Abigail Winthrop

Character Information Sheet

NS Nation Name: The Democratic Marxists
Character Name: Abigail "Abby" Winthrop
Character Gender: F
Character Age: 54
Character Height: 5 ft 8'
Character Weight: 132 lbs
Character Position/Role/Job: Junior Senator from Massachusetts (2016 - )
Appearance:

Character State of Origin: Pennsylvania
Character State of Residence: Washington DC and Massachusetts
Character Party Affiliation: Democratic
Main Strengths: Policy wonk, intelligent, articulate, detailed, idealistic and progressive, organized
Main Weaknesses: Bad at networking, not an inspiring orator, doesn't have much experience in politics

Biography: Abby Winthrop was born in 1965 to a solidly middle class family in Reading, Pennsylvania. Although her father was a truck driver and remained so for most of his life, her mother was the main breadwinner in her family, being a public school teacher. Winthrop attended public school in Reading, where she became used to the high level of poverty in her city. In fact, according to the national census, Reading had the highest share of American citizens living in poverty in the entire country. Winthrop still expresses how lucky she felt to have access to good teachers like her mother, who she credits for getting her ahead in life, more so than her school. Her father had a heart condition, and Winthrop often recounts how the family sometimes used to struggle to pay for his medicine.

Winthrop was taught advanced learning material at home by her mother, and thus she was an excellent student. She graduated at the top of her class and she got into Boston University in 1983. However, due to her parent's economic condition, she took out quite a large student loan. Winthrop majored at BU in Economics. She wasn't a politically active student; she didn't even register with a political party. But, while at college, Winthrop started to understand certain issues facing Americans. She came to realize while doing various research projects in class how broken the US economic system was. After being shocked by the extent of income inequality in America, Winthrop applied to Harvard Law School in 1988 hoping to become a labor lawyer, and got in. After completing law school in 1992 and joining the bar, Winthrop decided to specialize in labor law; she wanted to help workers and unions prosecute cases against corporations who were abusing their power. She took on several local cases, and she won most of them.

Winthrop soon realized that she was really struggling to pay off her student loans, since labor lawyers are not paid much. She decided to quit law in 1995 and become an economist instead, which turned out to be a terrible decision in terms of salary but a great decision for her personal knowledge. She was employed as an adjunct economics professor at Amherst College. She was given a grant at Amherst to do research on two topics: student loans and housing. Winthrop did pathbreaking work on both. Her detailed paper on tuition deferral programs in colleges to solve the student loan crisis became a popular idea amongst leftists and liberals alike, and her really detailed idea for a Universal Housing Voucher gained steam. She started writing articles on policy in the Berkshire Eagle, a neutral local Boston paper. As more academics became interested in her work, she was offered a job as the Policy Editor for the Boston Globe in 2003. Aside from her editing and editorials for the Globe, Winthrop became a regular op-ed columnist for the New York Times, becoming one of the country's most visible economists as well as a progressive icon, even though she was apolitical. Winthrop was invited to several forums, universities, etc., which helped her make a name for herself in academic circles as well as in the media. In 2006 she published her first book, Corporate Leviathan, which was well received by the economic community and the general public. It was a New York Times bestseller. Winthrop went on to write three more books, one of which was her most famous book: Progressive Pragmatism, published in 2012. It received numerous prizes and clarified her position as a progressive thinker rather than just another economist. Winthrop continued to write for the New York Times and the Boston Globe, and she started appearing often on major cable news channels like Fox News and MSNBC to provide legal as well as economic analysis.

As the senior Democratic senator for Massachusetts passed away in 2015, leaving the seat open to a special election, several "Draft Winthrop" organizations sprang up, and she agreed run for the office to bring "Policy for People over Profits" to the Senate. She did not, however, have it easy. A party-backed neoliberal Congressman was also in the race, and the Massachusetts Democratic Party did not want an outsider in the Senate. It's not that Winthrop was anti-establishment as such, she was just not experienced. But the people of Massachusetts took a liking to her, and she did win after a bruising primary where she had to show her true progressive colors. Despite her strained relationship with the state Democratic Party, she accepted the nomination and ran as a Democrat. She went on to handily win the Massachusetts general election in 2016, thus being elected as the Junior Senator for Massachusetts in a Class 2 seat.

Winthrop's time in the Senate has been complicated. While her caucus appreciates her wonkish nature, she has been heavily disliked for her (restrained but consistent) criticism of the two party system. Despite being a self-described social democrat, her colleagues have referred to her as a "socialist" and she has not denied the label. She has also attracted controversy for her supposed atheism, which she had not expressed publicly until resurfaced essays released on the web in late 2018. Past essays she has written that have been critical of all religion have been called into question by Democrats and Republicans, as she has heavily criticized both Christianity and Islam.

Winthrop has made student loans and housing the key issues of her focus during her current tenure in the Senate. She has also been a big advocate for trust-busting legislation; she has been the only Senator to advocate for the unique idea of breaking up the media companies: NewsCorp, Spectrum, and NBC. She has expressed support for all major progressive ideas, including Medicare for All, free college, and a Green New Deal.

Other Info: Abby Winthrop is married to an eminent environmental economist, Josh Burns, and has two children.

"In America we like to talk about freedom. But you know what? There is no freedom without economic freedom. The freedom to not be pigeonholed into paying for expensive healthcare. The freedom to not have to worry about putting food on the table. Until we can truly make decisions for ourselves without worrying about how we spend our money, we are not truly free."

I have read and accept the rules of the roleplay: Yes

Housing: A federal universal housing voucher, available like food stamps
Healthcare: Single-payer Medicare For All
Student Loans: Incentivize private college tuition deferral programs, free public college, forgive 95% of all student debt
Minimum Wage: $15/hour
War: Pull out of Afghanistan, end support for Yemen War, require Congressional Approval for all war
Climate Change: Carbon tax, green manufacturing, waste-to-fuel as transitional fuel, net zero emissions by 2030
Money In Politics: Public Financing, Ban Super PACS
Trade: Fair Trade over Free Trade, against NAFTA
Immigration: Reform ICE, create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants
Corporations: Raise the corporate tax rate, break up monopolies
Taxes: Raise them on everyone
Transport: High-speed rail
Voting: Abolish the Electoral College, lower voting age to 16
Guns: Ban Ak-47s and AR-15s, compulsory buyback, national gun licensing and registration
Education: Pre-K for All, allow kids to go to public schools of any district
Criminal Justice: Police body cams, arm police with tasers, ban private prisons, decriminalize marijuana