As America faces the burgeoning threat of a global pandemic, I have gotten focused anew on the essential leadership quality of competence. In this case, it's literally a matter of life and death, and the Trump administration has already botched its response to the coronavirus six ways to Sunday.
It's a natural time for someone to step up and show the leadership skills that meet the moment, especially in the midst of a presidential contest that will undoubtedly determine the contours of America's political system for decades, if not centuries, to come. Several Democratic candidates have criticized the Trump administration's response to the crisis, but so far only one of them has stepped forward to offer a comprehensive plan designed to minimize the impact of the virus on America and its citizens: Elizabeth Warren.
That's right, Warren has a plan for that. In fact, she had it nearly a month ago, and now she has also introduced legislation to redirect funding for Donald Trump’s useless border wall toward combating the virus. But the current public health crisis facing the nation has brought into relief just how critical it is that we put someone in the Oval Office who actually knows what they're doing and who cares about the well-being of the country. Having a plan isn’t just a gimmick, folks, it's essential. And Warren has proven again and again that she has both the vision to identify solutions and the chops to actually enact them in Washington.
As an example, Warren most often touts her work on establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which has now returned billions of dollars to consumers who have been wronged by big banks, predatory lenders, and credit card companies. Just to put that in perspective, she created a whole federal agency from scratch at a time when Republicans’ sole mission in life was to block everything President Obama tried to do. Frankly, neither party was super enthused about the CFPB, but Warren managed to push it through anyway. As Markos noted this week, "She created a federal agency! Who does that? Warren does that."
But there's other examples. At a CNN town hall Wednesday night, Warren was asked if she "truly believed" she could bring the parties together to solve problems if elected, "particularly with a Republican-led Senate?"
"Not only do I believe I can do it, I have done it," Warren responded. Since Trump has been elected, she said, she's gotten about a dozen bills passed. Then she focused in on one bill she championed that will make it possible to buy over-the-counter hearings aids at an extremely reduced rate. According to Warren, hearing loss affects about 40 million Americans but only about one in six of those affected can afford to buy hearing aids, which typically cost about $5,000 out of pocket per pair. Why, she remembered wondering, were hearing aids so expensive when an iPhone offers much more functionality but costs considerably less?
After researching the issue, she realized lobbyists for the hearing aid industry had managed to keep supply down and prices sky high. So she created a bill and, one by one, called up Republican senators to pitch them on legislation to reduce the costs of hearing aids and make them available for purchase over the counter. Her first three calls, in fact, were to Republican lawmakers, all of whom liked the idea and signed on. Sure, they wanted some tweaks here and there, which was just fine by her.
"The point is, I built it and did it under the radar screen because that was the right way to do that one," she explained. "No fanfare, not try to make it fancy, don't need any headlines."
Getting credit wasn't the issue for Warren. Improving people's lives was. "Let's just get it done," she said. And she did. That bill has already been signed into law by Donald Trump, and next year people who experience hearing loss will have more affordable options that will help them live fuller, more engaged lives.
Now, compare that to a story that Warren supporter Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), told just this week on Sirius XM about working with Sen. Bernie Sanders on a bill. In 2015, Green and his colleagues previewed to Sanders a newly completed PCCC-commissioned poll showing sweeping public support for a number of progressive issues. As Sanders perused the survey, he noted substantial support for a massive infrastructure bill that would create millions of jobs. Sanders exclaimed, "I’m announcing a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill on Tuesday!" which was just 6 days away. Wow, great. Then they asked how many cosponsors he had on the bill. "I think we might have Barbara Mikulski," he responded. What about grassroots groups to help push it? Sanders mentioned having engineers on board, which isn't exactly a grassroots group.
Green said they begged his staff to delay introduction for a couple weeks. "Let us help you lobby for co-sponsors. Let us help you get other grassroots groups on board," he recalled saying. Sanders' staff was in agreement but Sanders himself still insisted on forging ahead with his original announcement date.
"And sure enough, at the press conference he had one co-sponsor, he had one main endorsing group, the engineers," Green recalled. "That was January 2015 and the entire Congress of 2015 and 2016, there were zero other co-sponsors that got on board and almost no movement around the bill." (I looked up the bill—Mikulski was indeed Sanders’ sole cosponsor and it had the backing of just two organizations, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the AFL-CIO. Not so much a roll out as a preemptive surrender. No action was taken on the bill for the rest of the 114th Congress.) In the Sirius interview, Green went on to contrast that experience with the group's experience collaborating with Warren on the CFPB.
To Bernie Sanders’ great credit, he has been a man ahead of his time for much of his life, championing the same issues he has this election cycle for almost half a century. Sanders has been key to moving the conversation left. In some ways, the times finally caught up to him. But as good a messenger as he is on issues of fairness, equality, and economic justice, he's not a doer, he's a talker.
As Warren said repeatedly this week, progressives will have exactly one chance to bring transformative change to this democracy in a way that can make it work for the other 99% of Americans. On MSNBC Tuesday night, she stopped to envision what a game-changer it could be. "We cancel that student loan debt, there's no going back. We make that investment in universal childcare, there's no going back. We make that investment in housing, there's no going back," Warren said.
Squandering that golden opportunity with a candidate who's long on rhetoric but short on both specifics and bona fide accomplishments is simply unfathomable to me.
Some voters wonder whether Warren still has a path to the nomination. She does but it's very slim. Her strategy is clearly to emerge from Super Tuesday as one of the top three candidates alongside Sanders and Biden. After that, the campaign would battle state by state in order to make Warren a contender at a brokered convention—a situation that plays to her strengths. It's narrow, to be sure, but if any candidates drop out over the coming weeks, one never knows. Warren has lost some support to Bernie, but she has also competed for voters with Mayor Pete and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, both of whom are running into financial trouble.
As for the general election, Democratic voters are understandably worried about the question of electability. But the idea that being a woman is more of an electoral liability than being a self-identified Democratic socialist is utter bullsh*t. All of the Democratic candidates have liabilities to overcome, and all of them are also electable if they're willing to bring the party together, build coalitions, and welcome all comers into the fight for our democracy.
Warren—through grit, hard work, and tenacity—has proven time and again throughout her career to be that coalition-builder who rolls up her sleeves, does the hard work, and delivers. She’s the planner, the fighter, and the doer America needs in the White House.
Here’s Warren’s CNN town hall response