Elizabeth Warren: Liberal simplification

[IndyPragmatist]

ELIZABETH WARREN, a former TARP overseer and architect of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is running for senate against Scott Brown, a Republican, and less than a week after her announcement she's ahead in the polls. This isn't very surprising, really. A Republican snatching Teddy Kennedy's seat in a special election, that's surprising. But Massachusetts is a famously liberal state, and it seems Mr Brown would need a second miracle to hold on to the seat. And now that Ms Warren, a figure much beloved on the left, has jumped into the race, it would appear that Mr Brown may not be long for the Dirksen Senate office building. Watching this clip, it's easy to see why he's in trouble:
http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/i_got_your_class_warfare_right_here/

This is precisely the sort of rhetoric Democrats need to perfect in order to hold ground in the next round of national elections. Of course, not unlike a tea-party Republican making the case for small government, Ms Warren paints in over-broad, simplifying strokes. It is not actually true that "the rest of us" paid for the roads, the education of workers, or police and fire protection. Some of us paid for them, and some of us paid a lot more than others. Rich people, for example, have paid and continue to pay more than the rest of us. And I have never heard anyone argue that it is possible to get rich without roads or the police protection of property against "marauding bands". I've never heard anyone argue that an ignorant, illiterate populace is a recipe for wealth. Some anarcho-capitalists argue we'd all be better off if we privatised absolutely everything and made the state go "poof!" But not even Ron Paul is an anarcho-capitalist. I think we can be quite sure that Scott Brown favours roads and police and schools and the idea that rich people should contribute more for their provision than should the less-rich. Ms Warren's sly suggestion that to oppose an increase in taxes on the rich is tantamount to denying that a complex institutional infrastructure is necessary for the creation of wealth is a bit of silliness on par with the common right-wing suggestion that to support a larger and more active government is tantamount to denying individuals the moral right to keep the fruits of their labour.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/09/elizabeth-warren

[hedgehog]

1. Sounds like Ms. Warren is getting under some people's skins!

[rurallib]

3. why is it so hard for other liberals to say that?

just speak the truth.

[Scuba]

6. Because they're not really liberals. n/t

[ananda]

2. I was turning in Ted's grave for him when Brown was elected.

I feel better now that Warren is leading.

[CTyankee]

5. I think Ted would love her.

If there is a heaven, he's there and he's smiling down on her now...

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Ms. Warren will make a great Senator

I suppose that some believe that FDR overly simplified things as well. All problems are ultimately complicated, but most people need to hear a simple picture. In the end, both FDR and Warren create the most accurate simple pictures.

The Republicans are great at painting simple pictures that are dead wrong. The only way we win is to paint simple pictures that are right.

[hedgehog]

7. Hmmmm..... there's a Presidential election coming along in 2016!

[hootinholler]

8. There are more than a few thinking along those lines. n/t

[eridani]

9. It has been our refusal to simplify that has cost us so much at the polls

Warren is doing nothing more than defending public goods. I sure wish the hell that Obama would do that consistently.

Whenever the childish whiners blather about socialism and Marxism, they are doing nothing other than attacking public goods. They want public goods for themselves only, in which case they are no longer public goods.

[hulka38]

10. At least her simplistic explanation has its root in the truth.

Here are a few examples of simplistic bullshit, conservative style:

We need a massive, costly conventional style occupation war in the ME to defeat AQ.
The US is more respected around the world because of the war on terror.
Fight em over there so we don't have to fight em over here.
The fundamentals of the economy are strong (2007).
Supply side economics is the path to prosperity.
Saddam poses an imminent threat to our national security.
The war will be paid for by Iraqi oil.
Tax cuts for the wealthy = the solution to high unemployment.
Deregulation had nothing to do with the near economic meltdown.
Wall St. needs less regulation.
Rampant bank fraud and Wall St gambling was not the primary cause of the meltdown. Home buyers were.
We're not torturing anybody.
Global warming is a hoax.
God exists and he favors the wealthy.
Noah's arc.

[bluestate10]

11. I loved the way that she connected public infrastructure to every person,

including the rich people that decry rebuilding it. Warren is a plain speaker.