Once close to eclipsing Joe Biden in the polls, Warren has now fallen to at least third and sometimes fourth behind other white guy Pete Buttigieg. Part of that has to do with a fear of "Who can stand up to Trump?" (look, every candidate would destroy Trump on facts at a debate, but the only one who could have taken his bluster and made him look like the fucking tool he is was Kamala Harris, but, well, we fucked that up), part is the sexist comfort with the old white guys (shit, Bloomberg has finally spent enough money to make it into double digits), part is that she's so earnest that people mistrust it (see Cory Booker), and tons of other factors.
I support Warren (Bernie is my second choice and I'll support any Democrat who's nominated, so no fucking whining), but I think she needs to go big. Not with her plans and ideas, which are already big and numerous and mostly great. No, big with a full-frontal attack on Republicans. See, while Joe Biden talks about his magical ability to cooperate with the same senators and House members who shit all over him and President Obama and while Bernie Sanders plans to use some kind of mesmerism to get the GOP to go along with what the majority of the country wants when they have never given a shit about that, Warren should go full-throated with "Fuck the GOP. They need to be torn putrid limb from putrid limb." (She might want to leave out the "Fuck" part.)
Lest you think I'm mansplaining to a strong speaker and almost scarily intelligent thinker like Warren, all I'm really doing is saying that she should synthesize some things she's already brought up into a focused message.
This month, Warren announced a plan called, unsubtly, "Restoring Integrity and Competence to Government After Trump," and it contains the foundation for burning the GOP to the motherfucking ground. A few highlights include firing all political appointees put in by Trump; creating a Justice Department Task Force to look into Trump-era lawbreaking, including bribery and immigration law violations; and changing the process for contractor selection (or, more precisely, going back to what it was before Trump). Think for a moment about how many current Republican elected officials will be caught up if such a task force goes whole hog after corruption. Just that last one, on contractors, will ruin Mitch McConnell and so many others.
As if that wasn't enough, Warren has also pledged to release "every document related to this impeachment inquiry that the administration has been hiding." Again, think about who that would implicate. Start with Devin "Fucked by a Cow" Nunes and a barrel of House Republicans. If done right, people will be forced to resign from office, if not get thrown in jail.
I'm not saying other candidates don't have ideas about how to handle Republican malfeasance. But Warren has moved to make it more central to her campaign. And I think it's time for her to amp it up before she fades even further as a candidate.
Look, I (and many others) have repeatedly said that one of the mistakes of the Obama administration was, to put it simply, letting the Bush administration and its enablers get away with it. The fact that no one was prosecuted for the war in Iraq, for the torture policy, for the near-collapse of the world economy essentially wiped the slate clean for others to eventually do worse. And, as I (and many others) have repeatedly said, the 2006 and 2008 elections had punishing Republicans implicit in their heavily Democratic outcomes. Not doing so has led to the GOP breaking every norm, violating every tradition, and wrecking the joint with Trump.
So Warren could make a speech where she says, in so many words, "These motherfuckers have ruined it. They've been ruining it. And I'm not gonna let them get away with it. If you broke the law, bitch, you're going to prison. If you helped the orange dick in the White House cover shit up, we're running you out of town." Hell, she should show them the fuckin' red, white, and blue fist-shaped Strap-On of Justice she'll use to ream out their asses.
There is a significant contingent of Democrats who are dying from being thirsty for some kind of vengeance against the party that has taken Hope and Change and buried it alive. Warren could tap into that thirst and use the rage to boost her votes so she can get around to all the things she's got a plan for.
