[2] She graduated from Brandeis University in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in English and sociology and a minor in Near Eastern and Judaic studies.

[9] Bruenig was an opinion writer and editor for The Washington Post and its Outlook and PostEverything sections,[1] The New York Times,[10] and since 2021 writes for The Atlantic.

[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".

[32][33][34] In August 2020, she also wrote a racial reckoning article in The 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 of EWTN radio host Gloria Purvis.

[38][39][nb 2] In a Washington 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 treating socialism versus capitalism as a binary choice" but echoed the idea of Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara to "not merely tame but overcome capitalism".

"[41] In a 2022 article in Deseret News, Lois Collins described Bruenig as "just left of Bernie Sanders on economics, openly religious and quietly anti-abortion".

[43][44] In April 2020, her New York Times article titled "Bernie Was Right" was republished by the Chicago Tribune and also in German by the International 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".

Since the early centuries of the Church, prominent theologians such as Ambrose, Augustine, and Saint John Chrysostom have emphasized that private property rights obtain only after all human needs have been met, and that the excess of the wealthy truly belongs to the poor.

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.

"[62][63] Bruenig was raised Methodist but converted to Catholicism after studying Christian theology and the work of Augustine of Hippo in university,[42] becoming confirmed into the Catholic Church during Easter 2014.

[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.