I love Sen. Warren, but I just donât understand her burning desire to run for president. Sheâs exactly where she can do the most good right now. In two years, with a Democratic House and President, she could author powerful bipartisan legislation. A couple years after that, if we could take back the Senate, she could be truly legendary.
Sometimes, running for the office, even if you donât expect to get it, makes sense as a way to publicize your ideas. (I do not know if this is or is not her reasoning.) One certainly good thing is that once you announce that you are running for office, MSM will stop asking you. (Indeed, they might start ignoring you entirely.)
Since there is now signed proof of her fake pretense at Indian identity (her application for admission to the State Bar of Texas), itâs going to be a burr under her saddle for the entire time. The DNA thing was another unforced error. Like the email stupidity for HRC, it doesnât look big now, but will be under constant prodding and constant reiteration of the situation.
My understanding is that she included the claim as part of her ethnicity, and not a primary designation. Even in that case, it will indeed haunt her, at least among people who are obsessed with trivia (which seems to be pretty much everyone). Her best option is probably to just admit that it was mistake any time it comes up, but also that she cannot change the past and we need to move on, and then move on (to the degree that she is allowed to do so). She must find a way not to let it consume all of her air time.
Senator Warren claimed Native American ethnicity many years ago and has apologized for it.
Donald Trump was legitimately accused of sexual assault by over a dozen women and never apologized for it or admitted it occurred.
Guess who weâre going to crucify? Somehow this dynamic has to change.
Iâm certainly a fan of that statement, as is Ralph Northam, Bret Kavanaugh, 4-5 other VA politicians, Al Franken, Garrison Keillor, and hundreds of others who have been subject to âhistorical morality/sexual conduct revisionismâ. Now can you convince Democratic Party zealots to agree with that idea?
In the midst of a Purity Reign of Terror, which we are at this point, the one who survives is the one who accuses the other of a crime.
Or we can decide that shit that happened in high school, in college, 15, 20, 25, 30 years ago AND WHICH DID NOT RESULT IN A POLICE REPORT, is not relevant, and that what is relevant is our record of professional accomplishment once we are an adult.
That would require that, instead of focusing on an unverified uncorroberated moment in a bedroom in 1975, we focus on Bret Kavanaughâs record as a lawyer, and that we focus on Fairfaxâs record as a lawyer and politician.
But I donât expect Dems to stop using this club any time soon. Even though it is now clear that the club of reconsidered retrospectively redefined moral status can cut both ways, and as easily destroy Dems as Republicans.
Identity politics is all Democrats have now, nothing illustrates this more than the fact that people will question Warren because of the Native American controversy but embrace a candidate who as district attorney of California knowingly kept innocent people in prison for years after the Innocence Project found them factually innocent, because sheâs black.
If you have been reading these threads of late, I seem to be unable to do exactly that, and I donât know how anyone else is likely to be able to do so. Just making simple sense isnât enough anymore, nor is appealing to reason, and I donât think I have anything else to suggest.
My answer is to simply refuse to give in the revisionist moral reconsideration bullying. If it did not result in a police report when it happened, it is not fair or right to consider it now. So Fairfax should not resign nor should Northam. Itâs just terrible that Al Franken did, because his resignation more than anything else weaponized the stupid here. It gave Gillibrand AND WARREN AND HARRIS the idea that their prissy revisionist moral bullshit was appropriate. Now those accused of ancient crimes MUST NOT RESIGN. The only way to defang this beast is to state, clearly, that âI will not give in to your bullying about my conduct of 30 years ago, and I will let my subsequent record of accomplishment and service speak to my fitness for officeâ.
They only answer is to not give in to the bullies. I had to do that in my church, where a moral bullshit bully tried to use the club of âmy moral status trumps yoursâ. I didnât give in, and she had to back off.
The card pictured was not part of her application to the TX bar. Sen Warren had already been admitted when she filled it out the card.
Whenever certain posters start offering their critiques of presidential candidates, I remember this passage from an article about Kamala Harris in Mother Jones.
