This past Saturday I went back to my hometown for my 50th high school reunion. When I lived there it was a tiny village and many of my graduating class of about 70 had known each other since first grade. A guy I've stayed in touch with, Doug, picked me up at the train station and proceeded to give me a tour, with such detailed understanding of the architecture, layout, relationships between families, and therefore the history of change that I felt as if I was meeting where I'd lived for the first time. "When did you learn all this?" I asked, astounded. It turned out he'd always seen this way and just kept learning from the time he was a small boy, until now when he is an architect turned city planner. He goes through life with a grid in his head about the relationship between people and landscape that I cannot begin to approach. If I ever wanted help with anything to do with building anything, I'd call Doug.
In This Fight Is Our Fight, Elizabeth Warren demonstrates the same grid-like understanding of cultural politics and economics, and therefore how the world works and doesn't work.* Through heartbreaking stories, she clearly explains the relationships between housing, education, systemic unfairness, people, and mega corporations. I cannot begin to convey what is in this book. But after reading just a couple of chapters, I wanted to hire her to lead the renovation to make the United States work for everybody.
I want a leader who is smarter than I am, who through connected economic dots understands relationships I can't begin to articulate. I want somebody with an economic grid in their head that includes everybody, the clarity to explain what she sees, and the heart to inspire all of us to help her help us begin to repair the damage. Elizabeth Warren has encyclopedic understanding of economics and history and the connections that make things happen. She believes in capitalist markets with regulation to keep them running fairly. She believes in the ideal of democracy.
- If you are disgusted with government and politicians and no longer believe anyone is honest or trustworthy, read this book!
- If you believe in fairness and have a sense that, although you can't name the game, the game is rigged, read this book!
- Whether you are a Democrat who is frightened, a Republican who is wary of big government and encroachment on freedoms, or an apathetic person who just wants things to work but heretofore has not participated in the process, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read this book!
I am so excited by the possibility of a President Elizabeth Warren.
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*To understand the critical job qualification of understanding connections, see my review of Fear.