... about the importance of electing a Democrat in 2020. Some say, let's just find a Democrat who can be elected. Others say that it matters what kind of Democrat.
I'm emphatically with the second group. The road to Trumpism was paved by Democrats who really didn't care about working-class Americans, who thought social issues and demographic shifts would carry the day, even if working people (of all races) got stiffed by Wall Street, who were happy to take gobs of money from Wall Street.
We saw how that worked out. And there is nothing to keep the right from winning on issues of class resentment—unless America elects not just a Democrat but a Democrat who puts pocketbook issues first, and who pays attention to the injuries of class.
This brings me to the year of the woman, and the issue of sexual harassment and abuse, now rightly occupying center stage. This reckoning is long overdue, and at the same time it is not the only issue that matters.
I was one of those who thought Democrats jumped the gun on hounding Al Franken to resign. It would have been just as effective—more effective—to let the ethics committee do its job. It is good to see some Democratic senators, such as Pat Leahy, having wreckers' remorse on the railroading of Franken.
On that score, I'm no fan of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the leaders of the Senate's anti-Franken mob. Nor am I much of a fan of her tactical repositioning from Wall Street Democrat to sort-of-progressive Democrat.
After the abuse that Hillary Clinton took last year, it would be terrific to have a woman president. It would be even better to have a genuinely progressive woman president.
Maybe some of the good people on the Gillibrand bandwagon can explain why, if we can elect Gillibrand, we can't elect Elizabeth Warren.