Smash the Patriarchy, 2020 Edition
Last week in my two-part interview with “Mr. X,” a veteran Democratic consultant, we saw how centrist panic among opponents of Trump led to a brief, not-so-shining moment for Mike Bloomberg as the only man who could save us (he’s rich!), which was quickly dispelled in favor of the premature coronation of Bernie Sanders as the unlikely but “inevitable” nominee (everyone says so!), which was quickly dispelled by a resurrection of a sort not seen since 33 A.D. (holy shit!).
Now the conventional wisdom has it that the nomination is Joe Biden’s to lose, which was sort of where we started last summer, innit?
But last week also saw the heartbreaking end of the road for the most inspiring and best qualified candidate from either party, and with it, the latest affirmation that Margaret Atwood knows what the fuck she’s talking about.
THE FIREGLASS CEILING
The last 72 hours have seen so many eloquent elegies for the campaign of Elizabeth Warren that I’m not sure what I can add. But this was such a special campaign, and its end such a frustrating and depressing statement about America, that it deserves every requiem it can get.
Let’s start with the patently obvious. Elizabeth Warren is a brilliant and accomplished woman with an inspiring personal story, up from poverty in Oklahoma to become a Harvard law professor and one of the most admired Americans alive today. (Not coincidentally, also one of the most vilified — an equal honor.) At once a Washington outsider and an experienced United States Senator, she offered not just a vague, platitude-heavy vision for a more progressive America, but one backed up with detailed plans for every goddam thing. She is a champion of the people who scares the moneyed class witless, a passionate orator and scorching debater whose intellectual firepower is astonishing, and a charismatic leader who put together the most impressive campaign of all the Democratic hopefuls. In the words of Stacey Abrams, she gave “form to brainy, compassionate, determined, indefatigable leadership.”
From smarts to empathy to competence, one can hardly imagine a candidate more opposite to Donald Trump in every conceivable way. The only way Elizabeth Warren could be a more perfect “anti-Trump” is if she had served with distinction in…
