Liz preps to be thorn in Hillary’s side
Left-wing populists look to control appointments
When Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren took the stage together on a picturesque New Hampshire autumn day this week, they presented a united front and a common goal: defeating Donald Trump. But with that mission ending one way or another in less than two weeks, their uneasy truce may be short-lived.
Throughout the tumultuous Democratic primary Warren remained steadfastly neutral, conspicuously staying above the fray of the bitter feud between Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
From Warren’s perspective, playing the role of Switzerland made political sense. After all, her relationship with Clinton has always been tense. The two famously clashed over a 2001 bankruptcy bill, with Warren accusing Clinton of selling out to the credit card industry. On the spectrum of political ideology, Warren is much closer to Sanders’ socialism than the corporate pragmatism of the Wall Street-backed Clinton.
When Warren did finally throw her support behind Clinton in June, the primary was all but finished and the endorsement had far less impact. Even in defeat, Sanders supporters howled with outrage at Warren’s decision, protesting her events to express their displeasure.
But Warren’s endorsement came at a steep price. She and Sanders extracted from Clinton major left-wing concessions that resulted in a Democratic Party platform Warren proudly described as “the most progressive agenda in history.” From Europeanstyle health care to new taxes on energy to government handouts for just about everyone, the socialism-infused Democratic Party of 2016 is a far cry from the centrism of Bill Clinton during the 1990s.
Moving forward, Warren has already signaled she intends to remain a thorn in Clinton’s side. In September, details leaked out of Warren’s plans to torpedo potential Clinton nominees she viewed as insufficiently left-wing or too cozy with the banks. The hit list was described bluntly in media accounts as the “hell no” appointments, with Warren adopting the slogan “personnel is policy.”
The former Harvard law professor has a track record of these kinds of political stunts, memorably scuttling one of President Obama’s highestranking nominations to the Treasury Department last year. In Warren’s eyes, experience in the financial service industry is a
disqualifier for service in government.
The Warren standard applies even to Sheryl Sandberg, a Clinton supporter and author of the bestseller “Lean In,” which has been hailed in some quarters as “the next great feminist manifesto.” When Sandberg’s name was floated as the potential first female Treasury secretary in United States history, Warren and Sanders allies vociferously objected, distrustful of her ties to the private sector.
When the dust settles on the 2016 election, Elizabeth Warren will remain the keeper of the burning left-wing flame that drove 12 million people to vote for a 75-year-old socialist who doesn’t comb his hair. It’s easy to envision Warren going as far as shutting down the government over a Clinton nominee or a policy she finds objectionable.
The flame of left-wing populism stoked by Sanders hasn’t burned out; it’s only just beginning. If Warren had thrown her hat in the 2016 ring and faced a primary field of Clinton and 15 other “establishment” Democrats the way Donald Trump did on the GOP side, it’s a fair bet that she, not Clinton, would be the nominee of her party right now.
If elected, Hillary Clinton will have more to worry about than only 36 percent of voters viewing her as honest and trustworthy.
On the right, Republicans show no signs of letting up on Clinton for all her scandals and conflicts of interest created by her homebrew email server or pay-to-play allegations about the family foundation. On the left, it’s clear that the Warren/ Sanders wing is in no mood for compromise. They are already fomenting seeds of dissent within their own party, determined to shape the Clinton administration and force it to carry out their socialist agenda.
In politics, being alone on an island without a base is one of the loneliest places to be. And that’s precisely where Clinton is headed if the election goes her way.