Elizabeth Warren decries ‘giant corporations’ at campaign rally in Elkhart

June 06-- Jun. 6--ELKHART -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren rode her heavily populist, anti-"giant corporation" message hard Wednesday at a campaign rally here, the world's recreational vehicle manufacturing capital.

Citing a "climate catastrophe bearing down upon us," Warren kicked off her speech at the RV/MH Hall of Fame by unveiling a plan to create 1.2 million jobs by increasing tenfold federal funding for research and development into reducing carbon emissions with renewable energy. Any company wanting to make products from that research would have to do so in the United States. The government also would spend $1.5 trillion over 10 years in "purchasing green," guaranteeing demand for the new products.

Warren weaved attacks against corporations into her description of this economic policy.

"America's economic policy for decades now has been to let giant corporations to do pretty much whatever they want," Warren said. "Those giant corporations, they're not loyal to America. They're not loyal to American workers. They're loyal to exactly one thing: Their own profits."

She took aim at Levi Strauss for making only 2% of its jeans in the United States, at "iconic" American brand General Electric for moving a Wisconsin plant to Canada, and at Amazon for netting $11.2 billion in profits last year while paying "zero in taxes."

"That's not right and that's why I'm in this fight," Warren said to applause.

Warren said she would pay for the program by eliminating subsidies for the oil and gas industry.

She went on to talk about her upbringing in Oklahoma that was so modest, her parents couldn't afford a college application fee, let alone tuition. Her three brothers went into the military, while she started college on a scholarship before dropping out to marry at age 19. She soon divorced her first of two husbands and attended community college, ultimately graduating and becoming a special needs teacher, then briefly a lawyer, then a college law professor and finally a senator.

In telling her personal story, she pivoted back to the evils of corporations and how the middle class has been "hollowed out."

"When I was a girl, the question asked (in Washington) was what does it take for a family of three to survive in America?" she said, noting that a full-time minimum wage job will no longer keep a woman and her child out of poverty. "Today the question asked in Washington is where should we set the minimum wage to maximize the profits of giant multi-national corporations?"

The crowd, estimated at 600 by campaign staff, laughed and applauded often, giving several standing ovations, the first coming after this line: "When you've got a government that works great for those who've got money and not so much for anyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple."

Warren came to Elkhart after holding events Tuesday in Lansing and Detroit, and she was scheduled for a rally Wednesday night in Fort Wayne.

Cyrus and Danielle Dubash, both Goshen High School teachers, said they hoped coming to see her would help them decide between her and their other two favorite Democratic candidates, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders.

"I'm making up my mind, trying to hear different viewpoints," Cyrus said. "I am supportive of the general Democratic platform at this point. The condition in Washington right now where one party has been in control of everything ... I don't know how much farther we'll go down the road that we're on now so I'm hoping we can turn that around in the near future."

Danielle said she is most interested in environmental issues.

"I like watching her and hearing anything she has to say," Danielle said. "It just motivates me that we've got to fight."

The couple said they were surprised Warren came to an area as heavily Republican as Elkhart County. Cyrus said the GOP under President Donald Trump is not his "father's Republican Party," citing, for example, the current anti-abortion rights push, "so there might be an opening for some alternative viewpoints at this point."

The crowd included April Lidinsky, director of Women's and Gender Studies at Indiana University South Bend.

"At this point she's probably my top person and I'm excited she came here," Lidinsky said. "She is the woman with the plan, so I like her long track record of advocacy for economic justice. She's done a very good job, particularly of late, making her policy positions crystal clear. Like a lot of folks, I'm worried that women are not getting the coverage they deserve. I want to show up for the women that are running."

Another woman who attended, Sharon Mahoney of South Bend, said it's "mind-boggling" and she feels the need to build a spreadsheet to help her pick a candidate among the 24 who are running.

"She is one of my top ones because she is consistent, she is definitely grassroots and the fact she's not taking PAC money is very important," Mahoney said. "Her strength is she's got a clear idea, she's proven herself as a senator, and she pulls us in to be part of the team. The biggest thing is our democracy is slipping away pretty darned fast. She knows that and speaks to it very well."

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