ELECTION fever grips the American Left. A mood of scrappy, let-us-at-’em impatience unites such gatherings as Netroots Nation, an annual shindig which this year drew thousands of activists, organisers, bloggers and candidates to Detroit from July 17th-19th. Unfortunately for the broader Democratic Party, the election that inspires the grassroots is the 2016 presidential race. The mid-term congressional elections, which will happen much sooner (in November this year), provoke a more muted response, even though there is a good chance that Republicans will seize the Senate and cripple the rest of Barack Obama’s presidency.The kind of people who attend Netroots Nation are passionately and uncompromisingly left wing. Their champion is Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a former professor who crusades against “big banks”, “powerful corporations” and their enablers on the Right. “The game is rigged,” thundered Ms Warren, whose demands include more generous Social Security benefits (pensions) for the old (paid for with steep tax hikes), cheaper student loans, a higher minimum wage and other forms of redistribution. Not for her the business-friendly centrism...
from The Economist: United States http://ift.tt/1sYe3WM
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