re-elected
1
Hoping she becomes the next Senate Majority Leader !!
3
Elizabeth Warren wasn't the wrong kind of radical, she was a WOMAN! Women are STILL 2nd class citizens in this country because we FEAR their collective power that would take down the white male establishment!
3
Well, I'm not sure I remember what you are asking me if I remember. But i DO remember when all the Berniebots said they weren't sexist, they'd be happy to vote for Elizabeth Warren, but they won't vote for HIllary because she's a liar and a corporate shill. Four years later, here you are telling us you're not sexist, you'd be happy to vote for - I'm gonna say, AOC - but you won't vote for Warren because she's a liar and a corporate shill. The real fact is that you'll only vote for a woman if she's not running.
7
None of this is Elizabeth Warren's fault. The fact that we have three white men in their 70s is everything we need to know about the American voter.
4
It's tough being a visionary in a country of blinkered conservatives.
8
Plowing through this turgid recounting of Elizabeth Warren's efforts to bring down the Vile 1 Percenters -- people like me and my wife, who have worked for four decades to be able to afford a decent house and send our kids to college -- by a "co-editor" of Dissent, I'm reminded of a remark Woody Allen made back when he was still funny:
"Commentary and Dissent have merged. Now its called Dysentery."
2
Warren’s best shot at becoming president is being selected as Bernies Sander’s or Joe’s Biden’s running mate. still has a shot at the presidency. If elected, Bernie Sanders would be 79 when he becomes president while Joe Biden would be 78. Statistics show that 28.86% of 79-year-olds die with five years while 26.41 of 78-year-old die within five years. So there is about a 25 percent chance Sanders or Biden would die during their first terms.
https://www.finder.com/life-insurance/odds-of-dying
God this is exhausting to read; my eyes actually hurt. The misogynistic and sexist tone of this article is wearying at best. White men love to tell women how to think almost as much as they love to tell black people how to think (and no, I didn't have to google him to know it was a white man). I am so incredibly bored with this narrative...
6
I wonder if Warren's coyness about giving an endorsement is because the DNC is looking to make her Biden's running mate.
1
Had to read the article twice to figure out where the article provided evidence that Warren was the "wrong kind of radical." The contorted reason is that she is one of the "products of the same elite institutions that ran the Obama White House" that young voters hate. Sounds more like Trump voters than the young voters I know. I guess Mr. Shenk thinks he can beat up on "elite" institutions, and he knows what young voters think - really irritating to see this kind of biased opinionating in the NY Times.
3
In my opinion, Warren was by far the best (at least) "on paper" candidate, but more than that, I was looking forward to a break from old, weird, shout-y white guys. this coming from an old weird (quiet) white guy.
5
A lot of Americans refuse the Warren's gospel.
you're over-complicating things. she's a total phony and everyone has always known it, including her "supporters."
1
Well said: "If only the Sanders campaign wasn't a personality cult..."
Yes, she was the wrong kind of radical. She lacked a Y chromosome.
4
@Heather Lee Y is a question, not an explanation. There are times when we need the right question !
Bernie Sanders has "authenticity." Sure.
Who's worse:
1. a candidate who takes money from big donors openly, following the FEC rules; or
2. a candidate who rips his opponents for taking big donations while he secretly takes them himself and covers his tracks?
Yeah, I'm talking about Bernie the fraud.
'WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders says he doesn’t want a super PAC. Instead, he has Our Revolution, a nonprofit political organization he founded that functions much the same as one.
'Like a super PAC, which is shorthand for super political action committee, Our Revolution can raise unlimited sums from wealthy patrons that dwarf the limits faced by candidates and conventional PACs. Unlike a super PAC, however, the group doesn’t have to disclose its donors — a stream of revenue commonly referred to as “dark money.”
'... The campaign finance act says groups “directly or indirectly established” by federal officeholders or candidates can’t “solicit, receive, direct, transfer, or spend funds” for federal electoral activity that exceeds the “limitations, prohibitions, and reporting requirements” of the law. Those limits are currently set at $2,800 for candidates and $5,000 for political action committees.
