2020 Democratic presidential primary

butttigieg*

DNA testing was invented in 1985. It would be years before it was commercially available, and decades before you could just pay $100 to find out what your background is. Elizabeth Warren did what everyone else in the world did: take your parents' word that you were what they said you were. ffs why is this even a discussion?? She has never claimed tribal affiliation at any point.

What do y'all think about this take?

Now to be perfectly clear, as Richard Nixon used to say, there would be a real issue here if there was any evidence that Warren had used her self-identification as a Native person between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s to advance her career, which at the time was being a law professor.

But not only is there no evidence that she did: There is copious documentary evidence proving that she didn’t do this. As the Boston Globe revealed last fall, nobody at any of the four law schools that hired Warren who played any role in those hiring decisions thought of her as anything but a white woman when they made those decisions, because Warren never presented as anything but a white woman to those institutions in the course of those various hiring processes.

Again, there is no doubt about this. The only “affirmative action” boost Warren got, to the extent she ever got one, was because she was a woman, at a time when there were very few women law professors (In 1993, when Harvard offered her a job, only seven of the 62 tenured members of the HLS faculty were women, and as recently as the mid-1970s the total number of women who had ever taught on the tenure-track faculty at HLS was zero. Harvard Law School didn’t even admit women students until 1950).

It’s also clear from this reporting that Warren identified for a time as a Native person for complex psychological and emotional reasons, related to a complicated family history. That identification, in other words, was the exact opposite of some sort of cynical ploy by which she claimed to be a racial or ethnic minority in order to advance her career (which again, it’s been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt she never did).

I think that's a lot of nuance and the facts won't stop her being mocked over it and having to be in apology mode every time one of these documents turns up

"She never used her Native status to get a job" is pretty unnuanced.

Then I'm sure this will not continue to be a problem.

eh I just don't see Dem voters caring? Not when the president is a sociopath and self-admitted raper? Besides, we have no evidence that Trump is able to harm any opponent with whom he's not competing for conservative votes.

I think it’s a shame that a thing like this will derail Warren, a Senator with an extraordinary record who, I think, really has a skill for calling out Republican bullshit for what it is.

tbc I'm not a Warren supporter yet but I don't see this matter as any more pressing on Dem primary voters than Harris' record as a prosecutor, which harmed more people.

I hope not.

Harris' prosecutorial record is a feature, not a bug, for most dems

In 2019/2020 idk

Y'all are being Eeyores, but we'll see. It's early.

I know Natives are not a huge voting block but getting confirmation that she did write this down on something is a major turn off for most of them. Sorry. It'd be like someone with a black ancestor eight generations back claiming they're African American; such a person would immediately be the subject of ridicule.

someone decode this for me

Russia was able to influence our election because they figured out that racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and transphobia are America’s Achilles heel. These issues aren’t only civil rights — they’re also a matter of national security. We have to deal with that.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) February 6, 2019

we have to deal with those issues because not dealing with them exposes us to manipulation from abroad

... I guess?

profoundly weird tweet imo

Most tweets are weird.

Idgaf about anything any candidates did in 1986 really

by way of clarification (since Northam was mentioned upthread) I was specifically referring to current crop of Dem presidential candidates. I guess there are horrible exceptions to this that would make me change my mind (dressing up as a klansman, being a rapist, being a prominent Reagan supporter etc.) but idk questionable opinions or the odd bad vote or lapse in judgment I would tend to forgive.

that being said - this is just emblematic of how she should've never taken the bait in the first place. it's the wrestling-with-a-pig scenario, and now it's going to trail her forever.

xxp irrational fears and bigotries are ripe for manipulation because they are irrational and not based on reason or fact?

That Harris tweet seems extremely true and not weird to me? Idk maybe I'm not understanding all the angles?

That tweet makes complete sense. Or is it that most countries have those issues that is the confusing part?

yeah it seems like a pretty standard tweet to me

it's a pretty elaborate way of putting it but she is saying that one weakness that can be manipulated is the ease w/which we can be set against each other.

"let's not do homophobia because sexuality-based discrimination is a civil rights issue" and "let's not do homophobia because Russia might exploit it" as being concerns anywhere near equal to each other is weird to me idk

That's not what she's saying at all though. Come on.

totally un-weird tweet

xp -- thinking it's weird is weird!

eh she's just saying that the issues have dogged america forever and that those divisions can be exploited by those who want to undermine us. all of which seems pretty standard from a 2020 dem nominee. don't think this tweet needs much discussion or explication

Yeah, you have an extremely weird way to read, Simon. Seriously.

It's very possible.

one last lol at "they figured out" tho

i don't think you really lolled tbh

tbf no one ever really has

The fears about russia are simultaneously well founded—the disinfo was real—and pathological, because it adds this neurotic secondary consideration to everything people say and disrupts our ability to discuss issues on their own terms.

god I hope I never have to discuss any issues

The Harris tweet seems maybe a welcome pushback against the worst “resistance” liberal tendencies that blame Russian disinfo/interference a bit too heavily instead of looking a little bit at the domestic problems that were already present and that anyone else could have taken advantage of

It’s just really easy, also, for people to get manipulative sith it. Someone says something you don’t like, or controversial, and accuse them of resembling a russian bot or even being one

Part of the reason everything is bad. Tomorrow I will share my quick program for making it good.

I'm on tenterhooks

tmi

"As a Minnesotan" not only should Klobuchar not be running for prez, but she should be primaried from the left for her senate seat.

?

Is she a right winger? I thought people liked her

I don't know much about her beyond that she won re-election by a huge margin iirc...?

p cool to see this many women in the primary field, I have to say. Totally unprecedented for a national party.

her prosecutorial record seems decidedly um less progressive than Harris' for what that's worth (she gets a "D" from NORML lol)

I didnt even know she was a prosecutor.

For one thing, she very consistently votes to confirm repulsive nominees when lots of other Democrats don't--Pompeo, Wilbur Ross, etc. Voted for the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (lots of other Democrats didn't). That's just in the most recent session

she seems generally ok to me, fairly moderate, some questionable votes and positions for sure but she's had a p long career so that's to be expected. She has not, as far as I can tell, tacked hard to the left following Trump's election as Harris and Gillebrand did. I don't see her endorsing M4A (she's more in line with Sherrod Brown there) or an aggressive upper income tax rate or free college or a Green New Deal.

in other words I get why she's running and she's not outright terrible (like Gabbard), but she's not my favorite, and she's gonna get attacked from the left