Elizabeth Bruenig | |
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 Bruenig in 2018 | |
| Born | Elizabeth Stoker (1990-12-05)December 5, 1990 (age 34) Arlington, Texas, U.S. |
| Other names |
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| Education | Brandeis University (BA) Jesus College, Cambridge (MPhil) Brown University |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Years active | 2015–present |
| Employer | The Atlantic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Elizabeth Bruenig (née Stoker; born December 6, 1990) is an American journalist working as an opinion writer forThe Atlantic since 2021. She previously worked as a staff writer forThe New Republic (2015), an opinion writer and editor forThe Washington Post (2016–2020), and as an opinion writer forThe New York Times (2020–2021). Bruenig has written about ethics, politics, theology, morality, economics, gender, family, class, and faith. She was a finalist for thePulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2019 and in 2023. In 2023, she published her first book,On Human Slaughter: Evil, Justice, Mercy, a collection of her reporting on the death penalty.
Bruenig was born inArlington, Texas.[1] She attendedMartin High School.[2] She graduated fromBrandeis University in 2013 with aBachelor of Arts degree with adouble major in English andsociology and aminor inNear Eastern andJudaic studies.[3] As a recipient of theMarshall Scholarship, Bruenig studied atJesus College at theUniversity of Cambridge on aMarshall Scholarship, where she earned aMaster of Philosophy degree inChristian theology, under the supervision ofJohn Hughes.[4][5][6][1] She was named a 2014–2015 Presidential Fellow atBrown University, where she was a doctoral student inreligious studies, politics, and philosophy.[7][8] In 2015, Bruenig left Brown University without a degree when she was offered a fulltime writing position atThe New Republic.[9]
Bruenig was an opinion writer and editor forThe Washington Post and its Outlook and PostEverything sections,[1]The New York Times,[10] and since 2021 writes forThe Atlantic.[11][12] Previously in 2015, she was also a staff writer forThe New Republic.[13] As an assistant editor, Bruenig began to edit the Outlook and PostEverything sections ofThe Washington Post in early 2016,[13] before being promoted in 2017 as opinion writer and editor,[13] and in 2018 as a columnist.[9] Her essays and reviews have appeared in publications including among othersAmerica,[14]The American Conservative,[14]The Atlantic,[1]Boston Review,[1]The Daily Beast,[14]First Things,[1]Jacobin,[1]Los Angeles Review of Books,[15]The Nation,[1]Salon,[15] andThe Washington Post.[1]
Bruenig writes about topics like ethics, politics, theology, and economics from a progressive viewpoint,[16] and describes herself as "a chronicler of the human condition".[17] With her husbandMatt Bruenig, with whom she wrote together two articles forThe Atlantic in 2013, she co-hostsThe Bruenigs Podcast since 2018.[18][19] Until April 2020, she was also a contributor to theLeft, Right, & Center radio show.[19] On May 12, 2021, it was announced that she would departThe New York Times, which she had joined in January 2020, forThe Atlantic at the end of the month.[20][21]Politico reported that this was the thirdNew York Times opinion journalist to have gone toThe Atlantic in the first five months of 2021.[22]
In September 2018, Bruenig wrote about a 2006sexual assault on a woman by the name of Amber Wyatt at Martin High School in Arlington, Bruenig's own alma mater (Bruenig was a 15-year-old sophomore),[23] in a story forThe Washington Post,[1] describing the assault's repercussions.[24][25][26] She started tracking the details of Wyatt's story in April 2015 when she worked atThe New Republic.[27][28] In 2019, Bruenig was named aPulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing for one of her pieces covering Wyatt's sexual assault, "What Do We Owe Her Now?"[23][29][nb 1] Bruenig was named in the 2019 edition ofForbes's30 Under 30 list.[31] During her time atThe Washington Post andThe New York Times, Bruenig advocateddemocratic socialist policies.[32][33][34] In August 2020, she also wrote aracial reckoning article inThe New York Times, "Racism Makes a Liar of God: How the American Catholic Church Is Wrestling with the Black Lives Matter Movement", which included a profile ofEWTN radio hostGloria Purvis.[35][36][37] As of 2021, she was a two-timeLivingston Award finalist.[20] Bruenig was again a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2023.[38][39][nb 2]
In aWashington Monthly profile published in 2018 by Gilad Edelman, Bruenig is described as "perhaps the most prominently placed of a small but increasingly visible group of young writers unabashedly advocating for democratic socialism", and that she "cautioned against treatingsocialism versuscapitalism as a binary choice" but echoed the idea ofJacobin founderBhaskar Sunkara to "not merely tame but overcome capitalism".[32] About why she did not subscribe to theNew Brandeis movement, Bruenig observed that "the answer to the destruction wrought by capitalism isn't more, better capitalism".[32] In a 2021 article inBrandeis Magazine, Lawrence Goodman described Bruenig's political positions thusly: "She's a democratic socialist but holds a number of socially conservative positions. She advocates for a strongScandinavian-style welfare state but also opposesabortion and extols the benefits of having children early."[41] In a 2022 article inDeseret News, Lois Collins described Bruenig as "just left ofBernie Sanders on economics, openly religious and quietlyanti-abortion".[42] For the American edition ofThe Week, she wrote an article in April 2014 explaining why she was a pro-life liberal.[43][44] In April 2020, herNew York Times article titled "Bernie Was Right" was republished by theChicago Tribune and also in German by theInternational Politics and Society. She argued that Sanders was right about many issues, such as income inequality, climate change, and student loan debt,[45][46] and that the United States would wave goodbye to an "honest man's campaign".[47][48]
