She isn't claiming to be a tribal citizen and she isn't doing it for votes. This whole thing wasn't even brought up by her. Scott Brown brought it up as a smear attack during the 2012 senate race in Massachusetts and as is typical of the Republicans he grossly mischaracterized the facts. It's been building up for years now and Trump's prodding and promise to donate to charity (which he's now walking back on) was the final straw before she decided to publicly defend herself and prove that she has native ancestry. Was it the right move? Maybe. But a lion's share of the blame certainly goes to the right for engaging in gutter politics and personal attacks that are wholly irrelevant.
Regarding Warren, there's also proof she applied to Harvard as a 'Native American' and hence benefited from it through affirmative action- a Harvard paper described her as the university's 'first female Native American student'... which is utter bollocks. Would she have been admitted if she listed her ethnicity as white on the form? We'll never know... but we do know that affirmative action in Harvard skews the admissions heavily. There is a current, highly political, lawsuit ongoing regarding it. It is well acknolwedged that people of asian and white ethnicities are discriminated against in favour of black, native american and hispanic people.
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This situation smacks of hypocrisy, exactly like Rachel Donezal, the white woman convinced she is black. Gotta collect them oppression points, right?
Put simply, Warren would not be a good pick because this entire situation substantially undermines her credibility.
Except for the fact that no popular politicians are working on those platforms you're bitching about. Of course individuals that are activists are going to be solely focused on the things that they're an activist for. The whole point of activism is focusing on something typically ignored, you can't expect activists focusing on race to necessarily also be advocate for any other arbitrary cause.
With that being said, I've yet to see activists that completely ignore class issues, so I'm not really sure which bogeyman of "new leftists" you're talking about.
It's not about 'not advocating' for other causes, it's about actively denigrating them. It's almost like everyone has forgotten privilege is largely economic.
You'll be hard pressed to find racial equality activists that don't put the very thing you speak of at the forefront of their politics. That's literally the most common narrstive.
Yes, they mention how 'x people' are economically disadvantaged. They don't care a jot for any other peoples in the same position. It's tribalism, downright and simple, and it requires some level of cognitive dissonance to, for example, campaign for programs for only africa americans in an disadvantaged position and not for more wide-sweeping programs for all.
I feel like assuming one mistake undermines her entire credibility as a candidate is such a huge leap of logic and just isn't rational.
Even if her referenced ancestry was a factor in her admission to Harvard, how does that directly affect her policies and charisma? Are people so judgemental that they immediately dislike someone for one tiny thing they did?
The question we should be asking is if she's a good candidate, not an ubermensch with no flaws. It's ridiculous that Republicans can shove their foot down their throats and out their ass and theyre still viewed positively, but something so minor in the grand scheme of things is enough to denounce a Democrat as a liar or someone guilty of cultural appropriation.
The way politics is now is you need to look at the pros and cons. Judging someone by one bad quality is just inane.
m8 I have no narrative. Despite the hatred dissenting opinions get here, I just call it how I see it: I'm what you'd describe as an 'enlightened centrist'. The real question is, are you mixing up groups who advocate for such noble causes as those and the racists (as that's what they are) who advocate purely for one race to benefit in a certain way?
It really speaks to one's integrity, doing something like that, doesn't it? If you don't think integrity is something of upmost importance in politics and governance, what do you think is? This wasn't just one 'tiny' mistake though- this was calculated so that she could play the process and get into a competitive school. Do other people do it? Yes. Does it make it right? No.
E.g. Yeah sure this person who might become president committed murder but it's ok because you can't define a person by their past mistakes :^)
Replace 'murder' with 'fraud', because that's essentially what was committed. A case could be made she only got into Harvard because of that one lie. Harvard led her on the path to law, to politics. All on one lie.
I'm sure republicans are just as bad. As an outsider looking in on your system, frankly it all looks rotten.
Fuck no on Gabbard. She's the absolute last of the rumored candidates I want as either president or vice president. Between her anti-Islam rhetoric that sounds more like Far-Right talking points than anything a decent progressive would say, and her absolutely bullshit anti-nuclear fearmongering, she's is hardly the kind of person the Democratic party needs in a leadership position of any kind.
I understand what you are saying. What I was getting at was that people shouldn't vote for a candidate because of their identity, but for the problems they plan to address. Voting for Trump because he's white is just as dumb as voting for Clinton because she's a woman. Candidate's identities/backgrounds help develop the depth of their understanding of modern problems (disenfranchisement, wealth gap, medical/healthcare issues, etc.) but all of that is boiled down in the policies they plan to enact. Just because a candidate went to college doesn't mean they are going to tackle the student debt crisis in office, or coming from a poor background means they plan to address worker's rights and wage laws. The only thing that matters is their policies and what they work to implement into law.
Maybe I am not seeing something, but my impression with the Dems is that they market towards their target demographics for elections (poor, minorities, etc) and then the officials they elect to office don't do anything for them because they're all disconnected from real life. Its far worse with the Republicans (being disconnected) but I still argue my point for both.
Except you're flat out wrong about the situation.
Everyone keeps coming up with different rumors as to what Warren said or did.
First it was an unfair advantage for hiring in a faculty position, now we've moved to university admissions.
As someone that works in academia, this is fucktarded. If you get federal funds, which is true for Harvard and UPenn, you can not ask people about their race, religion, country of origin, etc. etc. during the hiring process. If you do ask for info about protected classes, that information is generally supposed to be on separate forms to prevent it from being tied back to any particular applicant. These factors can not play into your hiring decision. You will absolutely get your shit pushed in if people even suspect that race, religion, or membership in any protected class came into the decision making process during hiring. This is hammered into the brains anyone even remotely associated with a university trying to maintain EEO compliance.
