Thread by @AlecMacGillis

I'm late to this @rtraister piece on Elizabeth Warren as teacher, but it's so good and so central to understanding Warren and to gauging how she will come across to voters--whether "teacherly" is asset or hindrance. thecut.com/2019/08/elizab…

"Teaching is a profession that, in post-agrarian America, was explicitly meant to be filled by women. That means teachers historically were some of the only women to wield certain kinds of public power: They could evaluate and punish, and so it was easy to resent them." Exactly.

"Since there aren’t a lot of models for women to communicate w/ masses they’ve never been encouraged to lead, why wouldn’t it make sense that the model by which a [candidate] could emerge might be the same as the one that permitted women entry into the public sphere to begin w/?"

And this is hilarious: "Several former students who are now (and were then) Republicans declined to talk to me on the record precisely because they liked her so much and did not want to contribute to furthering her political prospects by speaking warmly of her."

"[Tom Cotton (R-AR) said at a panel discussion] 'she was teaching us that lesson by being very hard on us.'

Warren leaned over and looked at her former student. 'And are you sorry?' she asked him.

Cotton backed down. 'She was probably the best professor I had,' he conceded."