When Sen. Elizabeth A. Warren recently traveled to the Big Apple to endorse New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, she was asked if overt socialism is really the best model for Democrats to adopt. “You bet,” she replied in her signature folksy style.
The Boston lawmaker wasn’t just jumping on the sudden trendiness of socialism three-and-a-half decades after its near-extinction. With fellow Senate traveler Bernie Sanders, Warren has been a catalyst for moving her party to the left since her first campaign in 2012.
She and Sanders are, in many ways, the godparents of the self-avowed Democratic Socialists such as Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are providing the youthful energy for the Democrats in the Trump era.
As Warren’s attacks on Wall Street and the wealthy are gaining even wider traction among liberals – a recent Gallup poll found 66% of Democrats have a positive view of socialism – the apparent contradictions between her public economic positions and private financial decisions are receiving new scrutiny, particularly as the one-time presidential candidate appears to be testing those waters again.
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