Gosh darn it, Elizabeth Warren still means it
The feisty senator from Massachusetts appeared on the How to Save a Country podcast presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Sen. Elizabeth Warren spoke with Michael Tomasky and Felicia Wong about Democrats making government work for average Americans. It starts with investing in people, by thinking of them as human infrastructure:
Elizabeth: Of the 37 richest nations in the world, the United States comes in at number 35 on what we spend on our children. You don’t build a future doing that. It makes no sense. So part of what I would really focus on is to say, “What is it together that we most want to do?” Because government is the vehicle for letting us do together what none of us can do alone. Why do we have infrastructure? Why do we, why does the government, all of us collectively, pay to pave roads? We pay to pave roads because nobody can just pave the road in front of your house. Then Felicia will do it in front of her house. You’ll do it in front of yours, Michael. I’ll do it in front of mine and we hope we have a road system that then works. Nope. We all contribute and it expands opportunity for all of us, and I feel like that’s what’s really been missing as we’ve become a post–New Deal nation. There’s been this glorification of the individual, and yeah, I love the stories of working hard and overcoming adversity, but in a context of opening those doors so people who want more education and training will have a chance to get it; so that mamas who want to go back to work will have a chance to do that; so the entrepreneur, that kid who’s 23 years old and has $42,000 worth of student-loan debt but really wants to start this business and is willing to live on ramen noodles and share an apartment with seven other people, but gets crushed by having to make a student loan debt payment every month, that we take that rock out of the way and let people do more. For me, that’s the heart of it.
Government is the vehicle for letting us do together what none of us can do alone
An eye-catching tweet from messaging expert Anat Shenker-Osorio yesterday contrasts the image Warren wants Democrats to project with the one Shenker-Osorio hears from focus groups. Asked what animal Democrats would be, base and swing voters list sloths, turtles and tortoises, “always with annoyance and dismay.” Perhaps because there are too many Dianne Feinsteins and Joe Manchins in the ranks and too few like Warren, Porter, and Ocasio-Cortez.
About countering that negative impression, Warren emphasizes people need to see more action and less talk from Democrats. In her speeches, Warren says government is about building an economy that delivers for people.
We showed who we were fighting for, working families, and we actually delivered for them
Why did Democrats do so well in the November elections? Warren believes it is because voters saw Joe Biden and Democrats fighting to make their lives better, even if they cannot accomplish everything on their wish list:
Elizabeth: Good policy is good politics. When you do things that people want and care about and that touch their lives, that’s both good for them and they come back and say, “As voters do more of that. We like you. We want you to keep doing that.” I think the best example we’ve got of this is what literally has just happened. Every pundit, every pollster, everybody was saying that the Democrats were going to get wiped out in 2022, and we were going to get wiped out because historically that’s what happens. Democrats did great. The question is why, and I want to put it together this way. I think the reason why is because we showed who we were fighting for, working families, and we actually delivered for them. Two highlight examples are right at the beginning of the Biden administration. Biden was no more than declared the winner of the election before a bunch of economists were in his ear whispering, “Go slow, go small.” And Biden ignored them and he delivered the American Rescue Plan that was all about getting vaccines out and getting test kits out, but it was also about getting money out to little towns and big cities so that they didn’t have to do a bunch of layoffs. It was about extending unemployment. It was about making sure that as we entered choppy economic waters, as Covid began to recede, that families would have a way to navigate. Period number two is August 2022, just this past August. Just this past August, we passed the Inflation Reduction Act. You may remember that in the middle of the Inflation Reduction Act, we have a $35 cap on insulin for seniors, help on paying insurance premiums, a cap on what seniors are going to have to spend on prescription drugs, big, big plan to cut carbon emissions, and, my personal favorite, a 15 percent minimum corporate income tax for billionaire corporations, the Amazons of the world that have been paying nothing. Read the headlines from that time because what every headline says is that this is Biden’s finest moment in his presidency. Then Biden follows this up by canceling student loan debt for 43 million Americans, and his approval rates go even higher. So I look at that and say here are these two time periods where we delivered and people responded.
It’s not enough to chalk up wins and move on. Democrats need to get better at trumpeting their wins so the voters know what’s been done, who delivered for them, and who tried to stop it:
Elizabeth: American voters are actually smart. They get that we may not be able to deliver everything that’s needed in two years, but they sure as heck want to see us fighting for them. I think that’s a big difference here and for me, student loans are the perfect example. President Biden said, “I’m going to cancel up to $20,000 of debt for 43 million Americans.” We’ve already had about 26 million Americans signed up for relief. Nobody’s gotten a dollar’s worth of relief yet, but they see a president fighting for them.
Shenker-Osorio believes Democrats need not to be shy about embracing the word freedom, one the right has claimed as its own. But in her focus groups, freedom is a concept that people across the political spectrum identify with America. It’s not a right-wing concept. It’s a contested value, she argues, and one Democrats need to get off their butts and contest, to fight for.
Warren is on it:
Elizabeth: I’ve been talking about all the economic parts, but democracy, freedom of—abortion is actually a great example here. There were those pundits who were saying just before the election, shaking their fingers at progressives saying you talked too much about abortion. Understand this: Abortion is a kitchen-table issue. It is about freedom and medical decisions that one makes for oneself. It’s about autonomy and respect. It’s also about economic security and making decisions about one’s reproductive life. If we build an economy that has more opportunity, we strengthen our democracy. I never lose the lesson of how coming out of 2008 when so many people lost their homes, so many people lost their jobs, so many people lost their savings. The unemployment rate was artificially depressed for about seven years after that, just a tough slog for families. We struggled, we scratched to try to pull it back together, but a lot of people felt like their government had turned their back on them, had bailed out giant financial institutions, but had not been there to help them. They felt that way and in many ways they were right. I never forget that the next president elected was Donald Trump, that if we build an economy where more people can participate, we expand freedom. If we protect freedom, we build a stronger economy and democracy. These pieces are all related to each other. Shame on us if we don’t make those connections every day. But here’s the thing, I think the American people do make the connections, I think it’s the politicians who are behind, and big applause for you, Michael, for your book and for drawing this out and to everyone who has started to connect those dots, if for no other reason than to encourage our elected officials to talk about these issues and to talk about them in that context.
Paul Wellstone used to say, “We all do better when we all do better.” There’s a lot of layers to that statement, but I’ve always taken part of it as when more people have more opportunities, it makes us a democracy that values each other and values both our differences and our similarities, and that that is how we build the best possible future as a nation.
More stability, more financial security, and a greater sense that government is working for people rather than against them means less of the kind of MAGA-insurrectionist insanity that’s destabilizing the country and threatening everyone’s freedom.
No sloths or turtles, please.