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Tue 10 Sep, 2019 08:06 pm
Quote:Elizabeth Warren
A senator and former law professor wants to change the rules of the economy.
Who is Elizabeth Warren?
•70 years old
• Born in Oklahoma City; lives in Cambridge, Mass., and Washington
• Former law professor; elected to the Senate in 2012
• An expert in bankruptcy law who helped set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the Obama administration
Warren’s signature issues
Senator Elizabeth Warren is running for president promising to bring about “big, structural change,” with the goal of tilting power toward working people and away from big corporations and the rich. She has become known in the Democratic field for her long list of policy plans, including creating a wealth tax, canceling student loan debt for most borrowers and breaking up big technology companies. She has stood out from many of her opponents by swearing off fund-raisers with wealthy donors, and she spends hours taking pictures with voters who wait in a “selfie line” at the end of her town halls.
Three questions about Elizabeth Warren
1. She has lots of big plans. How would she pay for them?
Ms. Warren has laid out several revenue sources for her various plans, but her biggest idea is to create a wealth tax that would apply to the super rich. She would impose a 2 percent annual tax on a household’s assets above $50 million, and an extra 1 percent tax on assets above $1 billion.
Ms. Warren says the revenue from that tax — estimated at $2.75 trillion over a decade — would cover the cost of her plans for student debt cancellation and free public college, universal child care and the opioid crisis.
2. Has she always been a Democrat?
No. Ms. Warren was registered as a Republican until 1996, when she was in her 40s. Ms. Warren has said that her switch amounted to going from “not political” to “political.”
3. What about the controversy over her ancestry?
Ms. Warren has faced scrutiny over her claims of Native American ancestry since she ran for Senate in 2012, and President Trump has repeatedly used a slur to mock her over the subject. Ms. Warren has said that she never used her ancestry claims to advance her career.
Before entering the presidential race, she released the results of a DNA test that provided evidence that she had a Native American ancestor. But the DNA test angered some Native Americans, and she has since apologized for the DNA test and for identifying herself as Native American during her career as a law professor.
Elizabeth Warren quote:
“When government works only for the wealthy and the well-connected, that is corruption, plain and simple, and we need to call it out.”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/elizabeth-warren.html
She is a conservative Democrat, not long ago Republican, centrist politician who talks progressive in the primaries, but who will revert to centrism if elected.
@edgarblythe,
Sounds okay, but are you sure?
@roger,
In today's political atmosphere centerism would be a big improvement.
@edgarblythe,
edgarblythe wrote:
She is a conservative Democrat, not long ago Republican, centrist politician who talks progressive in the primaries, but who will revert to centrism if elected.
I am going to guess that Edgar is a Bernie Bro.
@maxdancona,
Good call. Bernie Bros always tell it like it is.🤘🏼
@Lash,
Bernie Bros might just get Trump reelected.
@maxdancona,
Those not voting Bernie are surely trying to get Trump elected. Only Bern beats Trump.
@Lash,
Quote:1. Those not voting Bernie are surely trying to get Trump elected.
2. Only Bern beats Trump.
I totally DISAGREE with both of your assertions.
I wholeheartedly DISAGREE with both of your assertions.
I want to make it very clear that I truly do like Bernie.
At the present time, Bernie would probably be either my third or possibly fourth choice.
On the other hand, voting for a third party candidate such as another Jill Stein would help get Trump re-elected.
I sure hope Tulsi Gabbard doesn't become the next Jill Stein.
I suspect that both Conservative pundits and Russian propaganda machine are preparing to promote Tulsi Gabbard as a third party candidate, for the
sole purpose of getting Trump re-elected.
@Lash,
1. At the present time, I am undecided of who is my preferred candidate in the primary.
2. My first two choices right now are Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren
in no particular order.
3. I'm not sure if Biden is my first choice and Warren is my second choice.
4. Or if Warren is my first choice and Biden is my second choice.
5. Presently my third and fourth choice are Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris
in no particular order.
@Real Music,
I like Bernie too... I like what he stands for. The problem is that I don't think Bernie would actually make a good president. A good president needs to have a mix of idealism, pragmatism and realpolitik. He is great in the Senate, that doesn't mean he will be great in the White House.
I like Elizabeth Warren for tough, intelligent idealism. She is not only putting forward progressive ideas, she is presenting a practical path to get there.
@beantownmike,
How so? Back up your claim.
@Real Music,
Quote:I suspect that both Conservative pundits and Russian propaganda machine are preparing to promote Tulsi Gabbard as a third party candidate, for the sole purpose of getting Trump re-elected.
If Russia worked to get Trump elected, it certainly didn't pay off in the end.
They obviously didn't have dirt on him or it would have come out by now or we would have seen Trump bowing and scraping to them. I suspect you will argue that we have seen the latter and if so, please offer some proof other than your extreme animus for the man. We have not.
I'm sure conservatives would love to see Gabbard run as a 3rd Party Candidate, just as you would love to see a Republican do so. I like Gabbard to some extent, but I won't vote for her. Still, I would love to see her run and if she thinks the DNC has screwed her, she just might.
RUN TULSI RUN!!!
@maxdancona,
Bernie Bros was a Clinton/Brock construct. They tried it on Obama first, using racist thought patterns of black guys assaulting proper Hillary female voters.
Nice, huh?
