Joe Biden's ridiculous attack on Elizabeth Warren's 'elitism'

[highplainsdem]

16. Yes, and then Klobuchar went on to say that "no one has a monopoly on good ideas." That's HER

way of expressing what both Biden and Buttigieg meant by Warren's "my way or the highway" attitude.

I admire Warren's intelligence. But she does often project an academic elitism that I think is partly due to her debate background (even when you train to argue both sides of an issue, you train to argue them in each debate as if the other side has no real validity) and her background as a law professor lecturing students.

After one of the debates, I saw one of her supporters here post a message praising Warren for looking like a brilliant professor lecturing dumb students (the dumb students being the other candidates). Those weren't the exact words used, and I've been trying to find that post again but haven't used the right keywords, apparently. But that was the gist of it. Brilliant professor versus dumb students.

I was really struck by that post -- both by how perfectly it nailed an image Warren creates at times that IMO hurts her with people who aren't completely sold on her already, and by how unaware that Warren supporter was that coming across that way could be a problem for Warren.

And btw, if you don't think criticizing a "my way or the highway" attitude and saying "no one has a monopoly on good ideas" mean the same thing, here's part of a speech from President Obama:

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/25/remarks-president-economy-jacksonville-fl

So put out some plans. I don't claim to have a monopoly on every good idea. (Laughter.) I don't. I'm happy to steal good ideas from anybody, because I just want to make things work. And it may seem hard sometimes, but if we're willing to take a few bold steps -- if Washington will just shake off its complacency and set aside just this kind of constant gridlock and “my way or the highway” attitude, then our economy will be better a year from now, just like it's better now than it was last year. And it will be better five years from now. And it will be better 10 years from now.

In his essay posted on Medium, Biden made it clear he was talking about an elitism that believes it has a monopoly on good ideas:

Some call it the “my way or the highway” approach to politics. But it’s worse than that. It’s condescending to the millions of Democrats who have a different view.

It’s representative of an elitism that working and middle class people do not share: “We know best; you know nothing”. “If you were only as smart as I am you would agree with me.”

So you have three candidates who are all getting the same impression from Warren. (At least three.)