The killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, both black men who died at the hands of white police officers, could rally progressives to support freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for president in 2016, according to New York Times’ David Brooks.
In his latest op-ed, Brooks, the first influential national political columnist to make the case for Warren defeating presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, points to the intensely controversial deaths as a significant factor in making a path to victory for an insurgent left-wing candidate as the Massachusetts senator is positioning herself.
“The emotional register of the Democratic Party is growing more combative,” Brooks said. “Events like the Brown case in Ferguson and the Garner case in New York have raised indignation levels across the progressive spectrum.”
What is unclear from Brooks’ analysis is why Warren would be uniquely perceived as a champion against supposed racially-charged police brutality.
Brooks did not return a request for comment.
The Garner and Brown cases sparked a wave of often violent protests and a national debate about the state of race relations in the U.S. Neither police officer in the incidents was indicted by the grand juries convened to consider the evidence.
Despite Brooks’ assertion, Warren has actually said very little about the Brown case in public. In September, she told Yahoo! News that race was a factor in the incident and that a full investigation was required. She has said nothing publicly about Garner.
In contrast, Clinton has spoken about both Brown and Garner at different times. On Brown, for example, Clinton said three weeks after he was shot that “we cannot ignore the inequities that persist in our justice system, inequities that undermine our most deeply held values of fairness and equality. Imagine what we would feel and what we would do if white drivers were three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as black drivers, instead of the other way around.”
In early December, Clinton commented on both Brown and Garner. “Each of us has to grapple with some hard truths about race and justice in America, because despite all the progress we’ve made together, African-Americans, most particularly African-American men, are still more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged with crimes, and sentenced to long prison terms,” she said.
Warren has insisted that she is not running for president but has not definitively said she would not run under any circumstances.
A movement among Democratic activists to draft her, however, has met with an increasingly enthusiastic reception, at least among Democrats who are uncomfortable with the prospect of an uncontested Democratic nomination process.
The liberal advocacy group MoveOn recently said it’s investing $1 million in two early primary states, New Hampshire and Iowa to rally support for Warren.