'Our Revolution has taken in nearly $1 million from donors who gave more than the limits and whose identities it hasn’t fully disclosed, according to tax filings for 2016, 2017 and 2018. Much of it came from those who contributed six-figure sums.'
https://bit.ly/2TKVKpW
2
The only problem with this critique is that it's wrong. We currently have a historically unprecedented level of income inequality in this country. Students of history know that inequality of this magnitude generally spells the collapse of the empire--to be clear, a bad thing for everyone, from the peasants on up to the aristocracy.
There is just one historical example of a society correcting itself, without succumbing to collapse, after experiencing a level of inequality comparable to ours: it's the United States in the FDR administration. The New Deal was accomplished not by pure pressure from outside the Establishment, as Bernie is offering, but by a combination of outside pressure and inside actors like Frances Perkins. Warren understands how to leverage political power substantively, in a way that Bernie does not. It's why she was able to create the most significant extension of the executive branch since the New Deal - the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - from nothing, as a private citizen.
Bernie, by way of contrast, has been a US Senator for 30 years and has very little to show for it in the way of tangible revolutionary change. The likeliest tangible he will accomplish is the enervation and frustration of his own movement.
7
@Fred Okay, you're not a big Bernie fan. Anything to say about Sen. Warren ---- the one this article is about ?
There is no doubt that Elizabeth Warren is a highly intelligent woman who rose from very humble beginnings to become a college professor, start the CFSB and be elected to the U.S. Senate. My issues with her as a Presidential candidate were many. First, her wealth tax proposal would never happen. Second, Medicare for all doesn’t reveal that a monthly premium is paid and that supplemental insurance, through a private insurer is needed. It is not free. Third, Warren does not exhibit the gravitas in the foreign policy domain and looks more like a college professor than a head of state. Her attire is way too casual for the most important and high profile position in the world. I see women at my gym dressed like her. She is a behind the scenes person, perhaps in a Cabinet position.
Brilliant analysis. The author is telling me why a candidate didn’t do well after he/she didn’t do well. That’s a valuable skill. Telling me what went wrong after, not before, it went wrong.
2
It's a depressing thought for a lifelong -- but constantly frustrated -- Democrat, but I'm more and more thinking it's time for a third party that is clearly progressive/populist/liberal and not tied to Corporate and Wall St interests...The Democratic Party has been gentrified since the 1980s and it now is as tied to the elite oligarchy as the GOP -- but in a nicer way. We need a party that is mainstream in tone but also is willing to fight for the middle/working class and the poor. One more in the mold of FDR, LBJ (without the war), and the spirit of Obama's Hope and Change....
7
Excellent piece. I greatly admire Elizabeth Warren and early on contributed to her campaign, but I had misgivings that I couldn't put into words. This Op-Ed articulates very well what's wrong with the Democratic Party and with Senator Warren's candidacy (as well as with those of Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar).
By the way, I'm a senior citizen, white female suburbanite, and lifelong Democrat.
1
Elizabeth Warren needs to hand over her portfolio of selfies to Joe Biden.
She then needs to concentrate on her 2024 Senate campaign, as Republicans will be looking at her performance in this Presidential race and decide that she could be easy pickings. They did it before - with Scott Brown over Martha Coakley in 2010.
1
@Mike Edwards 2010: more sexism. What was Scott Brown's experience compared to Martha Coakley's?
I hope Elizabeth Warren will play a significant role in the new upcoming democratic administration!
All of us need to be razor sharp focused now to get voters out and to get the current administration replaced! Any fractions is hurting that purpose (history can tell us a lot about that).
There are many issues we need to address in our country (e.g. education, gun control, healthcare, climate change, infrastructure, etc.), but there is one barrier that enables all of us to work on those issues - we must vote out the current president.
Let walk the talk and get out to the 2020 election and VOTE!
2
Elizabeth Warren was a victim of disregard by multiple media outlets (And the Democratic Party)for weeks leading up to Super Tuesday. I believe this "absence on the air" contributed to her results this week and, ultimately, her decision to stop her campaign. This suppression of her campaign on air and (including NY Times) on line and in print benefited and promoted other candidates to her detriment. Ms. Warren was not provided a fair, equal representation to the public. The Campaign debates were a joke, don't deny it. How could any Candidate truly explain their agenda??? She was, by far, the candidate with the clearest and well- thought plans to help this country. Ms. Warren is animated, healthy and did not have the unabashed, insatiable ego that motivates the far older Democratic and Republican options that are left. How sad for our Country.
