From a 10.15 Politico piece about how Elizabeth Warren’s Presidential campaign is taking shape: “Something approaching a 2020 campaign slogan is beginning to take shape: ‘Persist.’ Her political team rolled out a nationwide ‘PERSIST Project‘ campaign on Facebook this past June, hawking free state-specific ‘Persist‘ bumper stickers. At the progressive conference Netroots Nation in August, Warren’s team distributed signs with the single word to the audience to wave during her speech. The front page of her website currently includes a mosaic slideshow of supporters wearing ‘She Persisted‘ T-shirts.”

Just as I held my nose and voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, I will roll my eyes and say “whatever” when I vote for Elizabeth Warren in 2020. If she wins the Democratic Presidential nomination, of course. Because she’s obviously a much better human being than Orange Cheeto (smarter, more mature and pragmatic, more compassionate), and she’ll certainly be a more practical and constructive chief executive. But I’m really, really concerned about her ability to beat that asshole. I really wonder if those pot-bellied, gun-loving, lizard-brain voters will vote for Ms. Finger-Wagging Granny Schoolmarm.

It seems to me that “persist” is something you say when you’re the underdog, when the odds are against you, when things aren’t going as well as they could, when you’re fighting with the insurgents. Raising your rifle and crying “persist, comrades!” indicates that you’re wearing faded jungle fatigues, that you don’t really expect to take power, that you know you’re in for a bruising, difficult fight. Slogan-wise, it doesn’t sound right.