Why Warren lost in 2020

 Okay, so Elizabeth Warren apparently has a new book out explaining why she thinks she lost in 2020. I did not read the book, but this article sums up her explanations. 

Essentially, she claims two reasons, first of all, that she struggled to explain properly how to fund her medicare for all proposal. Second, because....well...sexism. She blames the fact that she was a woman and she ran "in the shadows of" Hillary and some failed senator run from 10 years ago. Uh, I have a much different opinion on this matter, so I'll get to that later, but let me tackle these first.

Funding Medicare For All

Here's the problem. If you're for a grand proposal like medicare for all, you're gonna get a lot of crap regardless of quality. Bernie outlined quite simply how he would fund it, yet he faced a constant barrage of "HOW YA GONNA PAY FOR IT? HOW YA GONNA PAY FOR IT!" It's like the media doesn't want to know. Because they don't. Asking about funding is a concern trolling argument and even if you satisfy the question the media will keep pushing the argument to sabotage the argument. Why? Because they're right wing hacks who believe in small government, even the "liberals", and they want to make it sound scary and unfundable. Politics is dirty, and I could see this being a thing, regardless of how well someone like Bernie or Warren would explain themselves. Because the media is controlled by centrists and right wingers who favor establishment candidates, and don't want any major change. And the parties tend to kow tow to that. So simply being a progressive means you face an uphill battle.

Looking at Warren's website though, she didn't do herself any favors. Warren...is a wonk. I mean this in a good way. But her pitch on her website is overly complex and she overdoes it with the technobabble. It's kind of like me when I go on a random autistic rant. I can start going on about all of these funding mechanisms for UBI but then I go on a tangent and the next thing I know I got something massive and unreadable. Warren kind of suffers this problem. Most voters are stupid and need things spoonfed to them.

To be fair warren does have a PDF greatly simplifying it that gives you more upfront costs, and since I've been covering healthcare plans I might as well go into it. 

Basically, she expected to pay $2 trillion a year on it, with funding sources coming from:

Employer contribution to medicare (replaces current employer spending similar to Bernie's 7.5% payroll tax): $880 billion

More taxes on take home pay: $140 billion

"Taxes on the financial sector, large corporations, and the top 1% of individuals": $680 billion

"Better enforcement of existing tax laws": $230 billion

"Immigration reform": $40 billion

"Elimination of the overseas contingency operation fund": $80 billion

This comes out to $2.05 trillion a year, or $20.5 trillion over 10 years. 

And then she discusses this in detail. 

I mean, her argument makes sense, but to be fair, compared to Bernie's, it does have a habit of argumentum ad TLDRing people to death. She just provides so many facts. While that stuff is great for policy wonks who want to dig into details, it does not make it particularly accessible to the public. This is more a personality flaw than anything else though. 

I don't think this is the big reason she lost, but this is a problem progressives in general have to deal with when running for office. You constantly get asked "HOW YA GONNA PAY FOR IT" and if you then respond with tons of pages of documents detailing it you're gonna put them to sleep. Not to mention they don't really care. The whole point in asking is to make it look like your proposal is too big and can't be funded, these people aren't asking in good faith. Fair, next, but I will be coming back to why I think she lost later.

The sexism thing

This is where Warren's more...abrasive nature comes out. She attributed much of her failures to sexism, and the idea that she ran in the shadows of other unpopular women, and that in the age of Trump she could not win a campaign. 

Look....no. 

And quite frankly, I'm sick of Warren blaming sexism. I used to respect Warren a lot, before the 2020 race. I mean, she started out as my third top candidate behind Bernie and Yang. She tended to be a bit more moderate and establishmenty than either of them, and her ideology seemed a bit more laced in traditional capitalist/jobist rhetoric, which kind of turned me off somewhat, but I could see her being a quite effective president who would bring significant change. Out of the 20+ candidates, she was #3 for most of the race, so let that be as much of an endorsement as I can possibly give.

