Facing the sharp, hyper-efficient blades of such a meat grinder, someone sincere but narrowly focused like Warren is apt to misconceive--and underestimate--her daunting task. We should hesitate to overly criticize Warren (or any politician seeking urgent change), for her position is far from enviable. See, to be effective as a national politician, one is compelled to be a Democrat or a Republican; to be effective as a progressive, one must be a Democrat. (One can be elected to the Senate or House as independent representing a small state or an atypical district, but even Bernie Sanders realizes he must run for president as a Democrat if he's to have a chance.)
Now, being a progressive Democrat has an upside and a downside as compared to being an independent progressive like Sanders. The upside is that one automatically gains a bigger bully pulpit, access to much greater campaign finding, and a lot more political power; if you're sincere, outspoken, and articulate like Warren, you're even apt to become an instant superstar in a Democratic Party desperate for a credible populist spokesperson. As an independent, Sanders had to work long, lonely years to achieve what deserved power and visibility he has--less than near-newcomer Warren gained almost instantly.
But the downside--a gargantuan one--is facing Democrats' three-bladed meat grinder, the one for churning out useful idiots. The first blade is the lethal combo of the party leadership (elected and unelected) and their donor base, the cabal with most to gain by exploiting sincere populists like Warren as "fresh meat" who'll keep disgruntled voters in the fold. The second blade is the sheer insanity of today's Republicans (acknowledged even by respected legal scholars like Mann and Ornstein), which increases one's desire to be a good Democratic Party "team player," no matter how suspect your own party's policy offerings. The third and final blade is a super-sharp one common to Democrats and Republicans alike: the unacknowledged Deep State, which, grinding most Beltway pols into mincemeat, has not left Bernie Sanders himself, with his support for Israeli injustice, unscathed. (Hillary Clinton, by contrast, is a virtual choice Deep-State pate.)
The Petition-Signing Vanguard: Saving Liz from the Meat Grinder
In accepting the huge political advantages of running for Senate as a Democrat, Liz Warren has, like it or not, accepted the gargantuan downside of facing Democrats' three-bladed meat grinder. Now, she hardly deserves much blame on this score, since she ran based on supporters' insistence, not her own ambition--and since her running as Democrat was the precondition of her being in the Senate at all.
Now, the most idealistic of Beltway politicians, Bernie Sanders, is clearly aware of Democrats' three-bladed meat grinder, even if he never speaks of it in precisely those terms. The best clue to his own awareness is his insistence that he won't run for president (and if he does, it will almost certainly be as a Democrat, because he wants to win) without signs millions of voters are willing to form a movement behind him. He knows from extensive experience that the Democratic Party leadership and its donor base won't support him, since his populist economic and pro-climate reforms are the last thing they wish to see; in suggesting that vastly excessive military spending is chewing up funds we need domestically, Bernie is threatening a sacred cow worshipped by both Democrats' leadership and the Deep State, so in fact he threatens extensive damage to two of the meat grinders' blades. In fact, only his fear of insane Republicans makes Bernie manageable by Democrats at all, since he's likely to throw his support to Clinton if he runs and loses to her in the Democratic primaries. To that extent, even he will likely serve as Clinton's useful idiot--though a far less influential one than Warren.
Now Warren, being no dummy, shares some of Sanders' sense of the Democratic Party meat grinder (though again, not quite in those terms); the best evidence is that she too has called for a large popular movement supporting her populist-economic reforms. And Sanders and Warren seem like the most natural of allies, reflected in a Warren-Sanders or Sanders-Warren presidential ticket being the one progressives salivate over. Yet Warren's standoffishness from a Sanders candidacy (she's on record as supporting Clinton) perfectly illustrates the crushing torque of Democrats' three-bladed meat grinder. For Warren, like all Beltway pols, is already somewhat in thrall to the Deep State, as illustrated by her ill-considered (and possibly shallow) support, following Clinton's lead, for hawkishness and Israeli injustice. Needless to say, as a Democrat passionately devoted to economic reform, she's easily seduced by the argument Democrats must form a united front against billionaire-owned Republicans. And finally, knowing Hillary is Democrats' chief magnet for donor megabucks, she doubtless sees in Hillary Democrats' chief means for keeping the White House and making the kind of gains in Congress needed to pass her cherished economic demands.
What Warren fails to realize is the exorbitant price--endless war and, even worse, climate-damning energy policy--Clinton will exact in return for the most modest of economic reforms. Essentially, anyone supporting Democratic unity behind Clinton is backing that same lethal agenda, but Warren, as the person with by far the most power to thwart it, is the one history (short as it may be) will remember unkindly as Clinton's useful idiot. For those of us who understand Warren's history-changing potential--and thinks she, as a sincere, intelligent person, deserves a better fate than Clinton's collaborator in destroying civilization--detaching Warren from Clinton is absolutely essential. Whether she runs for president herself (the ideal case), drops support for Clinton and backs someone like Sanders (next best), or extracts far greater concessions from Hillary as price of her support, making Warren far more distrustful to Hillary is absolutely crucial.
To that end, Pitchforks Against Plutocracy and I have sponsored the following MoveOn petition, a vital first step in the crucial task of separating Warren from Clinton: http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/elizabeth-warren-stop?source=none&fb_test=0 .
We urge you to sign as if the fate of civilization depended on it. It really might.
(Article changed on February 2, 2015 at 14:10)
(Article changed on February 2, 2015 at 14:12)
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