The Education of Elizabeth Warren

[BlueMTexpat]

As a rule, I don't post from the NYT or WaPo because of the paywalls. But this is an excellent article. If you are still able to get free articles from the NYT, this is a must-read, IMO.

It is one of the best that I have seen about Warren's "road to Damascus" moment from being a "default Republican" to becoming an activist Democrat. For me, her ability to make fact-based decisions and then act upon them is her strongest quality. It is among the many reasons that I support her.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/25/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-republican-history.html

...
Ms. Warren’s political awakening didn’t simply happen all at once. Her road to Damascus was a long one. But over several decades, she transformed from a largely pro-business and politically disengaged academic — a sort of default Republican — to a fierce consumer advocate and bankruptcy expert whose advice was sought on Capitol Hill, and then, finally, to a Democratic force on the Hill herself.

Her bankruptcy work with two Texas colleagues, Jay L. Westbrook and Teresa A. Sullivan, resulted in a 1989 book, “As We Forgive Our Debtors,” regarded as a landmark among many bankruptcy lawyers and academics for its depth and conclusions. One central finding — that bankrupt debtors represented a social cross-section of society — dispelled the popular narrative at the time. Even more controversial was the book’s uncompromising criticism of the credit card industry for enticing consumers to take on ever more high-interest debt.

Ms. Warren, who said she began the study on the lookout for “cheaters and deadbeats,” quickly realized that the people she was studying seemed familiar. Her own family in Oklahoma had teetered on the brink of financial ruin. It is a part of the biography she discusses in folksy speeches across the country — her father’s unemployment, her mother’s effort to save the family home with a minimum-wage job, and how that wouldn’t be possible today, with minimum wage paying below the poverty rate.
...
But a look at Ms. Warren’s philosophical and political metamorphosis provides yet another perspective on her personality, revealing a woman who searched for answers and found something she had never expected, then altered her thinking accordingly.

As Mr. Westbrook put it, “She is really someone who is willing to learn and willing to be persuaded.”
...

[BlueMTexpat]

1. I particularly loved this part.

“I didn’t come from a political family,” she said. “I hadn’t been political as an adult. I was raising a family, teaching school and doing my research,” she said.

Then she went to Capitol Hill.

“I quickly discovered that every single Republican was on the side of the banks and half the Democrats were,” she said. “But whenever there was someone who would stand up for those working families, it was a Democrat.”

She added, “I picked sides, got in the fight, and I’ve been in the fight ever since.”

[bluewater]

2. K&R

[NNadir]

3. +1,000,000,000 n/t

[Bradshaw3]

5. Nice snapshot of her evolution and why

To me her current positions are a reflection of her lower middle class roots, and her basic decency.

[blm]

10. 👍🏼

[EarnestPutz]

4. I'm hoping that if Elizabeth Warren is our candidate, it would engender....

....a conversation about the role of congress in the fall of 2007 when they passed legislation that made it harder for ordinary people to file for bankruptcy. The timing of these changes, right before the big economic downturn and great recession has always bothered me, particularly because both sides of the aisle got on board to protect the financial institutions.

[BlueMTexpat]

9. Excellent point!

[blm]

11. Strong point

[question everything]

6. As an aside, I have the same issue with the WSJ, therefore I triy to condnese as much as I can

in the four paragraphs.

And I have meant to ask others, who just put a link, to please find the most relevant paragraphs.

Thank you

[BlueMTexpat]

8. You are most welcome!

[BeyondGeography]

7. Great read and more proof that we need her to rebalance the corporate dungeon

that has become working- and middle-class America.

K&R

[pangaia]

12. You can read both theNYT and WaPO if you open an incognito window/browser