8
She is not a populist and she was challenging Bernie, a populist who almost singlehandedly created the progressive lane.
3
Elizabeth Warren is one of the best qualified people to run the country, period. Why, she is as qualified as . . . Um . . . Hillary Clinton! And she has an inside connection to the Democratic Party, and she has a fighters attitude about how to resurrect and support the middle class. Yes, she has faced and will continue to face misogyny, but remember, so did Clinton in 2016, and she beat Trump in the popular vote, and she only lost the rust belt by a relative handful of votes. So why isn’t she the front runner or at least the one competing with Biden for the nomination. I would argue that she got in the wrong lane with health care. Her eventual position, staying with Obamacare and transitioning to Medicare for All, would have flown if she had approached it from the center - - after she was elected. But she approached it from the left. Bad idea (IMHO)!
In fact, I respect her intelligence so much, that I keep thinking she must have thought this all the way through and decided she had to come in the way she did, but for the life of me, I can’t see why. Perhaps it’s simply an instance of hindsight being 2020.
Imagine an Elizabeth Warren, with her track record of championing the middle class over Wall Street, coming in with a proposal for a wealth tax, Obamacare with a public option ( hints at M4A, and providing a powerful argument for women’s interests. She would be the front runner, probably with Biden’s behind her. She would beat Trump and lead the Democratic o
6
She can redeem herself by being honest to her ideals for once and announcing her support for Bernie.
6
Because she is not a radical. Radicals don't call themselves capitalists.
6
I read and reread this piece to see exactly what it was that the author felt the Democratic Party needed to reform.
Yes, the party no longer represents the blue collar workers that formed its historical constituency. But that occurred in no small part because those blue collar voters became alienated by the Democratic Party's embrace of precisely the same cultural issue that today's progressives espouse: women's rights, gay rights, global warming, BLM, MeToo, social welfare, etc.
I'm sorry that Sanders and Biden both entered the race.
More than reform, the party need to evolve and and allow a new crop of voters to move it into the future. But the Sanders campaign has created a dynamic where he has driven his young followers followers away from, rather than toward the party.
And a note regarding Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's "trouncing" of the machine. AOC, darling of the gentrifiers, won her seat by virtue of winning a primary by a 4000 vote margin in a district where 141,000 votes were cast in the general election. Once she secured the nomination, the seat was hers, thanks to the "machine" whose work over the years all but assured that any candidate with a D in front of their name would win the election.
She traded places with a fellow Democrat while other candidates were reaching out to voters , flipping red districts, and actually moving the needle for the Democratic party. And she want to tell them what to do.
9
@RD
AOC's win is notable precisely because she unseated a 10 term DINO who was a lobbyist, and won by 15 points. Joe Crowley won 10 consecutive terms in that district and was vice chair of the Democratic caucus. He did not want to retire. He had supporters.
You say the party needs evolving, and then slam someone who did exactly that. Entitled much?
Unfortunately from this perspective, Warren lost by coming off too pie in the sky with her policy proposals.
Bernie was much more skillful in knowing what kind of identity politics to avoid and which to use.
Warren pulled no punches.
Warren and Harris both hurt their campaign's by coming off as petty and desperate with rather low brow attacks on Biden and Buttigieg. As well as a lot of misleading rhetoric.
Biden's voting on busing from 40+ years ago.
Misleading on gender wage inequity from Harris.
Trying to make Pete sound like all of his money was coming from corporate/financial interests when in reality it was only
perhaps 1%.
(The wine cave was filled with mostly middle class folks and he said the same stuff there as in his town halls).
None of the male candidates sunk to these levels to the same extent or even close.
Despite being intelligent, they made very unskillful political decisions.
4
Women won the right to vote in 1920. I was so hoping a woman would win the White House in 2020. Though Klobuchar was my first choice, Warren was a close second. Perhaps the man who wins the nomination will have the courage to choose one of them as his running mate.
2
Warren wasn't a radical at all when she advocated birth control as a way to lessen income inequality. (You know, like stay in school, get educated and trained, find a job, find a loyal mate.)
To me, it's common sense.
She got radical when she decided she wanted to be president. Suddenly she wants open borders, babies, and free everything. That's not common sense.
9
@B. Open borders is going to kill Sanders as well. Biden will lose in the general because he will see saw when asked what his policies is regarding immigration.