Massachusetts Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Andrea Campbell are trying desperately to be relevant in the new Trump era, emerging as voices of resistance before the new president has even a chance to settle in.
Warren sent Elon Musk a long, condescending letter laced with personal attacks recommending several dozen cuts his government waste and inefficiency agency (DOGE) can focus on.
Campbell, working out of her New Bedford office because it’s close to her new house in the Southcoast hamlet of Dartmouth, has already sued Trump – following the ineffective strategy of her AG predecessor, Maura Healey.
Campbell followed an unlikely path to the Attorney General’s office, losing the Boston mayor’s race badly enough so that she wasn’t even one of the two finalists.
The next year, taking advantage of a relative lack of interest in the race from other powerful Democrats, she was elected the state’s top cop despite having little law enforcement experience.
She was largely operating in obscurity until Trump came along to win the election, giving her a platform to oppose the Republican administration.
She argued along with other state AGs that Trump’s denying of birthright citizenship to immigrants is unconstitutional. She was backed by a federal judge who agreed that Trump’s order was “blatantly unconstitutional.”
Trump has promised to contest the ruling.
Warren, Massachusetts’s senior senator, is largely out of power with Republicans in control of Congress, but has that direct link to dying news network CNN to keep her in the spotlight.
She fired out a press release last week recommending more than two dozen spending cuts that Musk-led DOGE could make, including cutting off funding for charter schools, which thousands of children in Massachusetts rely on for their education.
“I am happy to work with you to eliminate this government waste,” Warren, a fierce critic of Musk, wrote to him.
The letter seemed more like a troll than an actual appeal to help. She recommended cuts in defense, federal health programs and closing tax loopholes to the rich, which seemed aimed right at Musk, one of the world’s richest people.
Musk has actually targeted much different areas for reduction, including The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Planned Parenthood and other “progressive” groups.
Musk ignored Warren’s troll, deciding to let it pass without comment.
But it shows the lengths Warren will go to to remain relevant in Washington. As long as there’s a satellite link to CNN, that’s all that matters to Warren.
Campbell has proposed ideas like taking away kids’ cellphones in school to keep her in the public spotlight.
Her moves come as Gov. Maura Healey has largely voided her position as the voice of resistance, realizing that could be damaging to the state’s chances of getting federal funding.
