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:
Transcript and further thoughts, after the leap:
"I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.
"You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.
"Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
In other words, here is a progressive politician who can translate a progressive message and a liberal narrative of What Went Wrong into language the mainstream can understand. This is the message many liberals have been hoping Obama would make for years.
Furthermore, it's exactly the sort of point liberals ought to be making when faced with folks like Paul Ryan who are claiming that any tax hike on the rich is 'class warfare'. As Steve points out, "if more Democrats were able to make the case for the underlying social contract as effectively, our discourse would be vastly less mind-numbing."
No comments:
Post a Comment