Elizabeth Warren & Liberal Narrative Elizabeth Warren speaks with voters as she campaigns after announcing her candidacy for the U.S. Senate in Framingham, Massachusetts, September 14, 2011.
I’ve complained before that Democrats and Obama in particular - have conceded the narrative to Republicans and the Tea Party on jobs, the deficit, stimulus spending, and very nearly on healthcare. The story of politics in this country has shifted dramatically to the right. This is no great surprise. Recessions are good for deficit hawks, employers, and nationalist gestures.
The left is bound to find itself in some sort of retreat. Nevertheless, few liberal leaders in this country have done a very good job at turning the narrative back around and explaining a clearly progressive vision of society, of the jobs problem, and so forth. Obama’s recent “populist” rhetoric has been a brief departurefrom a centrism that concedes almost entirely the story of What Went Wrong to his political opponents.
Storytelling in politics is important, as the populists themselves knew back when there was such a thing as a leftwing populist movement in America. The fact that this narrative has been lacking in recent years has been troubling. So when Steve Benen posted this video of Elizabeth Warren debunking claims of ‘class warfare’ I was pleasantly surprised.
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