I was a Bernie Bro.
I was plenty angry that the DNC had their thumb on the scale for Hillary, and that Paul Krugman pooh-poohed the idea of Bernie, but I calmed down and was all in for Hillary, unlike some of my bros who were too angry to vote for her.
Now here comes 2020, and instead of being for Bernie to the hilt, as I’ve been up to three months ago, I’m now all gaga for Elizabeth Warren.
Why?
First off because, as she says, “I have a plan for that.”
Nobody besides Warren has thought so deeply about what the next president can do for her country.
She’s diagnosed all our problems, looked them square in the face, and come up with very thoughtful solutions. As a scholar, she’s been in conversation with other scholars about what can be done, which is why her plans are so data-driven and real and specific.
And she came to her ideas by her own circuitous route, from her work on bankruptcy, to her book “The Two-Income Trap,” to her brilliant idea for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Unlike all the other progressive candidates, who came to their Johnny-come-lately progressivism because they learned it from Bernie — the man who has changed the political conversation in this country more than any other human being ever.
Bernie Sanders has been our most consequential politician since FDR, LBJ and Ronald Reagan.
Because he singlehandedly mainstreamed progressive politics.
So why have I switched from Bernie to Warren?
Listen, I loved Bernie and I still feel the Bern.
But now I think of him as St John the Baptist to Elizabeth’s Jesus.
Her progressive ideas are more wide-ranging and comprehensive than Bernie’s.
And she sells them very well, because she relates them to her own life story.
And she explains her ideas so well. Just one for instance: this is how she sells her wealth tax. “If you own a home, you’re already paying a wealth tax—it’s called a property tax. I just want the ultra-rich to pay a wealth tax on the diamonds, the yachts, and the Rembrandts too.” And remember how she explained the idea behind her Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: “It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning down your house. But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance of putting the family out on the street–and the mortgage won’t even carry a disclosure of that fact to the homeowner.” She explained the necessity of protection against financial shenanigans as necessary as the protection we get against faulty toasters.
But most important, Warren is a woman.
I dearly want to see a woman snatch the presidency away from that darn Donald.
Number one, to take revenge for him beating Hillary.
Number two, it would do my soul good to see a woman thump a pussy-grabbing sexist.
Especially one-on-one in the debates. Don’t forget that Warren got her scholarships because she was an ace on her high-school debating teams.
And number three, it’s high time a woman became our president anyway.
These are the years when American women are finally coming into their own. Never forget that the three people who changed America most in the 20th century were women:
Margaret Sanger, who popularized the idea of birth control and persuaded a rich lady friend to back the research that led to the Pill.
Rachel Carson, who got our environmental movement off to a good start.
And Betty Friedan, who birthed feminism.
I would like to add Elizabeth Warren to this canon, as the president who will finally launch America back on a progressive course — started by FDR and derailed by that darn Reagan.
I also want someone wickedly smart to be our president.
Even taking into account what Adlai Stevenson said when a supporter shouted at him as he was running for president: “Governor Stevenson, you have the vote of all the thinking people.”
To which he replied, “That’s not enough, madam. I need a majority.”
Still, I’d like to see somebody really smart up there. And Warren is the smartest candidate among the twenty-plus running, with the possible exception of Mayor Pete. Maybe she could pick him as her VP.
Except I want her to pick Kamala Harris or Amy Klobuchar as her VP.
I want an all-woman ticket this time.
After all, Kamala and Amy would add crucial voters to a Warren ticket, unlike any of the male possibilities: Kamala would cement Warren’s candidacy among black female voters, and Amy would bring over moderate red-State mid-Westerners.
Two women would be the best contrast to the bizarro Trump-Pence male coupling, and stand the best chance of showing them up and trashing them DOA, like a double meteor rendering the dinosaurs extinct. These two women could really nail these guys’ gonads to a trophy wall.
To sum up: Elizabeth Warren is the smartest and most progressive candidate with the biggest and brightest ideas. Best of all, she’s a woman.
And that’s why this Bernie Bro is all in for Warren.