I'm sorry but my entire point is exactly that. In focusing on identity politics, these people (not necessarily democrats- people across the west who believe like this) ignore other races who are in the exact economic position as their favored ethnicity. To champion black rights by giving them more welfare than hispanic, asian or white people in the same economic position is racist. Affirmative action itself is an inherently racist concept. How are you misunderstanding this point?
I don't actually understand your second paragraph, what are you trying to indicate?
This one I get. Yes BLM activists will likely vote democrat- but they vote it selfishly, and if they could, would steer it wholly in their favoured direction. See: Bernie Sanders have his speech interrupted in 2016 by BLM activists who deplatformed him 'because you're white' and then proceded to ramble on about their favored interests.
Warren in her video pretty much already covered most of the issues these natives have brought up as criticism. It's a non-issue, I'm still open minded to a Warren campaign.
Biden is out of tune with today's world already. His last possible stop was 2016.
Bernie I'm feeling needs to find someone to endorse, he succeeded in many ways in penetrating the Democratic Party values. We're getting a lot of good candidates running this year, lots of young and new energy. Social Democracy has become mainstream, no longer is it just a progressive corner in the Democratic Party. I think the movement is ready for someone new to take the torch in 2020.
Thank you for explaining it wayyy better than I did.
It frustrates me how anti-Warren Republican messaging penetrates even FPers. Yes, Warren is not perfect, but she's still great and set up the consumer watchdog thing...
she did not do that though...
Ethnicity not a factor in Elizabeth Warren’s rise in law
https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_1200w/Boston/2011-2020/2018/09/01/BostonGlobe.com/National/Images/WARREN-penn-state.jpg
In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth Warren’s professional history, the Globe found clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools. At every step of her remarkable rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman.
she was well established long before her grandmother's death made her reconsider anything.
The globe has a moderate left bias according to this website: Boston Globe. Now I'm not saying that they haven't uncovered evidence vindicating the senator, but they have ignored/reported some inconsistencies which does still leave a shred of doubt. I personally see that I was wrong in thinking she willfully lied though.
According to two other fact checking sites, (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elizabeth-warren-wealthy-native-american/, Elizabeth Warren's 'Pocahontas' Controversy), Harvard reported that she was Native American the first year she was there as a visiting professor, listed in their records, not 2 1/2 years later.
The fact is we don't know the circumstances but that these claims have dogged her since 2012. If she runs as a Dem nominee they will be brought up in force. Plus Nativ e Americans are very unhappy she describes herself as one. She is not a good pick, it is very simple.
Admittedly, I was mistaking her as having applied as a student to Harvard and lying on her form, not that she worked there as a teacher and only realised that when I looked over the evidence again. The reality probably is that some HR goon, under pressure for diversity (it was the late 90s afterall), heard she was a bit native american and put her as such on the forms.
Washington Post too, brace for round 2 of this
https://fair.org/home/washington-post-ran-16-negative-stories-on-bernie-sanders-in-16-hours/
I'm flabbergasted as to how people, including an allegedly enlightened centrist and Warren herself, doesn't see this as an obvious Republican ploy to move the debate from policy to inane culture war nonsense. Even if Warren were guilty of the things people are accusing her of (which she apparently isn't?) it would be one of the least disqualifying things I've seen from a presidential nominee in years. Certainly far below where we would have called Clinton or Trump out.
The way I see it - If they can get the left talking about it, then they can get the right to obsess over it. If she runs, then the majority of attacks from the right will be about her faking privilege in order to use her own "side's" ideals against her. 'But how can you vote for her? She's undermining Indian culture! You're supposed to hate that kind of thing!' - This kind of speech will take over any and all discussion about her. It'll be 'Crooked Hillary' and 'Benghazi!' all over again, but somehow even stupider.
Meanwhile Trump will continue to be Trump, but the left will be so preoccupied with their own inane identity bullshit that the campaign fails.
Of course, this is the worst case scenario regarding Warren. I don't doubt that most people will move on from her ancestry after she starts actually campaigning. It's just that I fear that right-wing shitposts are going to control the narrative again.
Warren represents the 'Liberal Elite' to the right. She's the ultimate lib to own. None of this has ever been about any sincere concerns about her character, and you can guarantee they will never even bother engaging with her policy.
People don't want a woman professor from the Ivies telling them how to live their lives, even if the policy she's putting forward will make things better for them. They'd rather be poor and miserable if that means they get to hurl racially charged insults at someone on the telly.
If you're using 'enlightened centrist' as some sort of dig, it was clearly a joke.
And, yeah, it's less than what we would have called Clinton/Trump out on, but the last U.S. election was an utter joke.
Bernie is proof that Democrats would win very bigly if they went all-in on labor rights and social democracy, working class whites in places like West Virginia and Michigan saw a breath of fresh air in him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCTiS9P2u6Y
It really didn't come across that way because it seemed like you were trying to use your moderate position to explain why you have a better view of things.
That wasn't my point at all.
Clinton was the Democratic nominee and Trump won. Besides that, I said "any candidates". Did you just miss that part? Nothing in Warren's history is as close to disqualifying as the shit half the Republican field has said or done.
It was used in quotation marks. I get reading comprehension can be hard for some, especially when it comes to lighthearted humor, but I did that to make it clear it was a joke. You're the only one who didn't get that, it seems, as others have focused on the actually important parts of my posts.
Again, you haven't really looked at my post properly. I said 'that's my (as in me, ruski's) entire point' and then you reply with 'that wasn't my point at all'...
You also didn't say 'any candidates'- multiple people have quoted your post. The only names mentioned were Clinton and Trump. I can see you might have meant that by 'other nominees' but you are the one who singled out examples. Plus, what I said is accurate, and I never elaborated my position regarding 'other candidates' because it seemed you were focused on the last election given your post.
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