In February 2015, Bruenig wrote aNew Republic article titled "Is ISIS Authentically Islamic? Ask Better Questions". She argued: "But since most of our public discussions of religion take place within this liberal framework, we lack a grammar and vocabulary for arguing about the content of religions in the public sphere. Because our presumptions about how to source religious authority are largely private and rarely interrogated in public (especially in interfaith contexts) we presume those assumptions are either broadly shared or simply correct, and base our public statements about the authenticity of religious belief and practice on them."[49][50] In March 2015, Bruenig wrote "Fear of a Radical Pope", a profile ofPope Francis. In the article, she observed: "The Catholic Church has always been 'liberal' [e.g. left-wing] on economic matters. Since the early centuries of the Church, prominent theologians such asAmbrose,Augustine, andSaint John Chrysostom have emphasized thatprivate property rights obtain only afterall human needs have been met, and that the excess of the wealthy truly belongs to the poor."[4][5]
Also in March 2015, several of Bruenig's articles atThe New Republic attracted attention. In one article, titled "Conservatives' Prison Reform Plans Won't Work", she argued that "criminal justice reform, especially prison reform, has become a rare point of bipartisan activism" but that conservatives support it only for the money saved. Bruenig commented that sentencing reform "won't work" without more welfare spending, and wrote: "The real question isn't whether these conservatives care about the disadvantaged, but whether their approach will indeed improve the lives of the disadvantaged. There's strong evidence of quite the opposite—that it would make their lives worse."[51][52] The other article was a response toDavid Brooks inThe New York Times, where he had argued that poor people needed to learn to behave themselves. In her article, titled "Poor People Don't Need Better Social Norms. They Need Better Social Policies", Bruenig wrote: "If the problems plaguing poor communities persist after poverty is drastically reduced, that would seem an appropriate time to pursue the matter of a better 'moral vocabulary,' as Brooks calls it."[53][54]
Her March 2018Washington Post article, titled "It's Time to Give Socialism a Try", where she stated that "I would support a kind of socialism that would be democratic and aimed primarily at decommodifying labor, reducing the vast inequality brought about by capitalism, and breaking capital's stranglehold over politics and culture",[55][56] drew more than 3,000 comments in contrast to the usual 1,000.[32] This was followed by a response article,[32] titled "Let's Have a Good-Faith Argument About Socialism", where she argued that "it makes sense to think of socialism on a spectrum, with countries and policies being more or less socialist, rather than either/or",[57] and also received much attention.[32] In a July 2018 article forThe Washington Post, titled "Conservatives Will Always Call Socialists Hypocrites. Ignore them", Bruenig observed that "the failure of one set of accusations along these lines usually just leads to another, and it forms an ugly paradox that applies only to the left: If you care about material equality and you aren't destitute, you're a hypocrite; if you care about material equality and you are destitute, you're never going to have a real shot at political engagement to begin with."[58][59] Other socialist-relatedWashington Post articles by Bruenig include "It's Time to Reclaim 'Socialism' from the Dirty-Word Category" aboutsocialism in the United States.[60][61] In April 2019, she wrote aWashington Post article about the AmericanChristian left, titled "The Religious Left Is Always Just About to Happen: Will It Ever Arrive?"[62][63]
Bruenig was raisedMethodist but converted toCatholicism after studying Christian theology and the work of Augustine of Hippo in university,[42] becomingconfirmed into the Catholic Church during Easter 2014.[14][64][65] That same year, she married Matt Bruenig, whom she met in their high school debate team in Arlington.[32] They have two daughters together.[42] In addition to English, Bruenig can speak German.[66] Bruenig's views on abortion have attracted criticism among other American leftists.[32][44] Bruenig, who joked that her husband "loves abortion", is more concerned with philosophical questions rather than specific policies, and said: "I make a much more romantic case for socialism than Matt does."[32]
The democratic socialist Elizabeth Bruenig is an opinion writer forThe New York Times, of all places, advocating democratic socialist policies.
The New York Times opinion writer Elizabeth Bruenig appears to be the only pundit employed by corporate media who both explicitly identifies as a 'socialist' and makes arguments for some form of socialism in the US (Washington Post, 3/6/18).
For decades now, Democrats and the wider left have endorsed the genteel fiction of 'personal' anti-choice beliefs—a fig leaf claimed by everyone from socialist podcaster Elizabeth Bruenig to Clinton VP pick Tim Kaine—as if it were possible to separate personal belief from political principle. ... The left is no refuge. Leaving aside the Bruenig problem—though the prominence and popularity of anti-choice pundits within the socialist left certainly sends a clear message about that movement's priorities ... .
Perhaps the Champagne Socialist label is best viewed simply as a symptom of capitalism. As long as there is inequality, there will always be some further up the income ladder who are uncomfortable with the privilege of their class, with perceived injustices. Their attempts to promote greater social justice will, in turn, inevitably invite scorn. '...it forms an ugly paradox that applies only to the left,' writes Elizabeth Bruenig ofThe Washington Post. 'If you care about material equality and you aren't destitute, you're a hypocrite; if you care about material equality and you are destitute, you're never going to have a real shot at political engagement to begin with.'
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