EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

As the debate rages over President Biden’s social spending bill, with several long-sought progressive ideas tantalizingly close to reality, there’s been little attention paid to the woman who’s helped lead the push for them throughout her career: Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Warren (D-Mass.) is familiar with the history of progressive advocates being consistently dismissed until their visions become realized. At the height of her 2020 presidential campaign, she delivered a remarkable speech putting her ambitious plans in powerful perspective: “Over and over throughout our history, Americans have been told that big structural change just wasn’t possible: They should just give up.… They didn’t give up. They organized. They created a grass-roots movement. They persisted. And they changed the course of American history.”

Soon after, Warren’s groundbreaking proposals netted her only 63 of the necessary 1,991 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. Then, she was passed over for both the vice presidency and the cabinet.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.