Elizabeth Warren made the political calculation this week that she doesn’t need men to win the presidency.I mean, I can half get why she thinks it's fine to run down Washington, him having been a slave-owner and all. It's dumb, running for the office he dignified and for which he set the terms. Still, in the current moment, it makes a kind of perverse sense.
“We’re not here today because of famous arches or famous men,” she told a rally in Washington Square Park Monday night.
“In fact, we’re not here because of men at all,” she said, emphasizing the “m” word like an expletive....
Immediately before saying “we’re not here because of men,” she dissed George Washington and the beautiful Tuckahoe marble arch that bears his name.
“I wanted to give this speech right here and not because of the arch behind me or the president that this square is named for — nope.”
Why expand the complaint from 'slave-owner' to 'man,' though? That's alienating to a lot of your potential voters.
Democrats have a long history of telling themselves that their favorites don't really mean it, it's just what they have to say to get elected.
ReplyDeleteThe ground has slowly moved underneath them. Now the candidates actually do believe a lot of it. This has not dawned on their voters yet.
I don't think those blinders are quite that broad. The phenomenon is pretty recent, grounded in the losses of Mondale in 1984 and Dukakis in 1988, and Slick winning in 1992. It's also a candidate specific ability. Slick and the Blank Screen could pull it off. Hillary and now Hillary the Reboot, not so much.
ReplyDeleteI also think you've got the shift backwards. Voters always knew they were lying but went along with the game, for different reasons. Obama ended that, and people are watching for the times the mask drops. It's the candidates who think the game is still being played by the old rules.
Yeah, I think they're paying attention and taking the Dems at their word now:
ReplyDeletehttp://ace.mu.nu/archives/383403.php
This interpretation of her speech is baloney. The point was to bring up a tragedy that killed many women because of lax labor laws. To try and spin that as a long diatribe against men requires you to not actually listen to or read the speech. It is a diatribe against corporate interests that harm workers.
ReplyDeleteIf you really wanted the context, you can go watch it or read the transcript yourselves. It's in all caps because that's how C-Span does their transcripts
I AM ESPECIALLY GLAD TO BE HERE IN WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK. I WANTED TO GIVE THIS SPEECH RIGHT HERE, AND NOT BECAUSE OF THE ARCH BEHIND ME OR THE PRESIDENT THAT THIS SQUARE IS NAMED FOR. WE ARE NOT HERE TODAY BECAUSE OF FAMOUS ARCHES OR FAMOUS MEN. IN FACT WE ARE NOT HERE BECAUSE OF MEN AT ALL. [APPLAUSE] WE ARE HERE BECAUSE OF SOME HARD-WORKING WOMEN. [APPLAUSE AND CHEERS] WOMEN WHO MORE THAN 100 YEARS AGO WORKED LARGE -- LONG HOURS IN A 10 STORY BUILDING A BLOCK THAT WAY. WOMEN WHO WORKED AT THE TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY. HERE IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO HEAR. IT WAS MARCH 25, 1911, A SATURDAY. AT 4:45 IN THE AFTERNOON, PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH THIS PARK LOOKED UP AND SAW BLACK SMOKE BILLOWING INTO THE SKY. A FIRE HAD STARTED IN THAT BUILDING. INSIDE THAT BUILDING ON THE TOP THREE FLOORS, DEADLY FLAMES FROM THE OILY FLOORS AND THE FLOORS TO THE WALLS SWEEPING ACROSS WORK ROOMS AND TRAFFIC -- TRAPPING THE