I endorsed Elizabeth Warren for a very practical reason: I think she has a better chance of winning the general election than any of our other presidential candidates. Two different polls that I trust indicated that her message and agenda are more effective than a more centrist message, and that her message holds up better than a centrist message under the withering Republican attack we know is coming.
But having made that endorsement for a very practical reason, I find myself reminded on an almost daily basis how much I like being on Elizabeth’s side in this race. There is a hardly a day goes by where there isn’t some article about one or more wealthy Wall Streeters or tech billionaires whining about how much they dislike her, or an op-ed by some billionaire on the pages of the New York Times or Wall Street Journal or Washington Post about how awful she is. If a person’s worth is measured by the kind of enemies one has, Elizabeth is definitely on the side of the angels.
Look, it isn’t that people like me, or Elizabeth for that matter, have a personal grudge about people who are wealthy, or Wall Steet and big tech CEOs. There are nice people in all those categories. The problem is that their industries have massively oversized influence on the American economy, they don’t pay enough in taxes, and their size, power, and concentration of wealth is squashing the poor and middle class. It’s not personal, it’s systematic, and the billionaires and their defenders upset with Elizabeth are taking things way too personally. They just don’t get it.
If it’s not Jim Cramer on TV talking about Wall Streeters saying Warren needs to be stopped, it’s Wall Street insiders (who claim they are Democrats) too scared to go on the record whispering to reporters about how they will support Trump instead of Warren if she’s the nominee. If it’s not billionaire Leon Cooperman literally crying about Warren’s being tough on billionaires, it’s Wall Street financier Steve Rattner- the guy who demanded that union workers rewrite their contracts at the same time Wall Street execs responsible for the financial crash were getting to keep their bonuses because it was "in their contract"- complaining that Warren will change the economy more than FDR. (I have to admit that given FDR was responsible for Social Security, the minimum wage, the GI Bill, Glass-Steagall, rural electrification, the FDIC, labor law reform, and a great many other transformative things for our economy, I wouldn’t mind if Warren succeeded to that degree.) If it’s not Wall Street donors blatantly threatening Chuck Schumer that they won’t give money to Democratic Senate candidates if Warren is the nominee, then it is Mark Zuckerberg caught on tape moaning that Warren is an existential threat because she wants to break up Facebook. Even Jamie Dimon, the quintessential Wall Street guy, is getting into the act.
To all you billionaire CEO types who feel so bad about Warren, let me tell you what’s going on: she’s not vilifying you because you are successful; she is taking you on because you have grown too powerful, and that’s not good for everyone else. It’s about time someone spoke truth to power.
The billionaires are running scared. Of course, it’s not just billionaires: their long time policy advocates in the Democratic Party are in full-time attack mode. Check out this really important article by Zach Carter in Huffpo about how upset Larry Summers is about Warren’s picking on the billionaires.
Every progressive leader and activist should take a look at this article, and every reporter should, too, as it so well sums up what is at stake in this race. Warren understands at her core that the concentration of wealth and power in this country is smothering the working class, and that this dynamic is what has given rise to the ugly racist politics of Donald Trump and his sycophants in the Republican Party. Democrats like Larry Summers who believe that, in Summers’ words, “ a focus on wealth inequality as a basis for being concerned about a more just society is not terribly well-designed”, think that nothing significant really has to change about the way our economy is structured.
Elizabeth Warren gets it, deep down in her bones: we need to restructure the economy so that it works better for working families, which means it may not work quite so well for billionaires. But I fear that some of our Democratic presidential candidates don’t get the fundamental truth. Here’s how reporter Ryan Grim summarized one recent Biden fundraising event:
“Joe Biden, meanwhile, spent the evening with a small group of ultra-wealthy donors, at a fundraiser hosted by a fracking developer and a health care industry executive. He used his time there to go after Warren for being ‘elitist.’”
Biden also told a group of Wall Street fat cats at a fundraiser that in his administration "nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living would change. Nothing would fundamentally change.” And Mayor Pete hired a former Goldman Sachs exec as his chief policy adviser, and has become the favorite candidate in terms of funds raised for the Wall Street gang.
Back to the electability issue: you know what hurt Hillary more than the emails and James Comey? Her six-figure speaking fees from Goldman Sachs. Both swing voters and the Democratic base we need to turn out to win are sickened unto death of the wealthy and powerful running the show. That’s why Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are leading in Iowa and New Hampshire right now, and why they have raised more money than all the candidates taking money from big donors.
Voters are sick and tired of the powers that be running the show in DC. They want someone to shake the system up, which is why Donald Trump won last time around. Every time these billionaires attack Elizabeth Warren, they make her case that she’s the one on the side of the vast majority of Americans. So as a supporter of Elizabeth, you know what I say to the Mark Zuckerbergs and Jamie Dimons of the world: keep on howling, boys.