Most of Bernie voters are women and young. AND, the Bern has more black support than any other candidate except Biden, the racist.
@Lash,
More Russian ppropaganda.And more of your opinion.
The Bernie Bro is dead – but people are still trying to resurrect him
This time around, Bernie Sanders supporters are more female and less white than any of the leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates
Louis Staples
Monday 19 August 2019 18:25
Concerned citizens across the political spectrum are often guilty of wishfully thinking that, if they say something over and over (and over) again, it’ll magically become true. But new data from the Pew Research Center has refuted one of the most beloved political narratives of recent years. The research reveals that, contrary to popular belief, Bernie Sanders supporters are more female and less white than any of the leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. So much for the male, stale and pale Bernie Bro.
Based on polls of registered Democrat or “Democrat-leaning” voters, just 49 per cent of Sanders supporters are white. Elsewhere, white people account for 56 per cent of Joe Biden’s supporters, with Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren tallying at 59 per cent and 71 per cent respectively.
More women support Sanders than his two female frontrunner opponents too. Women make up 53 per cent of Sanders supporters, compared to 49 per cent of Warren supporters and 48 per cent of those who support Biden and Harris.
When Sanders ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination, his supporters were characterised as disproportionately white and male. The Bernie Bro stereotype – young, “woke” white men who aren’t as progressive as they seem when it comes to issues affecting women, people of colour and LGBT+ people, but keen to appear so in public – was used by his critics to downplay the Vermont senator’s popularity with voters.
Bernie Sanders tells Joe Rogan he will let people know about alien activity
Sanders was often portrayed as having a “woman problem” during that time. When he has slipped up, this perception has underpinned the intense anger towards him. Remember the outrage when he “shushed” Clinton during a debate? Or when he was the opening night speaker at the 2017 Women’s Convention? Neither of those were proud moments – but the way in which they were held up as examples of his “brocialist” status weren’t entirely ingenuous either.
The Bernie Bro narrative also lurks beneath the theory that Sanders and his supporters are to blame for thwarting the first credible bid for president by a woman candidate. Many hold Sanders responsible for tainting Hillary Clinton’s campaign beyond repair by staying in the race for too long and providing the fodder for Trump’s “crooked Hillary” attacks. If Sanders had conceded earlier and more of his supporters had backed Clinton, the thinking goes, America would have a relatively progressive, historically important female president right now rather than an egocentric reality TV star.
In 2016, there were genuine reasons to suspect that Sanders’ supporter base was mostly white. For one thing, he represents Vermont – America’s whitest state – whereas Hillary Clinton had previously served as the senator for New York. With this in mind, it’s not surprising Clinton had stronger links with African American community leaders, nor that she was more prepared to reach out to minority voters.
The states won by each candidate also point to a racial divide. Clinton won a staggering 82 per cent of the vote in Mississippi – America’s second blackest state where African Americans make up almost 40 per cent of the population. She obliterated Sanders in states with similar demographics such as Alabama (78 per cent), Georgia (71 per cent) and Louisiana (71 per cent). Sanders, on the other hand, won by big margins five of the seven whitest states in America: New Hampshire, West Virginia, Maine, Idaho and his home state of Vermont.
Despite social media movements like #BernieMadeMeWhite, which saw Sanders supporters mocking the idea that his supporters were mostly white, polling data from 2016 does reveal a divide. YouGov polling from June 2016 – just before the Democratic convention, where Clinton was confirmed as the nominee – revealed that Sanders was more popular with white voters under 44 than Clinton, with 60 per cent backing him. Non-white voters under 44 were split evenly. Yet in voters over 45, there is a much bigger racial disparity, with almost 80 per cent of older non-white voters backing Clinton. With these factors considered, it’s clear that the Bernie Bro stereotype didn’t appear from nowhere – even if it may not be true now, in 2019.
In terms of false political narratives, there is certainly a distinction between blatant lies – which are regularly spread by President Trump – and political narratives which are incorrect but genuinely presumed to be real. They are believable, and they come from kernels of truth. No one necessarily set out to mislead by spreading them or discussing them. But when they persist after they have stopped being true, they can become incredibly damaging.
In increasingly divided times, we can often find ourselves relying on stereotypes or preconceptions in order to make sense of the world, particularly with regards to the uncertain political landscape. But the labels we apply to people – or boxes we put them – really matter. We can’t hope to address the divides in politics, or people’s motivations for voting a certain way or supporting certain policies, if our worldview is distorted by false information.
If Sanders ever did have a problem with women and people of colour, in the 2020 race this appears no longer to be the case. So critics of Sanders should now steer clear of peddling the Bernie Bro narrative. It is, as Trump would say, fake news – and it could do undue damage to the campaign against the current president.
Whether it be the idea that Trump voters are all “economically anxious” working class people – when in reality wealthy white voters handed him victory and Clinton won the majority of votes of the lowest paid Americans – or the idea that Bernie Bros are powering the Sanders revolution, we have a responsibility to interrogate our assumptions with actual facts this time round. Because if we don’t, are we any better than the most notorious purveyor of “alternative facts” himself?
@Lash,
You must be a genius of Ollie's stripe if you can tell i am a idiot from my misspelling words. O, you mean I am a idiot because I haven't let you b s me into accepting Bernie the savior. With citizens like you on his side he is going to have a rough row to hoe.