Elizabeth Warren has been trying to escape her Native American deception since 2012.
She has tried almost everything, including the disastrous DNA test.
At every turn, Warren tries to change the subject. In many ways, her new campaign strategy of rolling out flamboyant policy pronouncements every few days to keep her in the news was a reaction to how her false claim to be Native American dominated and damaged her campaign and public persona.
I’ve argued repeatedly in the past months, that Warren would not be able to escape her Native American problem, because it’s baked into the public perception of her. It’s on everyone’s mind, even when not talking about it.
It is precisely the inability to escape the issue that has so many Democrats, including people who otherwise would support her, worried that she is incapable of beating Trump in a general election — Warren’s Native American problem is like Hillary’s email problem:
… I have liked Elizabeth Warren for a long time, but this is a massive political liability. She is wrong on this, she doesn’t seem to know she is wrong, she refuses to apologize, and she continues to make it worse. I don’t know why, instead of suggesting that this is a baseless smear, she can’t just say clearly and definitively that she shouldn’t have spent years publicly touting her Native ancestry. This stupid issue would dominate any contest with Donald Trump. It would never end. It would prevent us from ever actually discussing any serious issues. It would be like the goddamn email scandal all over again. And Warren has shown that she would handle it badly. At this point, I do not see how she can be a serious presidential contender.
The best evidence that Warren’s Native American problem has not gone away was her appearance yesterday on The Breakfast Club radio program in New York City. I’m not familiar with the program, but Vice News describes it as “a must for 2020 Dems” and “where you’ll find basically EVERY high-powered Democrat who wants to reach black people.”
This should have been a friendly forum for her, which is why she went on it. Warren is a control freak when it comes to her media appearances, and she must have been expecting softball questions and a chance to rattle off her proposals.
But what Warren got, instead, was probably the best interrogation of her yet in any media appearance regarding her claim to be Native American. And even more devastating, one of the hosts, who goes by the name Charlamagne Tha God, compared Warren to racial hoaxster Rachel Dolezal.
Yahoo News reports:
During a Friday interview on “The Breakfast Club” radio show, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren was grilled about her past claims of Native American ancestry.Co-host Charlamagne Tha God asked Warren how she was told that she had Native American blood.“I grew up in Oklahoma. I learned about my family the same way most people learn about their family, from my momma and my daddy and my aunts and my uncles, and it’s what I believed. But I’m not a person of color. I’m not a citizen of a tribe, and I shouldn’t have done it.”Warren added that she couldn’t go back and correct her mistake.
Up to that point, it was standard interview material, and a typical Warren dodge, but then things got interesteing, as Yahoo News noted (emphasis added):
Later in Friday’s interview, Warren was asked to clarify the timeline regarding her claims.“How long did you hold on to that, because there were some reports that said you were Native American on your Texas bar license and that you said you were Native American on some documents when you were a professor at Harvard?” Charlamagne Tha God asked. “Like, why’d you do that?”“So, it’s what I believed. You know, that’s like I said, it’s what I learned from my family,” Warren responded.“When did you find out that you weren’t?” the host pressed.“Well, it’s — I’m not a person of color. I’m not a citizen of a tribe, and tribal citizenship is an important distinction and not something I am,” Warren replied.“Were there any benefits to that?” Charlamagne Tha God asked.“No, the Boston Globe did a full investigation,” Warren answered. “It never affected, nothing about my family every affected any job I ever got.”“You’re kind of like the original Rachel Dolezal, a little bit. Rachel Dolezal was a white woman pretending to be black,” Charlamagne Tha God said.“No, this is what I learned from my family.”
You can watch the full interview here.
Warren never answered that key question as to when she found out she wasn’t Native American, and her dodge about simply taking what her family supposedly told her without question also doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Much of her supposed “family lore” has been called into question, and she never claimed to be Native American until she was in her mid-30s and climbing the law school professor ladder. The Boston Globe article did not settle the question of whether she benefited, but it’s beyond serious dispute that she tried to benefit.
Warren also robotically repeats “I’m not a person of color, I’m not a citizen of a tribe.” This typical of what we’ve seen from Warren since 2012, he campaign comes up with certain soundbites, and she repeats them endlessly.
None of that background seemed to matter, as media coverage and social media seized on the Rachel Dolezal comparison, with “Rachel Dolezal” trending on Twitter for the first time in many years.
Warren has inched up in the polls due to her dramatic policy pronouncements which keep her in the news cycle. She gets tons of free media, which is critical given the two dozen candidates running. She’s now at the top of the second tier of candidates, pretty much tied with Kamala Harris, and a little ahead of Mayor Pete in national polling. In early state polling, she’s not doing as well.
When Trump calls Warren “Pocahontas” he gives her and her supporters a chance to divert attention from Warren’s ethnic deception by claiming the term is racist and mocks Native Americans. In fact, Trump is mocking Warren’s false claim to be Native American, but nonetheless, Warren gets to focus on the word rather than what she did.
Perhaps Trump needs to rework his branding of Warren from “Pochahontas” to “Rachel Dolezal.” If the shoe fits. And it does.
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