It's long overdue to point out something that seems to get overlooked: U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren isn't leading anything, so far.
She's become an articulate spokesperson for how the American public feels about banksters, student debt and maybe a handful of other issues, but the polls showed the public got there long before Warren emerged as a spokesperson. She didn't lead us there.
In other words, Warren is reflecting public opinion rather than creating it. She stands out among our politicians because she seems to be living in the current century rather than looking back at the last one, as most of our "representatives" do.
That's what made last week's exchange between CNN's Fareed Zakaria and former President Bill Clinton a bit of an eye-popper.
Zakaria asked whether Clinton thinks Warren is the "future of the Democratic Party."
"I think she's an important part of it," Clinton said.
The obvious next question would have been, "And how do the Clintons plan to catch up with a party that's rapidly leaving Billary at the station?"
In fact, aside from Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (who isn't even a Democrat -- yet), name me a "leader" (cough) from the Democratic Party who doesn't run on issues that should have been addressed 10 or 15 years ago -- if the candidates bother to address an issue at all in their campaigns.
Yes, some of those issues are still festering sores that should be lanced. Immigration comes to mind. Also the question of how many more times we invade in the Mideast before we just let countries fall apart and reconfigure into patterns that make sense to the people who live there ... oh wait, that question isn't even being asked yet by our "leaders."
The mass media keep telling us what a divided nation we are. The polls keep showing we're anything but that.
Unless Americans habitually lie to the pollsters, solid majorities of us are united on almost any issue -- at one point, the figure went as high as 91 percent endorsing background checks for gun sales.
Politically speaking, that's as united as any country ever gets.
Meet me after the orange cauliflower.
We use the term "the Tea Party" as if that's one united group, but if you talk to individual Tea Baggers, you'll find that more of them express anger at the big banks than do progressives. The wingnuts might not yet vote for Warren -- because she has that "D" after her name, after all -- but she's the one politician who has her finger on their anger.
Politically speaking, most of our politicians are living in caves and clubbing their dinner to death. That includes the elected Democrats, and also includes the Clintons, judging from almost everything they say that gets publicized.
Given that record, there's something condescending in President Clinton allowing that Warren might be a big part of the future of progressive politics.
I don't think anyone knows whether she'll be a big part of the future, but she's obviously a big part of the present and the immediate past. That's more than most politicians can claim.
Some of Warren's statements indicate she's dragging some baggage of the past herself, so I'd say the jury's still out on any future.
I don't mean to disparage Warren at all (no one goes from rural Oklahoma to where she is by being dumb). But the fact is, she's out front right now by default -- nobody else volunteered for the job.
Our politicians are fighting about immigration, "corporations are people, too," same-sex marriage, making sure bankers run the government ... battles that were fought and decided 20 or 30 years ago, as far as the public trajectory is concerned.
Everything since then has been a knock-down, drag-out war against change that has already happened, as far as the public will is concerned.
Bill Clinton is still the most popular politician breathing. He deserves all kinds of credit for that -- we all know his opponents threw the kitchen sink at him, and when that didn't work, they didn't hesitate to make up shit and throw that.
But does he ever seem to say anything that addresses the future? Do we need the 20th-century pope's blessing in order to proceed into the 21st?
Talk about being beside the point!
We're looking for a politician who lives in the present and looks to the future. If one is out there somewhere, would you please start speaking up?