Elizabeth Warren is a policy wonk in the same way Donald Trump is a builder.

Neither of them is in the business of actually creating things. Both are very good at slapping their names on something and calling it their own.

A branding natural, Warren has issued campaign T-shirts that say “I have a plan for that.” Warren has successfully donned the mantle of a policy genius, with the happy cooperation of a media eagerly seeking labels and pigeonholes for each of the 25 Democratic candidates.

“Warren’s nonstop ideas reshape the Democratic presidential race,” the Washington Post declared in a typical headline.

But it’s a stretch to call these all her ideas. The Post provided a sampling of “Warren’s nonstop ideas.” The list began with “new ethics rules on Supreme Court justices.” Notably, her proposal here comes from a bill written and introduced by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. Warren signed on as a co-sponsor.

Warren also touted “A law to force the release of politicians’ tax returns," in the Post's words. Warren in early 2017 introduced a bill requiring presidential candidates to disclose three years of returns. But Sen. Ron Wyden had, four months earlier, introduced a similar bill requiring such disclosure — Warren was a cosponsor.

A wealth tax on billionaires was the third example. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., laid out the case for a wealth tax back in 2017. Warren rolled hers out in 2019.

The image of Warren as the policy innovator, it turns out, is a bit of a tall tale, but it's one the media loves to tell.

“Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan to Save Abortion Rights,” New York Magazine proclaimed in May. The first item in that piece was repealing the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal taxpayer dollars for abortions. But this isn’t Warren's plan. It was officially a plank in the Democratic platform crafted in 2016. And it was Hillary Clinton's plan, too.

“Warren,” New York Magazine later writes, “specifically urges Congress to create ‘federal, statutory rights’ to abortion that block states from” regulating abortion clinics. This is the heart of the “Women’s Health Protection Act,” sponsored by Dick Blumenthal in 2017.

"The repeal of the global gag rule" is next in Warren’s “plan to save abortion rights.” This is a reference to the "Mexico City policy," which keeps federal family planning dollars from funding organizations that provide, refer, or lobby for abortion in foreign countries. Democrats have been calling for the repeal of this policy, originally put in place by Ronald Reagan, for more than three decades.

Warren’s special “plan” would also force insurers to cover abortion. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., introduced a bill to do exactly this in March. Warren became a co-sponsor in May, two days before she appropriated it as her own abortion plan.

The pattern goes on and on.

There’s nothing wrong with picking up on the best ideas of your competitors and colleagues. A good presidential candidate would be expected to look around at existing proposals and adopt the most promising ones that match with the candidate’s goals. But Warren does something different. She is claiming her colleagues’ proposals as her own plans, and getting the media to repeat the falsehood. The net effect is that Warren runs around with an unearned reputation as a policy innovator.

“[S]he has jumped in the polls and emerged as the clear leader in the Democratic ‘ideas primary,’” Washington Post columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote, before citing a raft of policies Warren has borrowed from other Democrats.

The column is the perfectly typical credulous story of Warren the policy genius. This unoriginal story keeps showing up. It shouldn't. It’s not hard to dig up that Warren didn’t invent the idea of “economic patriotism” — this was, in fact, Barack Obama’s term for the same type of corporatist industrial policy she’s proposing.

It’s not hard to discover that Warren wasn’t the original author of a debt-forgiveness plan — a House bill to do exactly that came out in 2017.

In nearly every case where Warren is credited with some innovation, the evidence shows that she didn’t build it. She just slapped her name on it.

Nevertheless, the myth has persisted.