Opinion: The Case that Elizabeth Warren is Not a Progressive, Let Alone Liberal
Warren loves to antagonize the super-rich – but her campaign seems suspiciously designed to stave off revolution
From the beginning, there were good reasons for progressive leftists not to trust that Elizabeth Warren was on their side. For one thing, she had spent much of her career as a Republican, and only recently become a champion of progressive causes. Warren worked at Harvard Law School training generations of elite corporate lawyers; did legal work for big corporations accused of wrongdoing; collected donations from billionaires; held secret meetings with investment bankers and major Democratic party donors; and stood up and applauded when Donald Trump vowed that America would “never become a socialist country”. Even at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, her most prominent initiative on behalf of ordinary borrowers, Warren brought in former Wall Street bankers, tasking financial foxes with guarding the henhouse.
Yet Warren’s campaign debuted with a populist note. She chose to make her kick-off speech in Lawrence, Massachusetts, site of the famous 1912 Bread and Roses textile industry strike, and she explicitly invoked the spirit of organized labor in her campaign announcement. Warren unveiled a series of ambitious social policy plans designed to please leftists, and some of us praised her promises to levy new taxes on wealth, expand childcare and give workers new power within their companies. In debates, the more centrist candidates accused both Warren and Sanders of being too radical. Warren memorably snapped back at those who ran for president to tell the country that change was impossible.