Elizabeth Warren Declared War on Corruption in the Heart of Lower Manhattan

[bluewater]

Corruption is not merely unethical or undemocratic. It gets people killed. That was what Elizabeth Warren sought to illustrate to the many thousands who gathered Monday night to hear her speak beneath the towering marble arch in New York's Washington Square Park. The Massachusetts senator and Democratic candidate for president held her biggest rally of the campaign a block or so from the building that once housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the site of a 1911 fire that, in the space of 18 minutes, became the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city. 146 garment workers perished, mostly women and many of them new Italian and Jewish immigrants. They were locked in the facility to prevent unauthorized breaks or theft of materials, a standard practice of the time that condemned them to the inferno.

The fire was the opening and centerpiece of Warren's speech Monday night, because for her, the fire was about power. The appalling conditions in garment factories were widely publicized by the time of the Triangle atrocity, yet the industrial bosses had captured enough of city government to stop any kind of reform. Workers, many of them the most marginalized people in society, were subjected to excruciating hours and horrific conditions and inadequate pay while the people up top made a killing. "Sound familiar?" Warren asked the crowd just after 7:30, and soon enough she was off to the races, regaling the crowd—which her campaign said numbered at least 20,000, though that was not independently verified—with all the familiarities.


Warren’s podium was crafted from wood gifted from the homestead of Frances Perkins, the activist who led labor reform efforts after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.

"Giant corporations have bought off our government," she told the crowd to boos and cheers. She listed off the offenders: fossil fuel companies, the gun lobby, health insurance companies, drug companies. She spoke in plain terms about the current state of lobbying in this country: "It's the very definition of bribery," she declared, her voice rising, "and we're going to put a stop to it." For this, she said, she had a plan—"the biggest anti-corruption plan since Watergate," featuring a lifetime ban on lobbying for federal officials like senators or congressmen or Cabinet members. Warren wants every meeting between a lobbyist and a politician on the record, so constituents can know who's got their representative's ear. She wants anyone who enters public life to give up their private business interests while they serve.

"Take care of the people's business or your own business," she said, "but you can't do both at the same time." It wasn't hard to decipher who had entered the piece. "Donald Trump," Warren said simply, "is corruption in the flesh."

It's this combination of detailed policymaking and straight-and-simple communication that has drawn people towards Warren's campaign in growing numbers, even if she and Bernie Sanders still consistently trail Joe Biden in Democratic primary polling. Many of the rallygoers cited Warren's ability to make complicated things simple, at least on the stump, as fundamental to her appeal.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a29085183/elizabeth-warren-rally-washington-square-park-corruption/