Home Politics Neither Feminist Nor Angry: Elizabeth Warren Was Just Right

Neither Feminist Nor Angry: Elizabeth Warren Was Just Right

Elizabeth warren

The name “Elizabeth Warren” may have been the most mentioned in the United States during the last 24 hours, and with good reason.

The Massachusetts senator and candidate for the Democratic nomination for 2020 sparked a wave of massive support by confronting former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg about his record of questionable behavior against women during the last primary debate.

After weeks of struggling to stay afloat in the polls, the senator proved to be the best prepared person to spark a debate.

After being questioned by one of the moderators about a recent Washington Post report that shed light on the information mogul’s alleged misogyny, Bloomberg responded that he had worked with women both in his mayor’s office and in the private sector.

“I have no tolerance for the kind of behavior that the ‘Me, Too’ movement has exposed,” the mayor added. “And anybody that does anything wrong in our company, we investigate it, and if it’s appropriate, they’re gone that day.”

Warren, for her part, wouldn’t let him get away with it.

“I hope you heard what his defense was: ‘I’ve been nice to some women,’” said the senator right away. “That just doesn’t cut it.”

Warren went on to outline Bloomberg’s history and his strategy, much like that of President Donald Trump, of getting people affected by his behavior to sign nondisclosure agreements.

The candidate went one step further and challenged the tycoon “to release all of those women” from those agreements, “so we can hear their side of the story.”

“None of them accuse me of doing anything, other than maybe they didn’t like a joke I told,” Bloomberg defended himself. “And let me just and let me there’s agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet and that’s up to them. They signed those agreements, and we’ll live with it.”

In Warren’s words this is a matter of character and electability.

The argument stands alone: How can Democrats keep their policy stance and their promise to the country if they nominate a candidate who matches Donald Trump’s profile?

“Look, the Democrats have to pick the person who has the best possible chance at beating Donald Trump,” Warren said in a surprise appearance on The View after the debate. “And yesterday Mayor Bloomberg announced that everyone should drop out of the race except himself and Bernie Sanders and they should decide who the nominee will be. Well, I take exception to that. I’ve been told to sit down and be quiet enough in my life. I’m ready to stay in this fight.” 

“We get the wrong nominee, we lose to Donald Trump,” she added, repeating her attack on Bloomberg as a “billionaire who has a history of harassing women” and singling out the two examples of him calling women “fat broads and horse-faced lesbians.” Warren predicted “the American people are not going to take kindly to that.” 

Despite her differences with the rest of her opponents, Warren managed to unify the country’s views on the Bloomberg case.

“Warren was not mean, nor angry. She was effective,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Thursday, in response to conservative columnist for The Washington Post Jennifer Rubin’s tweet that read, “Mean and angry Warren is not a good look.” 

Women are “allowed to be angry” about racial profiling, sexual harassment, and banks “committing fraud against single parents,” the congresswoman added. 

“Anger at injustice is quite appropriate,” she said, as quoted by The Hill. “It’s truly time to retire the misogynist trope that angry men are powerful, yet angry women are unhinged. It’s such gaslighting nonsense. You SHOULD be mad at abuse of power. The real question is how one channels that energy into positive change that creates justice,” she wrote.

AOC’s colleague Pramila Jayapal also wrote in her personal account: “I am a Bernie Sanders supporter, but please. Elizabeth Warren was prepared, Smart, unrelenting and on point in taking on sexism. ‘Mean and angry’ is such a stereotype and unfair.”

And the response from the electorate was even more forceful.

As reported by Vox, in just hours after the Nevada debate, the Warren campaign raised over $2.8 million.

It seems that, to get ahead in the polls, Warren just had to do the right thing: call a spade a spade.

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