WORKERS. FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES, WOMEN'S, GIRL, SOME AS YOUNG AS 14, RACING TO ESCAPE AREA THE EXIT DOORS WERE LOCKED. OTHERS RAN TO THE WINDOWS WAVING THEIR ARMS SCREAMING FOR HELP. NO HELP WAS COMING. THE FIRE DEPARTMENT'S LADDERS COULD ONLY REACH TO THE SIXTH FLOOR. THE FLAMES LEAPT HIGHER AND WOMEN STARTED CRAWLING OUT ONTO THE LEDGES. PEOPLE ON THE GROUND STOOD IN SHOCK SILENCE. A WOMAN JUMPED AND THEN ANOTHER AND THEN ANOTHER. THEY HIT THE GROUND WITH A SICKENING THUD. THEY DIED ON IMPACT. SO MANY, SO FAST, THE WOMEN'S BOTTLES -- BODIES PILED UP, THEIR BLOOD RAN INTO THE GUTTERS. THOUSANDS, DOZENS MORE WERE TRAPPED INSIDE, BECAUSE THE DOOR TO THE STAIRCASE WAS LOCKED, LOCKED BY BOSSES WHO PRAYED THE -- WERE AFRAID THE WORKERS MIGHT STEAL SCRAPS OF CLOTH. FIREFIGHTERS WOULD FIND A PILE OF BURNED BODIES NEXT TO THE LOCKED DOOR. IT TOOK 18 MINUTES FOR 146 PEOPLE TO DIE. MOSTLY WOMEN, MOSTLY IMMIGRANTS, JEWISH AND ITALIAN, MOSTLY PEOPLE WHO MADE AS LITTLE AS FIVE DOLLARS A WEEK TO GET THEIR SHOT AT THE ATTACK -- THE AMERICAN DREAM. IT WAS ONE OF THE WORST INDUSTRIAL DISASTERS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, BUT IT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A SURPRISE. FOR YEARS ACROSS THE CITY, WOMEN FACTORY WORKERS AND THEIR ALLIES HAD BEEN SOUNDING THE ALARM ABOUT DANGEROUS AND SQUALID CONDITIONS, FIGHTING FOR SHORTER HOURS AND HIGHER PAY. THEY BROADCASTED, WENT ON STRIKE, GOT COVERAGE IN THE PRESS. EVERYONE KNEW ABOUT THESE PROBLEMS. BUT THE PROFITS WERE MAKING NEW YORK'S FACTORY OWNERS RICH, AND THEY HAD NO PLANS TO GIVE THAT UP. INSTEAD OF CHANGING CONDITIONS, THE OWNERS WORKED THEIR POLITICAL CONNECTIONS. THEY MADE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND TALKED WITH FRIENDS IN THE LEGISLATURE. THEY GREASED THE STATE GOVERNMENT SO THOROUGHLY THAT NOTHING CHANGED. BUSINESS OWNERS GOT RICHER, POLITICIANS GOT MORE POWERFUL, AND WORKING PEOPLE PAID THE PRICE. DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?
Yeah, nobody said it was a long diatribe. The complaint was about the frame, which she elected. She could have opened with, “We are gathered here together by the George Washington arch, named after our consequential first President. But today I want to focus attention on a tragic case...”
ReplyDeleteShe’s got to bear responsibility for her choices, or we aren’t treating her equally. She called this ball, and has to bear whatever cost she thereby incurred.
But her wider context doesn’t endear me more, for whatever that’s worth. The biggest problem with her is her desire to make a Federal case out of everything. America is too big and too diverse for the Feds to impose one-size-fits-all solutions. That’s what’s brought us to this period of intense acrimony. I’m only interested in candidates who want to shrink radically the range and power of the Federal government.
The opinion piece you quote and link to is the diatribe because it takes that one sentence or so and spins it into an entire fantasy of Warren's hate and disrespect for men, the arch, etc. It goes on and on about how she should have honored the arch and how she should have regaled the inscriptions on it and how she hates the founders...and so on and so on.
ReplyDeleteI guess opinion writers have to come up with so many words to earn their living or have enough cobbled together smears for their writing to qualify as an "opinion" outlandish enough to draw readers. The writer uses words such as malign, epithet, dissed, provocation.
It's ridiculous.