Elizabeth Warren

00based her speech around a December Politico magazine article titled “Everything is Awesome!” (When a politician spends thirty minutes publicly fisking a Politico article, that’s a pretty big clue he or she is trying to rattle the Beltway narrative.)

The author, Michael Grunwald, points to a lot of positive economic indicators like GDP growth, the falling unemployment rate, cheap gas prices, low inflation and reduced deficits. He acknowledges that “many Americans are still hurting” and mentions “stark inequality” in passing, but the article is basically a big hand-wave to those issues. As he dings “chronic complainers” on the left and right, Grunwald concludes that, at the end of the day, “things in the U.S. do look rather awesome.”

Warren politely agreed with the broad points, and gave the Obama administration “credit for the steps they’ve taken to get us here.” Then she went on to dismantle the article’s entire premise. “Despite these cheery numbers, America’s middle class is in deep trouble,” she said.

Her argument was that while individual indicators are looking up, there is a structural problem in the American economy that’s only getting worse. “When I look at the data here—and this includes years of research I conducted myself—I see evidence everywhere about the pounding that working people are taking. Instead of building an economy for all Americans, for the past generation this country has grown an economy that works for some Americans.”


http://www.thenation.com/blog/194361/elizabeth-warren-just-gave-really-important-and-revealing-speech