But, honestly, I really don't think sexism had much to do with it. While I know Bernie and Warren had private conversations about whether a woman can win behind the scenes, if the woman is the right person for the job (for example, I think Kamala Harris could've beaten Trump too), I don't see why not. 

Speaking of which, if anything has turned me off from Warren, it's her using those private conversations, which were arguably done in good faith, in order to smear Bernie as sexist. Much like how "how ya gonna pay for it?" is dirty, playing the woman card and painting your closest political rival who has done nothing but fight for womens' rights for the past half century as sexist is a major crap move. It was dirty, and it just made people, like me, associate her with Hillary. I guess she was right that she didn't get out of Hillary's shadow, but that was because she wanted to be there. At the end of the day she pulled the same "whaa people don't like me because I'm a woman" thing, and that's just...not true. If anything made me associate her with Hillary, it's using Hillary's dirty tactics to sabotage a more popular candidate in hopes that she could steal his voters, or divide his base, which further helped Biden seal the deal.

Warren is a snake. She's like the progressive Judas here, and her behaving like this actually made me lost all of the respect for her I used to have over the course of the 2020 race. I used to consider her basically a slightly inferior Bernie, which is a complement in and of itself. And again, the reason I liked Bernie better was policies and ideology. I kind of believed Warren was slightly more establishmenty and her policies were often a bit more mainstream. She had a lot of nice ideas, but she strayed too far into the whole regulatory/band aid capitalist approach for me, and not the more "we need systemic change" approach someone like Bernie or even Yang would be. She just wasn't the change agent I was looking for, that's all. 

But now? Yeah, progressive Judas. She stabbed Bernie in the back, playing dirty Hillary-esque tactics for cheap votes, and she just lost my respect. She might have policy chops, but I just don't trust her any more, and as someone who kinda leans in the "Bernie bro" direction, being able to trust someone's progressive chops is a major factor in my voting behavior. 

Now let me get into the real reasons Warren lost

Here's the big problem everyone faced in 2020. The race was so darned crowded. We literally had, I think, like 27 people running at one point? It was nuts. And in a free for all like that, it's very hard to establish oneself. One needs to already be established. There are two major lanes in the democratic party. The progressive lane and the centrist lane. In the centrist lane, Biden was the presumed nominee. He was the old dude, who was Obama's VP, and had all the experience, and while I don't think many people actually liked him, they voted for him regardless, because they were so focused on defeating Trump that they supported the known element who was "electable." Many other centrists ran. Some even beat Biden in early states like Klobuchar and Buttigieg, but after South Carolina, the fix was in, and given the other candidates didn't have a path forward, and because they were afraid Bernie might actually win this, Obama made some calls and they all dropped out to back Biden on super Tuesday.

Which kind of gets to the real way people win presidential primaries. Being chosen. Clinton in 2016 was chosen. The media manufactured consent for her pretty bluntly, and she hardly faced competition. Biden did face competition, and the party seemed to hold off on coronating someone as they just seemed to want the person they viewed as able to beat both Bernie and Trump, and after South Carolina, they decided to back Biden. So the race changed around Biden, and Biden found himself with 60%+ of the electorate. No one else had a chance. It was his turn. 

Warren's electorate...basically came mostly from Bernie. It arguably came from other candidates too in the more centrist wing, notably Harris, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, etc., but her primary rival was Bernie. And Bernie had name recognition from 2016. Funny thing is, back in 2016, I remember when Bernie was 1-3% in the polls, and Warren was 15%, and then when Warren said she wouldn't run, Bernie jumped to 15%. So it seems to me if Warren wanted name recognition and dominance of the progressive wing, she should've run in 2016. By 2020, she lost her chance, Bernie was the person with the name recognition in the progressive lane of the party, and she just failed to carve out a niche.

If you want to gain support against more established candidates, you need to differentiate yourself from them. Even then that might not be enough. Warren just...never had a niche. She was basically Bernie lite, and many people in that wing wanted Bernie. And while she also drew support from the centrist wing on the basis of her wonky credentials, those supporters had so many candidates to choose from and Warren just never stood out. 

