--- title: How Elizabeth Warren Turns Boilerplate Viral description: Sen. Elizabeth Warren got 2 million views on Facebook of a video with standard Democratic rhetoric about the middle class. Here's how. canonical: https://time.com/3732251/elizabeth-warren-viral-videos/ author: Alex Rogers article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-04T22:12:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T16:03:12.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Elizabeth Warren Turns Boilerplate Viral og:description: The secret to her success with online videos. og:url: https://time.com/3732251/elizabeth-warren-viral-videos/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt90df65ac319a2529/698782262dce012a6a9dddfb/elizabeth-warren.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2556 og:image:height: 1438 og:image:alt: elizabeth-warren og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Elizabeth Warren Turns Boilerplate Viral twitter:description: The secret to her success with online videos. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt90df65ac319a2529/698782262dce012a6a9dddfb/elizabeth-warren.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Elizabeth Warren Turns Boilerplate Viral > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=5ab99b46-3ab7-4f7b-8cfd-db9cd0e10c35&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Elizabeth Warren: Middle Class Prosperity Project Forum Opening Statement [Watch (HLS stream): Elizabeth Warren: Middle Class Prosperity Project Forum Opening Statement](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/xKVSQwVu.m3u8) (5:47)  _Published 2015-03-04. Elizabeth Warren: Middle Class Prosperity Project Forum Opening Statement_ by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Updated: Dec 13, 2023 4:03 PM UTCPublished: Mar 4, 2015 10:12 PM UTC by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Updated: Dec 13, 2023 4:03 PM UTCPublished: Mar 4, 2015 10:12 PM UTC Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren [posted a video on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=423362941159538&set=vb.131559043673264&type=2&theater) of a recent speech in which she discussed the decline of the middle class and criticized Republicans in Congress. Its substance was fairly routine for a Democratic lawmaker, but the response was not. In one week, the video has gone viral, grabbing more than 2 million views and picking up more than 50,000 shares on Facebook. And it’s not unusual for the Massachusetts Democrat, either. Three of her most-watched speeches on YouTube have more than a million views, while another seven have more than 100,000 views. So what’s her secret? TIME sat down with some rhetoric professors to take a closer look at her most recent viral hit and figure out why the former Harvard professor who once had trouble [just doing a softball interview](http://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8017993/jon-stewart-elizaeth-warren-daily-show) with _The Daily Show_ has become such a power hitter online. They argued that the secret sauce in Warren’s videos is a palpable but carefully modulated sense of anger, the very quality that billionaire investor Warren Buffett [had criticized her](http://time.com/money/3728497/warren-buffett-elizabeth-warren-squawk-box/) for earlier this week. The recent video’s headline doesn’t entice—“Watch and share my opening statement from yesterday’s first Middle Class Prosperity Project forum”—or boast an impressive backdrop. For nearly six minutes, it’s a close, unwavering shot of the 65-year-old academic and freshman Senator sitting on a black leather chair behind a microphone and a nameplate in a nondescript Capitol Hill room. The first minute and a half of the speech is relatively dull, filled with facts highlighting the decline of the middle class. Then she slows down. “In the 32 years from 1980 to 2012, 90% of Americans got zero income growth,” says Warren. “Nothing. All of the income growth in that 32-year period went to those at the top.” It’s at this point in the speech where she first begins to repeat her points for emphasis—a trick used by “orators since time immemorial,” says Jeffrey Walker, chair of the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin—and let her emotion bubble up. “She projects an attitude of indignation and anger and wants the audience to gin up their emotion about this issue,” says Walker. “The phrasing and the tone of voice and the hand gestures all contribute to a sense of her being angry, but it doesn’t seem artificial.” That anger continues in what Walker calls the “rhythmic envelope”: a few refrains of what caused those economic problems—ripping “the choice to” do x, y and z in Washington—and who she thinks should be blamed. The next line she repeats begins with “I’ll believe Republicans care” about the country’s “middle class,” “working families,” and “future.” She nears the end of her speech blasting Republicans in short phrases. “I have a message for my Republican colleagues: you control Congress,” she says in what becomes the pull quote on Facebook. “Stop talking about helping the middle class – and start doing it. Close tax loopholes, raise the minimum wage, cut student loan interest rates, raise Social Security payments, fund our schools and our highways and medical research.” Lynn Itagaki, an English professor at Ohio State University, says that Warren is a “great translator” with a “plain-spoken manner” who can help sway the mass public on complicated material, especially through a vehicle—Facebook—that has a built-in audience ready for one of Warren’s favorite topics, tackling student debt. “With the kind of a precision of a doctor or surgeon, she names it, identifies the political choices that caused it historically and then she proposes a solution,” says Itagaki of middle class economic issues. “She provides a diagnosis of the problem and then provides you a prescription.” “She’s activating the emotions of ‘we must protect what is good about our families and what is good about hard working Americans,’” she adds. “And in order to do that we have to get angry about the lobbyists and lawyers, the tax loopholes and tax breaks, the attacks on teachers and fire fighters in the service of billionaires and corporations.” But in this speech, Warren could do better in connecting