2020 Democratic presidential primary

Is NORML a key player here?

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.

i'm not really following warren-gate that closely, but just wanted to note that this news broke yesterday:

Elizabeth Warren listed her race as "American Indian" on a State Bar of Texas registration card in 1986, the Washington Post reported Tuesday

that's already been posted itt.

(and hand-waved away)

I should also include this important context:

A Warren aide did not dispute to CNN the card's legitimacy or Warren's handwriting, and noted that the form was not a part of the application to the bar, but rather a registration card to the Texas Bar after the senator was already admitted. The aide declined to comment on whether there might be other unreported examples of Warren having claimed American Indian heritage.

so it wouldn't be an example of her claiming native heritage to advance her career, since she did it after she was already admitted. but still, worth noting because it seems to be previously unknown information.

xposts

Trump, however, shot a person in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City in 2016, but no one is talking about that.

is the native american stuff really what we want to spend valuable minutes reading and talking about? how can this possibly be of interest to anyone here?

In the 80s there wasn’t the same awareness of appropriation as there is now. Exaggerating a kinship to a minority culture was the opposite of what a racist would do.

If this makes people think less of warren i think they’re strange. I understood why the dna test rubbed native groups the wrong way and to warren’s credit she apologized. This entire “scandal” is a trump creation—like the obama birth certificate “controversy”

akm has a legit interest in it. iirc, he stated he is a registered tribal member. but in terms of what a Warren presidency would look like, it is probably not very indicative.

is the native american stuff really what we want to spend valuable minutes reading and talking about? how can this possibly be of interest to anyone here?

sorry, didn't mean to bring all this up again. i mean, i did i guess. but it was just because there seemed to be some factual inaccuracies in what people were saying upthread, in light of the news.

I'm not worried about the Warren administration, I'm worried about the Warren campaign

In the 80s there wasn’t the same awareness of appropriation as there is now. Exaggerating a kinship to a minority culture was the opposite of what a racist would do.

― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 12:41 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89WHe5Me-3A

In the 80s there wasn’t the same awareness of appropriation as there is now. Exaggerating a kinship to a minority culture was the opposite of what a racist would do.

― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 1:41 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah what northam did was no biggy either

the warren thing is just bizarre to me. was she really that confused about her identity? even if she never got a single iota of unearned value out of the claim it's still a v strange thing for her to claiming. she seems extremely sharp + bright how did she not know that she wasn't really a native american?

No doubt it’s a bit eccentric, but god knows if I ever ran for office any half decent oppo researcher could find some odd stuff on me too, so if this is the worst they can find I for one am unconcerned.

I saw someone who is also only 3/32nds or whatever native american post better what I was trying to get to yesterday. That when you are of mixed heritage, hearsay or not, in the 80s-90s I remember distinctly registering nonwhite in random places to represent, take pride and show success of my group for metrics. It's not always to get an advantage. You end up registering race so many places it's a calculation of what it's for and who are the other group members.

Heh, I know now registering as white on college applications would've been better than putting asian.

"I'm not worried about the Warren administration, I'm worried about the Warren campaign"

that's it exactly.

yeah what northam did was no biggy either

― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, February 6, 2019 4:55 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

northam was wearinf a costume that mocked blacks (or else a costume of a hate group). warren was enchanted by some family lore that her family was part cherokee. These things are almost opposites

Like what does she stand accused of? It’s not prejudice against native americans. It’s kind of a lack of sensitivity to certain issues, which she is trying to correct as seen in her private apology to the cherokee groups

nah. i mean i was being ultra-hyperbolic obv but nah

I just don’t see malice in it

Seems like she could learn from this experience

have we come full circle from this morning?

I just don’t see malice in it

― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 3:39 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

neither do i. clueless white person puts wrong thing on a form in the 80s. on it's own it's minimal, the response with the 23 and me and all that which has happened in the current day has been risible and while not malicious pretty insensitive

"Like what does she stand accused of? " at this point, being untruthful, because she says she never claimed anywhere in writing that she was Native American.

just ftr i don't think what she did was morally wrong or if it was it was petty and i don't care and i think she'd be an excellent president but still i think the whole thing is pretty bizarre and lends credibility to the idea that even "good" politicians are not normal people

Looking forward to it being news every time they find a new form.

