Warren possesses a knack for earthy articulation of the liberal-populist worldview matched by no one else in American public life today. Videos of her speaking to supporters and donors, or decimating slow-witted cable hosts, go “viral” and get millions of views from liberals who’ve been desperate for years to hear a prominent Democrat talk the way she does. This is part of what she said in what is perhaps her most famous clip, from September 2011:

I hear all this, you know, well, this is class warfare, this is whatev…. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I wanna be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for…. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

We live in an age when hedge fund managers and Wall Streeters complain of class warfare against them, and when, as Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig’s important research has shown, all but a small proportion of political campaign contributions are made by “the tiniest fraction of the one percent.”¹ It’s been years since a high-profile politician has spoken like Warren and not only survived but flourished. Warren has aroused populist tendencies in parts of the liberal base and probably emboldened other senators and members of the House to speak more directly on class issues.   New Populism in America