Elizabeth Ann Warren (Herring) is now surpassing Joe Biden in some Democratic polling with Joe now embroiled in controversy over his involvement with his son’s role in Ukrainian politics and accusations against President Trump for calling attention to it. Many in the mainstream media (MSM) are now anointing Warren as the DNC candidate come the 2020 elections. It remains to be seen if she will remain the lead candidate for the party or if her lack of mainstream appeal will take her down within the party primaries.
Short Background
Elizabeth Warren (born June 22, 1949) is the 70 year-old senator from Massachusetts. She was first elected to public office in 2012 taking over the seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy. Her background is in academia and teaching, most notably on the topic US Bankruptcy laws at Harvard. She graduated from Rutgers Law School and has written several books. After she received her J.D. and passing the Bar exam, she performed legal services from home, writing wills and doing real estate closings. In the late 1970s through 1990s, Warren taught law at several American universities while researching issues related to bankruptcy and middle-class personal finance. She became involved with public work in bankruptcy regulation and consumer protection in the mid-1990s.
Before law school, Warren taught children with disabilities for a year in a public school. She taught with an “emergency certificate” because she had not taken the education courses required for a regular teaching certificate. Her foray into politics started when she was appointed to the non-elected role of Congressional Oversight Panel by Harry Reid due to her outspoken criticism of big banks in 2008. Warren ran for the Senate seat left by the deceased Ted Kennedy in 2012 and was elected based upon her hard stance against the banking and financial industries. Mostly notably, the her stance against capitalism was evidenced by a widely quoted comment (below) which carried her election win with the hardcore Democratic left and those disenchanted with the events leading up to the financial crisis of 2008.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. … You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.“
Warren recently did a livestream video in which she is visibly uncomfortable in drinking a bottle of beer all in an effort to boost her appeal to the working blue-collar types from which she has very little support. The video was much ridiculed in social media circles and some put her political stunt on par with Hillary Clinton’s pandering by claimed she carried hot sauce around in her purse while being interviewed by a radio station which caters exclusively to a black audience.
Controversy and Crticism
There are a number of reasons why businesses in general believe Warren will be bad for the country. Most notably, her view that big corporations, no matter how they got big or what products/services they produce, is somehow bad for the US economy. Though she started out as someone who supported capitalism before she started in academia, she is now ardently supporting socialism and the role of government in managing the economy and the lives of Americans.
Warren has also come under a lot of criticism for her previous claims to be of American Indian heritage during her academic career which may have given her preference for certain roles and scholarship funds during her academic and teaching career. In response to the uproar over her heritage claims and her being labeled as “Fauxahontas”, she took a DNA test which showed she is no more American Indian than someone from China. However, her taking a DNA test angered many on the left who define association with an indian tribe to be based upon cultural and traditional beliefs and adherence rather than bloodlines. They also felt she damaged her own brand by giving in to criticisms by Donald Trump. Warren apologized to the Chief of the Cherokee nation for the “mix-up” but it is something that still haunts her 2020 campaign.
American Under President Warren
It is clear from Warren’s speeches that she wants a complete overhaul of government “It won’t be enough to just undo the terrible acts of this administration. We can’t afford to just tinker around the edges – a tax credit here, a regulation there. Our fight is for big, structural change. This is the fight of our lives. The fight to build an America where dreams are possible, an America that works for everyone...”.
Ironically, that is in some strange way, the same appeal of Donald Trump. That is not the only area where she and DJT agrees. Warren would not only leave the Trump tariffs on China in place but she advocates complete disengagement from trade and doing business with China at all.
Warren believes that business owe more taxes than they are paying through the unstated “social contract” with the American worker. Without question, taxes will rise significantly for businesses and wealthy individuals. She advocates for “Medicare For All” which will effectively ban any private insurance coverage for Americans and all health insurance will be funded and managed through the Federal government and agencies such as CMS. Effectively, this will put all health care decisions in the hands of the government as funding determines treatment. Even the other Democratic candidates have called out that the cost of such a proposed program as unsustainable and unrealistic.
It isn’t a surprise that the financial industry call her the “greatest threat to capitalism”. But this is also why she is gaining in the polls with the Democratic left who view Joe Biden as being out of step with their ideals.
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