Rep. Maxine Waters: Controversial mission

For decades, she has railed against the system with no apparent self-awareness that she is the system: an insider, a poster child for entrenched incumbency. First elected to the California State Assembly in 1976 and to Congress in 1990, Rep. Maxine Waters is now in her 15th term, a committee chairwoman, and the longest-serving black female, and she routinely wins reelection by margins of 70% or more.

On Saturday evening in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, 1,800 miles from her South Los Angeles district, she fanned the flames of anger in a state reeling from riots.