Progressive Democrat Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren caught many off guard this week when she spoke with MSNBC’s Joy Reid about the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. As Fox News reported, the lawmaker said, "it was wrong but also served as a ‘warning’ of sorts that ‘you can only push people so far. We'll say it over and over. Violence is never the answer. This guy [Luigi Mangione] gets a trial who's allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth[care], but you can only push people so far, and then they start to take matters into their own hands.’"
While many casual observers were taken aback at Warren seeming to offer a "both sides" take on the slaying of a health care executive on the streets of Manhattan, long-time followers of the senator's career were not surprised.
To be fair, Warren’s latest dust-up, arguing that if you push people hard enough, they will "start to take matters into their own hands"— is a new extreme, even for her. She later scrambled to issue a clean-up statement to quell the political backlash over her remarks but her history of using violent rhetoric offers an illuminating insight into the worldview of many on the left.
Consider that in 2011, as Warren was launching her senate bid and the radical Occupy Wall Street protests were cresting in cities across America (a movement Warren claimed credit for creating), a video of the then-Harvard professor bragging about her record having "thrown rocks at people that I think are in the wrong" went viral.
Or there was her preference of "plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor" instead of compromise over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Warren’s disdain isn’t just with Republicans, either. Even Democrats who stray from her purity tests are not immune. She had a long-running feud with President Joe Biden where she accused the future president of selling out to the credit card companies. (In an example of even a stopped clock being right twice a day, Biden, as a candidate for president in 2019, described Warren’s approach as, "representative of an elitism that working and middle-class people do not share: ‘We know best; you know nothing.’")
Left unsaid in the brouhaha with Biden, of course, was Warren’s past as a corporate attorney. Her pro-consumer bona fides were undermined by her some of her private sector work, most notably her representation of insurance companies seeking to limit their legal liability, as reported by the left-leaning Boston Globe. Her hypocrisy is a different topic for a different column.
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The assassination of the chief executive of one of the nation’s leading health care companies has left a nation reeling and wondering how we ever arrived at this moment in time – not just the senseless murder in the busy streets of New York City, but how some on the left are appearing to justify it.
For a rudderless Democratic Party, desperate for answers and a path forward, there are few unifiers, but disdain and outright hostility to the private sector is one of the commonalities.
Warren has been one of the ringleaders in this sphere. A quick perusal of the press release section on her Senate website belies her anger. Just look at the categories: "Billionaires." "Greedy brokers." "Corporate greed." "Price gouging."
In Warren’s eyes, private sector industries are the villains. Just this week, she referred to TurboTax, a service that more than 40 million Americans rely on each year get back their hard-earned tax dollars from the government, as "sleazy."
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Warren isn’t alone in these beliefs. Nearly two thirds of Democrats have a favorable view of "socialism."
Instead of appreciation for the opportunity they provide, businesses are viewed as the enemy, and government and politicians are the answer.
There are encouraging signs that the tide may be turning. President-elect Donald Trump enjoyed a warm welcome ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. In a sign that capitalism could be celebrated again, he was treated as a conquering hero.
Hopefully his swearing on January 20 will mark a turning of the page and a return to the principles that made America the envy of the world: hard work, success and a belief in free enterprise as an economic force for good that lifts everyone up.
Senator Warren and her fellow liberals may never subscribe to these theories, but we’ve tried it their way. For the last four years, America has been governed by a president who brags about being the most progressive since FDR, a boast substantiated by socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt.). We’ve seen the results: record high inflation, energy prices and a belief that America is off course.
Thankfully, a new era is dawning and brighter days are ahead.
