It has been so long since we’ve had a chance to be governed by someone who speaks in complete sentences.
During the Democratic primary debates, every candidate seemed like they were an adult. No one suggested anyone else had a tiny penis. No one hulked around the stage. People onstage behaved like grown ups, not like Catskill comics from the '50s.
It’s tragic that we’ve sunk so low that this basic norm—rational adults onstage, hoping to lead the country—seems exciting. Not as tragic as some aspects of where we’re at politically, but tragic nonetheless. And there were a lot of candidates with break-out moments, like Washington Governor Jay Inslee, when he claimed that the largest threat to the United States was now Donald Trump. Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Julián Castro, also comported himself incredibly well, discussing the importance of reproductive justice and massive reform in immigration policies. After being mocked by the right for caring for some time, it was great to hear Castro note: "Watching that image of Óscar and Valeria [the migrant father and daughter who drowned at our border] is heartbreaking. It should also piss us all off and spur us to action."
But let's be honest, this debate belonged to Elizabeth Warren.
Other candidates seemed to show up to advertise for themselves. Hawaiian Representative Tulsi Gabbard talked about her military service, New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, spoke about his dad being in WWII and his black son, and Senator Amy Klobuchar spoke about her undefeated record and uncle’s deer stand. Ohio Representative Tim Ryan… revealed he did not know who was behind 9/11, which was a very, very good reason for Tulsi Gabbard to talk about our war record.
That’s understandable. Everyone who isn’t a frontrunner needs to give voters a little background on who they are.
But Senator Elizabeth Warren showed up to lay out her plans.
And how those plans could actually happen.
Democrats rightly inspire skepticism about whether they'll make promises that they can’t keep: a lot of people can promise there will be funding to help with issues like climate change, but the right will inevitably ask where this funding will come from.
Warren not only came out strong, speaking about how the economy is working for some people but not for people, who, for instance, are dying because they can’t afford insulin. She remarked:
“Who is this economy really working for?... It’s doing great for giant drug companies, it’s just not doing great for people who are trying to get a prescription filled. It’s doing great for people who want to invest in private prisons, just not for the African Americans and Latinx whose families are torn apart and lives are destroyed. It’s doing great for giant oil companies who want to drill everywhere, but not the rest of us who are watching climate change bear down upon us. When you’ve got an economy that does great for those with money, but isn’t doing great for everyone else, that’s corruption pure and simple.”
That should be a speech that resonates with anyone who is struggling—as many people are given that wages for workers have remained stagnant for decades and the tax cuts instituted by Trump have primarily benefitted those who are already wealthy.
One of the more impressive, if understated, moments hinged upon how she talked about climate change. While many of the candidates acknowledged the climate crisis (indeed, Inslee claimed his campaign was built around it), Elizabeth Warren laid forth a clear, profitable plan for combatting it, noting:
“So here's what I propose for an industrial policy. Start with a place where there's a real need. There's going to be a worldwide need for green technology, ways to clean up the air, ways to clean up the water. And we can be the ones to provide that. We need to go tenfold in our research and development on green energy going forward. And then we need to say any corporation can come and use that research. They can make all kinds of products from it, but they have to be manufactured right here in the United States of America. And then we have to double down and sell it around the world. There's a $23 trillion market coming for green products. We should be the leaders and the owners, and we should have that 1.2 million manufacturing jobs here in America.”
There are a lot of candidates who are going to make wonderful statements about how they can improve the world. They should want to do so. But Elizabeth Warren is making it very clear that she can not only make good pronouncements, but that she’s thought carefully about how to follow through.
And, for as easy as it might be to score points by bashing him, Warren never mentioned Trump. She’s establishing that she’s not merely an alternative to him. She’d be a good candidate even in a world where he didn’t exist.
Trump, of course, took time to tweet “Boring.” And he chose the exact moment that Castro was mentioning a dead father and child.
If you do not care about migrant children, or kids dying of gun violence, or women’s rights, or the climate crisis, perhaps it was boring. But, for those of us who aren’t monstrous, the solutions to problems facing Americans still seem interesting.
Ultimately, the election will likely come down to people who care about rational plans and want to create a better country, or people who want to listen to Trump—a glorified insult comic—prattle on for four more years as the world literally burns.
God, we can only pray the former win out this time.