If that's the worst they can bring against Warren, it's an ass pimple compared to the smears performed on Obama and HRC. The people who will embrace it most vociferously are the rabid wingnuts who would never vote for her anyway. If she can stay on-message, this stuff won't have much impact on persuadable voters.

still i think the whole thing is pretty bizarre and lends credibility to the idea that even "good" politicians are not normal people

― Mordy, Thursday, 7 February 2019 00:07 (fifty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lends credibility to the idea that americans will destroy any normal person who tries to go into politics

(Examines evidence) Yes, this checks out as a thoroughly Minnesotan form of aggression. https://t.co/0frXr5kfC4 pic.twitter.com/msGvB68mJi

— Drew Magary (@drewmagary) February 6, 2019

that is simultaneously terrible and hilarious

Surprising that that kind of behavior isn't standard for Senators tbh

still dying at the tardy slips

it seems increasingly inevitable/obvious from stuff like this that Bernie is running and I wonder what his crew's thinking is re: timing

Trump talks a lot about "freedom." But people are not truly free when they have no health care or can't afford to feed their families. They are not free when they must work 80 hours a week on starvation wages. pic.twitter.com/TjohBJFhj7

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) February 6, 2019

(by "stuff like this" I specifically mean video content that pits his views against Trump's)

There's no rush for Bernie. He'll get in before June when the debates begin, but his name/face recognition isn't a problem for any Democrat or indy voter.

This is true. And it would give him plenty of time to figure out how to distinguish his message and platform from whoever's left in the mix by then.

of course, by june there will only be...17 months until the election

there's got to be a better way

I don't feel tardy.

Can anyone make a strong policy or character argument for any one of the following over the others: Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Harris, Beto? I've pretty much ruled out supporting Booker or Biden, and while I'm very much a Berniebro I'm kind of dreading how nasty the primary is going to get if he enters (and I don't think he will win, especially in a split field). I probably like Warren better than any of those four on policy, but she is showing herself to be kind of an inept politician from the campaign side of things and I'm afraid she would get destroyed by Trump. Among the four I named, I kind of just have no idea. They all basically seem like centrists with some progressive trappings. I thought maybe Klobuchar was further to the left until she tweeted about her "bipartisan" tax advantaged savings account legislation which just makes me break out in fucking hives.

The whole prosecutor thing makes Harris a tough sell for me too, but I don't know much about her beyond that.

Harris’ voting record and stated positions are decidedly more liberal than the other three

Supports the GND, M4A, legalized weed, free college, higher taxes on the wealthy. None of the other three can say all that.

And she is a sharp campaigner/public speaker

for booker to break out as a candidate he would probably need to work on being able to speak for more than two minutes without putting an entire room to sleep.

Is Harris *really* for M4A?

here let me google that for you
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/29/politics/kamala-harris-medicare-for-all-eliminate-private-insurers-backlash/index.html

"Medicare-for-all is the plan that she believes will solve the problem and get all Americans covered. Period," Sams told CNN. "She has co-sponsored other pieces of legislation that she sees as a path to getting us there, but this is the plan she is running on."

Their description of Harris' views is backed up by her record in the Senate, where she co-sponsored Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for all" bill, which would phase out for-profit insurers, but also the less aggressive approaches proposed by Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, whose bill would effectively create a "public option" by allowing certain Americans to buy-in to Medicaid, and a plan from Sens. Jeff Merkley and Chris Murphy that would allow individuals to enroll in a new form of Medicare and employers to purchase it for their workforce.

(Sams is her adviser/nat'l press secretary)

I'm not really worried about Harris moving into progressive territory on M4A, college, taxes, whatever, but she should really start prepping a big meaningful criminal justice speech in front of an optically useful audience because otherwise extremely online leftists are gonna be filling the vacuum there entirely