The Fight is Our Fight, The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class
by Elizabeth Warren
Published by/Picador/Henry Holt & Company 2017 with afterward 2018
Pages 356 Price $17 Paperback

Elizabeth Warren is one of the nation’s most influential progressives. She is the senior senator from Massachusetts and is known for always having a plan. Her energy and passion for running for president of the United States of 2020 is amazing.

Her book has a personal aspect to it because she talks about every day experiences, like sharing the morning newspaper with her husband, while getting up in the morning before starting her professional schedule of the day in talking to many different groups. However, beyond every day living experiences, which make the book warm and very readable, she sticks to the issues methodically and is a powerful figure against injustice and abuse of power.

Some of the issues she addresses are, affordable childcare, student -debt relief, break- up of big tech corporations, executive accountability, protecting public lands, and the Opioid crisis.

Elizabeth Warren was born in 1949 and came from humble circumstances. Her father had a heart attack when young and the medical bills wiped them out. In addition her father could not continue working at the same job and her mother had  to work for Sears to help with finances. Warren worked at age thirteen waiting on tables. She was active on her debating team in high school and won awards. A goal she worked on was to become a teacher. She became a teacher of children with disabilities..After her marriage  she went back to school to become a lawyer and eventually taught law. Her speciality was bankruptcy and consumer protection. After moving to Massachusetts she ran for Ted Kennedy’s seat as senator in the federal government. She won against Scott Brown in 2012.

Warren states in this book, “I stepped into the chamber and walked up to my desk. Actually I still think it is Ted Kennedy’s desk because for 47 years that is whose desk it had been.The youngest Kennedy brother had been known as The Lion of the senate, both for his effectiveness and his unwavering courage. My heart always speeds up when I stand up to speak from the desk he used to fight so many battles.”

Warren talks about Kennedy’s courage in 1986 to go against the nomination of Jeff Sessions by President Reagan to be appointed as a federal judge because Kennedy felt Sessions would be a disgrace to the Justice Department. Sessions among many things was against gay marriage, voted against equal pay for equal work, and felt that Roe vs Wade was constitutionally unsound.

It amazes me 30 years later in 2017, Warren, now in the senate, agreed with Kennedy (of long ago) in opposing Sessions’s appointment as Attorney General  selected by Trump because Sessions was a poor candidate for that position.  Warren stood heroically against Sessions’s appointment as Attorney General but Sessions got appointed (and later resigned under pressure at Trump’s request).

Trump changes his mind faster than the weather in Maine. It has been said about the weather in Maine that it changes every five minutes. I wish it would hurry up this year. It has been the longest five minutes in history!! We have had a very long hot summer. However, thank goodness the crisp, clear weather is arriving.

There have been so many resignations in President Trump’s administration it is hard to remember them all. The problem with people who write in books about current events concerning today’s political scene is that it becomes old news before the book gets into print.

This book does give insight into the fact that Elizabeth Warren is a fighter and a fighter for liberal democratic values. She is a dedicated senator who believes in equal rights for women, and equal rights for people of color and has fought for both.

She understands the financial responsibilities and pressures of middle-class working people and the expense of child care, higher education, and health insurance for all.

This book is hard to understand because of the complexity of the problems in America today and the number of historic events Warren has actually participated in including being a champion for consumer protection, protecting immigrants, and preserving the natural environment. She is a seasoned patriot. However, you do have to be a political history buff to follow what she is saying.

Warren is an outstanding role model who by the time the people of Massachusetts elected her in 2012 as Democratic senator to the federal government in Washington D.C., she had become one of the nation’s leading progressive voices.

Whether she wins a nomination for president or vice president of our nation or not, she is a serious contender. As a senator she is a powerful spokesman for equal rights and  especially for the working middle class. She is a force of nature that refuses to be beaten and could be an excellent president. However, like Ted Kennedy, she might be needed in the senate as an outspoken and  powerful voice against injustice. Either way, I hope she remains active in American politics. I recommend her book highly for serious readers who are interested in the political scene in America today.

— Pat Davidson Reef is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston. She received her Masters Degree at the University of Southern Maine. She taught English and Art History at Catherine McAuley High for many years. She now teaches at the University of Southern Maine in Portland in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Classic Films. She recently wrote a children’s book,”Dahlov Ipcar Artist,” and has now completed another children’s book “Bernard Langlais Revisited.”

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