Warren has been on a tear recently, releasing concrete proposals for the most serious issues facing Americans:
Umair Haque has written an article on Warren’s campaign platform and her proposals: Elizabeth Warren Has a Marshall Plan for America — and It’s as Brilliant as it is Radical
Haque outlines the significance of Warren’s proposals in very direct terms:
“Elizabeth Warren’s proposals, taken together, amount to something very, very much like a Marshall Plan for a collapsing, ruined society. They are the most radical and transformative — and most brilliant thing — to happen to American not just in our lifetime, but quite possibly ever. “
How many Americans want a truly modern society? These days, if polls are anything to go by — the vast majority do. Something like 70% of Americans want public healthcare, affordable education, working public transport, decent retirement.
Americans want a kind of radical, transformative progress — they want a modern country. So why is that even though Elizabeth Warren’s the only one really offering it to them — she’s ignored, when she’s not being silenced, taunted, or mocked? We both know the answer to that question, and it’s the frat-house wolf-pack mentality of the aw-shucksing patriarchy that the American establishment is made of. The story that establishment won’t tell, then, is this one.
Elizabeth Warren’s plan is as brilliant as it is urgent, necessary, radical, and transformative.
I’d say Haque has it about right. Warren knows more about the inner workings of the American financial system and what has gone wrong with it than all the other candidates put together (full disclosure: I am a Sanders supporter). She has used that depth of knowledge to outline a path out of the road to ruin that the US is on. I suggest you read Haque’s take on Warren’s plan.
After a rough start Warren seems to be finding her sea legs as a campaigner. Policy Wonks don’t do well as politicians in the anti-intellectual political culture of the USA. Warren has already gotten the finger waging school marm treatment on SNL. Sanders, the uber activist and populist, right now is far out in front in terms of mobilizing and fund raising.
But anything could still happen in this volatile political environment. If Warren is going to take off I think it will be in the debates. With 80% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck at the end of a 10 year economic expansion this just might be the year that America decides it’s time for a policy wonk with a detailed plan to the desperate problems they face to take the wheel.
Umair Haque is a London-based consultant. He is director of Havas Media Lab, founder of Bubblegeneration and frequent tweeter and contributor to the online Harvard Business Review. Haque’s initial training was in neuroscience. He studied at McGill University in Canada, went on to do an MBA at London Business School and is the author of The New Capitalist Manifesto: Building a Disruptively Better Business