with the audience on a personal level, according to Walker, as she talks broadly about “young people” and “moms and dads” instead of specific people. And she would be, as Buffett argues, more effective in changing minds instead of reinforcing some if she didn’t bash Republicans. “She doesn’t give you an image of a particular person being crushed under the debt,” says Walker. “It restricts the audience that she can be really effective with to those who mostly agree with her already. So there’s a partisan preaching to the choir aspect.” “If you’re trying to persuade someone to do something, you don’t say ‘you’re ugly and stupid and evil, so will you do something for me,’” he adds. Still Walker, who believes that the state of U.S. discourse is “pretty depressing” after reading some of the Facebook comments, believes that Warren did succeed in generating some passionate responses. “It has a huge number of hits on the webpage,” he says. “Perhaps it’s the generation of emotion that ultimately has that effect. … Clearly she made some people angry. Not angry at her, rather, angry at the problem.” ## Transcript We're holding this forum to address one of the most urgent issues of our time, the troubled state of America's middle class. The American economy is on the move. The stock market is up and the economy is creating hundreds of thousands of jobs every month. This is stark turn around from the depths of the great recession. And the policies put in place by President Obama and the Democratic Party deserve credit for this turnaround. But the recovery is not the whole story. There have been deep structural changes in the economy. Changes that have gone on for more than 30 years. Changes that have kept hard working, middle class families from sharing. In an improving economy. For decades, after the Great Depression, America built a middle class that was the envy of the world. Everyone shared in our economic growth. From 1935 to 1980, 90 % of American's families, that is, everyone except the top 10 %. Got 70 % of all the income growth in that 35 years. It was a formula that worked. As our country got richer, our families got richer. But starting in the 1980s, something changed. Productivity and GDP just kept going up, but workers were left behind. In the 32 years, from 1980 to 2012, 90 % of Americans got zero income growth, nothing, all of the income growth in that 32 year period went to those at the top. The result of this trend of the last 30 years is clear. America's middle class is working hard than ever, but millions of people are squeezed to the breaking point. Now, this didn't need to happen. It happened. And partly because of deliberate choices made right here in Washington. The choice to tax assembly line workers and teachers at higher rates than billionaire hedge fund managers. The choice. Choice. To cut support for higher education and leave students with massive debt. The choice to cut funding for infrastructure and basic science research that grows the economy and it saves lives. All while giving corporations fat tax breaks for moving jobs overseas. The choice to run this country for the rich and the powerful, instead of running it for hardworking people. It's time to make different choices, to stand up to the armies of lobbyists and lawyers, to begin to make government work for the middle class once again. Recently Republicans seemed to have discovered the struggles of America's middle class. Out of nowhere they're suddenly talking about this problem. Well that's great. But talk is cheap. And when it comes to action these Republicans seem to have amnesia. About what they've actually done to hard working Americans. Republican trickle down policies created tax breaks and loop holes for the wealthy while leaving working families to pick up the pieces. I believe Republicans care about what's happening to America's middle class when they stop blocking legislation that would require billionaires to pay taxes. At least at the same rate that teachers and fire fighters do. Republican trickle down economics, blocked increases in the minimum wage that would have lifted 14 million people out of poverty. I believe that Republicans care about what's happening to America's working families when they stop blocking minimum wage increases and agree that no one. No one in this country should work full time and still live in poverty. Republican trickled down economics squeezed billions of dollars of profits out of people who had to borrow money to go to college. I believe republicans care about what's happening to America's future. When they agree to refinance student loans. I could go on but the point is the same. Talk is cheap. It's time for action. Action that will strengthen America's middle class families and build a strong future. Action that will produce good jobs now and in the future. It is time to put up or shut up. I have a message for my Republican colleagues. You control Congress. Stop talking about helping the middle class, and start doing it. Close tax loopholes, raise the minimum wage, cut student loan interest rates, raise Social Security payments, fund our schools and our highways and medical research. and if you don't like those options, then tell us what you plan to do for people who work full- time and still live in poverty. For young people who are drowning in student loan debt. For moms and dads who are busting their tails, working long hours and still can't make it to pay day. For seniors who are having to choose between heating and buying groceries. So far in this new congress Republicans have spent weeks debating a pipeline that will mostly benefit a giant foreign oil company. And weeks more. Threatening a government shutdown of the Homeland security department. Well that's not good enough and that's why ranking member Cummings and I are holding this forum today. To push this Congress to take action for working people. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3732251/elizabeth-warren-viral-videos/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3732251/elizabeth-warren-viral-videos/"},"headline":"How Elizabeth Warren Turns Boilerplate Viral","datePublished":"2015-03-04T22:12:16.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T16:03:12.000Z","description":"Her secret sauce? 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