As a woman of color, she embodies two key Democratic constituencies, and she is beloved by the wing of the party that broke for Hillary Clinton. But among those on the far left, including many die-hard Bernie Sanders supporters, sheâs an object of disdain, a Hillary-bot with weak progressive credentials. While that segment of the left might oppose anyone who isnât one particular septuagenarian, the Week summed up this critique when it slammed Harris for her ârather Hillary Clinton-esque tendency to say the right thing but not follow through.â
Iâll let her speak to that, but I have to say thereâs a quality she has that may have been underestimated so far, and thatâs something thatâs often called âpassionâ these days. I think itâs overused, and Iâd say when she talks about the abuses that weâve permitted by the powerful against the weak, she expresses not just ideas but an intelligently restrained anger that I think could really resonate with people the more they see it. CouldâI have no idea for sure. But if everything fell in place for herâwell. Iâm just settling in for a good horse race at this point.
A distinction without a difference. The point is that she wrote âAmerican Indianâ and signed it. I donât really care what it was in application for, and no one else does either.
I can think of too many serious cases where this situation does not fit my own views. (It really isnât applicable to the Warren situation since even if she did it today, it is not illegal in any meaningful sense, since the whole thing is truly trivia.) I know of cases where charges were not brought for the personal shame it would bring to the victim. (Even Dr. Blassey-Fordâs own father makes it clear why she did not come forward all those years ago.) I also know of cases where charges were literally invented for revenge. (In one case, a group of friends were able to convince the person not to invent charges, especially not for the short-term satisfaction of revenge. Successful or unsuccessful, the outcome could only be tragedy.) I seem to recall an instance where two students decided to make up charges of abuse against a teacher, purely as punishment for bad grades. (Fortunately, others were aware of the plot, or something of that sort that made it unwind.)
I think all of this is very complicated, with no easy answers (particularly in the absence of concrete evidence, which is the usual case). In general, the best I can think of is to evaluate the charges in the light of the personâs broader life. I am not sufficiently familiar with Fairfax as a person or a politician to make such a judgement in his case, and I am not a Virginia voter, so my opinion is not very important anyway.
I can say that dating today seems to be a mind-field of troubles, and I am glad I gave it up ages ago.
A distinction without a difference.
The stoopid is strong in you nick.
The Troll has corralled some responses** So that will reduce the effective discussion offerings of this thread. People clicking onto it thinking that, say, there are 100 posts with a range of offerings will see a large chunk directed at the trollie.
By the way⌠I dislike the word âpopulismââŚI sometimes wish there was someone on our side with the phrasemaking chops of FDR or Winnie.
** Telling me that Liz has potential
I guess you think you are being subtle and clever. Gee, not so.
You know what a troll is? Someone who disagrees with you and has better arguments. Thatâs the case here.
Sadly Warren is the only Democratic candidate out there who isnât a Wall St tied ruthless careerist.
Democrats are going to lose in 2020. You will tear yourselves apart over things that happened decades ago that have nothing to do with the current predicament the country faces. You will reject good candidates with the right priorities because of a word, or a picture, or because they tried to kiss someone, while embracing and welcoming back to the fold the standard issue corrupt politician who takes huge sums of money from Wall St/ Corporate America/Banking industry because theyâre the right color, or gender, or combination of the two, and they say the right words, the right applause lines, the right combination of feel good words and accusations at others.
Your going to lose because if your party only caters to certain demographics, thereâs no reason for people outside those demographics to vote for you. Youâre going to lose because as you only cater to the needs of certain demographics, those outside those demographics who once stood beside you will start to leave you behind and join the âother sideâ because as it turns out, that was their tribe all along.
Youâre going to lose because identity politics only leads to one thing, and thatâs violence. Which is exactly what is going to happen.
You get pundits who start tossing these words around that are either defined in various ways depending on the context or arenât well understood in the general public even if the book definition is pretty stable. I mean hell, âsocialistâ today in this countryâs political discourse either means âadvocating a slightly more robust safety netâ or, for the really wild-eyed radical firebrands, âalso advocating a single-payer health system.â Thatâs not socialism as I learned about it in my college days.