Elizabeth Warren has built her career on a series of cons.

No, I’m not referring to her claim to Native American heritage or her insisting, despite public documents suggesting otherwise, that she was pushed out of a teaching job after getting pregnant. Far more important are the ways that Warren has used deception to build a reputation in the media as an innovative and serious policy intellectual. The myth surrounding her supposed wonkiness was central to her national fame as an academic and has vaulted her toward the top of the 2020 Democratic presidential field.