Saturday, August 19, 2017
Corporate Democrats Worried about Elizabeth Warren
Centrist Democrats Riled as
Warren Says Days of 'Lukewarm' Policies Are Over
"The Democratic Party
isn't going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill."
In a wide-ranging and fiery keynote
speech last weekend at the 12th annual Netroots Nation conference in
Atlanta, Georgia, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) relentlessly derided moderate
Democratic pundits calling for the party to move "back
to the center" and declared that Democrats must unequivocally
"fight for progressive solutions to our nation's challenges."
As The Hill's Amie Parnes reported
on Friday, Warren's assertion during the weekend gathering that progressives
are "the heart and soul of today's Democratic Party"—and not merely a
"wing"—raised the ire of so-called "moderate" Democrats,
who have insisted that progressive policies won't sell in swing states.
But recent survey results have
consistently shown that policies like single-payer
healthcare, progressive
taxation, a higher
minimum wage, and tuition-free
public college are extremely
popular among the broader electorate. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—the most
prominent advocate of an ambitious, far-reaching progressive agenda—has consistently
polled as the most popular politician in the country.
For Warren, these are all
indicators that those pining for a rightward shift "back to the
center" are deeply mistaken.
Specifically, Warren took aim
at a recent
New York Times op-ed by Democratic commentators Mark Penn and Andrew Stein,
who argued that Democrats must moderate their positions in order to take back
Congress and, ultimately, the presidency.
Warren ridiculed this argument
as a call for a return to Bill Clinton-era policies that "locked up
non-violent drug offenders and ripped more holes in our economic safety
net."
Four Arrested for Toppling Confederate Statue, But Zero Neo-Nazis Yet Arrested for This Brutal Beating
"The beating happened
right beside the Police Department, and no police were there to help me at
all."
As communities
across the United States enact
or expedite plans to take down monuments revering those who advocated for white
supremacy and slavery, police in Durham, North Carolina have arrested four
people for their alleged roles in toppling
a statue of a Confederate soldier.
Meanwhile in Charlottesville,
Virginia—where white supremacists and neo-Nazis violently
demonstrated over the weekend—police have yet to arrest anyone for viciously
beating Deandre
Harris, a 20-year-old black man, even though photo and video
footage of five white men assaulting Harris has been virally circulated on
social media and televised news for several days.
Harris and his friends—who
helped him escape the violent attack to seek medical
attention—were in the area to protest a gathering of white supremacists who
were demonstrating at Emancipation Park in response to the city's plans to remove
a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
"They were beating me
with poles. I have eight staples in my head, a broken wrist and a chipped
tooth," Harris told
The Root.
"The beating happened right
beside the Police Department, and no police were there to help me at all. My
mother is now thinking about suing the city of Charlottesville," Harris
added.
While reporting
indicates police may have some leads
in the assault on Harris, no arrests have been made or charges filed.
"Despite widespread
internet video footage of the beating," the New York Daily News reported
Wednesday, "not a single suspect was in custody three days after the
bloody assault."
Harris's beating has been
broadcast for the world to see, but the inaction by law enforcement was not
limited to this case. Even though city and state officials spent weeks
preparing for the demonstrations, and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe eventually
declared a state of emergency to shut down demonstrations Saturday, dozens of
people were injured and 32-year-old Heather
Heyer was killed.
As reporters on the ground for
ProPublica reported:
"The police did little to stop the bloodshed. Several times, a group of
assault-rifle-toting militia members from New York State, wearing body armor
and desert camo, played a more active role in breaking up fights."
Many people turned to Twitter
to encourage members of the public to help identify the men in the video—which
has produced some
possible
leads—but also to express frustration with the disparity between how law
enforcement has responded to five men beating Harris in Charlottesville, and
the protesters who took down the statue in Durham.
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