Warren was, quite frankly, too centrist for the Bernie wing of the party. Spoken as a Bernie guy myself, why would I vote for Warren when Bernie is an option? I liked Warren, but #3 isn't good enough when I can vote for #1 or #2. And she was too progressive for the centrists, who were concerned about pragmatism, and probably didn't think Warren was electable any way due to her past controversies and the like. 

She was just background noise in a noisy primary. She couldn't win, because she didn't have the establishment's blessing. If she did, Biden would've dropped out and endorsed her, along with the other centrists. But they didn't. The establishment leans centrist, and centrists were chosen to run. And among progressives, much like I've explained there were better options.

Bernie was the progressive favorite, with the largest base of support and the most trusted record, history, and credentials, and Yang at least had UBI. But I could not name a single policy that resonated for me from Warren that I really wanted that I couldn't get from Bernie. Heck, Bernie often had more complete versions of those policies. Warren only wanted 50k of student debt cancellation. Bernie wanted ALL debt cancelled. 

Really, it's pathetic Warren is pulling a Hillary and blaming sexism. She just was not the best candidate in the race, and didn't appeal to a significant number of people. Her ceiling was what, 10-15%? And a lot of those were more moderate Bernie voters. 

Speaking of which, this does offer an interesting scenario:

What if Warren ran in 2016?

This actually is a very interesting what if. As I said, Warren was the progressive favorite back in 2015 before the candidates declared. She was one of the best candidates and she was my #2 behind Bernie. But if she ran, I actually think history would have gone much differently. I still think the fix would've been in for Warren, but with two women in the race, I don't think that Hillary could've used the "bernie bro" argument on her. I think it would've been a much more policy based campaign as a result, and while Hillary would likely win, it's possible Warren being a regulatory capitalist who doesn't use "socialist" rhetoric like Bernie mightve actually disarmed some criticisms. I still think Hillary would've won due to heavy establishment rigging and the media narratives pushing everyone to Hillary, but it's possible that Bernie might've been choked out the way Warren was in 2020. Getting only 3% support, he might've backed out and endorsed Warren, and the progressive wing would've been more moderate, and likely treated slightly better. And the party might've been more united. 

It's possible Bernie's supporters would've become Warren supporters. It's possible I would've been a warren supporter. But instead, due to the hostility toward Bernie and the socialist rhetoric, the Bernie base ended up radicalizing and now many of them are literal socialists. This may not have happened if Warren were the candidate in 2016.

I'm assuming Trump would still win, as Hillary is demoralizing enough as it is and Trump was a better campaigner, which would open up a 2020 comeback run. In this case Warren might be the rockstar of the show. And Bernie would run again, once again, unsuccessfully, and Warren remains the progressive wing's champion. She would've likely still lost to Biden, as Biden is once again coronated, but she might've been THE progressive candidates and the #2.

Me, I wouldve definitely supported warren in 2016 if she ran and bernie exited early due to low numbers. In 2020, I may have switched to Bernie or Yang, but if Warren had that center of gravity in the progressive wing vote wise I could've gone for her too as a compromise candidate to avoid splitting the vote. I'm willing to do that if the candidate is sufficiently left enough and I dont feel like I'm losing much in compromising. 

The end result? Nothing would change, but the progressive wing may very well be more moderate, the shift among the left to literal socialism might not have happened, and Warren would've had Bernie's level of support. Still not a win. Because you can't beat the establishment picking and choosing the winner. Centrists gonna centrist and ignore progressives. Warren is too progressive for the center, and due to Bernie gaining control of the progressive wing and banking on his 2016 support, Warren is too moderate for progressives. And that's the real reason she lost. 

Quite frankly, Warren should be glad she got as far as she did. She beat most of the candidates, including many men. Not sexism! But she just failed to have the right mix of policies and persona to attract people, and she didn't have the backing of the all important establishment, and that's why she really lost.