If you’re a lifer, you probably know Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) origin story, at least as it relates to TPM.
When Warren was a Harvard law professor back in early 2005, she reached out to Josh Marshall with an idea for her students. Around the time, TPM was intensely focused on shining light into every cobwebby corner of then-President Bush’s push to phase out and privatize Social Security. Warren’s students were interested in coverage of the would-be legislative failure and the impact of blogging’s potential role in legal advocacy work.
So long story short, TPM set up a blog for Warren and her students to write pieces focused exclusively on the federal bankruptcy bill — similar to TPM’s liveblog vibe of today, a tool we often use to let you know what storyline du jour has our hair on fire. Around the time that blog ended, TPM had just debuted TPMCafe, as it was called back then. And Warren was invited to have her own section, where she routinely wrote freelance opinion and analysis pieces for us. We called it Warren Reports.
All that to say, we have to humble brag a bit when Warren’s in the news, especially when she’s in the news for writing an op-ed. And a fiery one at that.
Warren penned a piece for the New York Times published today that focuses on a number of challenges Democrats face ahead of the Midterms, specifically that the party needs to do more to deliver on what it promised Americans it would do with its control of Congress.
Without naming names … especially two of her colleagues, she blamed “Republican senators and broken institutions” for Democrats’ lackluster legislative accomplishments the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, and urged her colleagues to get something extra done legislatively before the Midterms or else — Democrats may well lose control of Congress.
“Now Republicans are betting that a stalled Biden agenda won’t give Democrats enough to run on in the midterm elections — and they might be right. Despite pandemic relief, infrastructure investments and the historic Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, we promised more — and voters remember those promises,” she wrote, adding a bit further down in the piece: “To put it bluntly: if we fail to use the months remaining before the elections to deliver on more of our agenda, Democrats are headed toward big losses in the midterms.”
I also thought the language Warren used to describe what is happening with Republicans — a theory that TPM has pushed for months at this point — to be very smart, candidly describing the GOP’s agenda-less approach to the Midterms as the distraction campaign that it is; one that only works because it is steeped in “lies, fear and division.”
“Republicans want to frame the upcoming elections to be about ‘wokeness,‘ cancel culture and the ‘militant left wing.‘ Standing up for the inherent dignity of everyone is a core American value, and Democrats are proud to do that every day,” she said. “While Republican politicians peddle lies, fear and division, we should use every single one of the next 200 days or so before the election to deliver meaningful improvements for working people.”
Anyways, just figured as TPMers you’d enjoy reading it as much as I did. Here’s the link to the full piece.
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