What Is Elizabeth Warren?

Conventional wisdom says the DNA report backfired on the senator. Maybe not.

During the Kavanaugh hearings, one wondered why Sens. Harris, Booker and Blumenthal, among others, went so over the top so often. Perhaps it is because over-the-top looks like it works now in politics, and much else.

None of these national politicians—Mr. Trump, Ms. Warren or the other Democrats—makes any attempt now to broaden their appeal. Left or right, they have a laserlike focus on their bases. This looks like the future of American politics: Play to a base jacked up by social media, hold it with scheduled feedings of red meat and simply force the rest of the bewildered electorate to sort it out and choose between two poles.

An analogy to data analytics in baseball comes to mind. Striking out a lot no longer matters if a player’s vertical launch angle off the bat produces enough home runs. In the 2016 GOP primaries, the Donald, despite routine verbal whiffs, had great launch angle. His competition did not.

Ms. Warren and others have seen the new reality. Critics can be made virtually irrelevant if they hit their base hard and often enough. Nothing so exciting or animating exists in the middle anymore, which is bad news for moderates such as Mike Bloomberg or John Kasich.

Personally, I don’t understand Elizabeth Warren’s appeal at all, with or without whatever is located on chromosome 10. But come 2020, that won’t matter.

Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen Used the Same Delaware Company for Payment Deals to Two Women

Federal probe looks closely at money flowing in and out of Essential Consultants

Venture capitalist Elliott Broidy paid an initial installment of $62,500 to the company, Essential Consultants LLC, as part of Mr. Cohen’s $250,000 total fee for negotiating a nondisclosure agreement related to Mr. Broidy’s affair

.. The magazine, then owned by Wenner Media, had what staffers believed to be a solid source on the alleged affair by the younger Mr. Trump and called the Trump Organization for comment, according to the people involved in the matter. They received a call back from Mr. Cohen, who threatened legal action and became so irate that they muted the call while he spoke, one of these people said.

“We were all on speakerphone and huddled around the phone,” this person said. “He was just one of these New York characters where he was just like swearing at us and totally over-the-top threatening.”

The magazine’s staff didn’t believe it was a big story that would be worth a legal fight and had a good working relationship with the elder Mr. Trump on stories related to the TV show “The Apprentice,” so they dropped the story.

Democrats’ behavior at the State of the Union was embarrassing

But the Democrats, with their childish protests, took the bait. Symbolic dissent is fine, but this was a cacophony of causes: black clothing (for #MeToo), kente ties and sashes (because of Trump’s Africa insult), butterfly stickers (for the “dreamers”), red buttons (for a victim of racial crime) and the more bipartisan purple ribbons (for the opioid epidemic).