As Democrats look to 2020 they need to remember THIS about Trump (and their chances)

Elizabeth Warren

The calendar has flipped to 2019, and that means presidential politics are kicking into high gear. Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., got the fun started, triggering an avalanche of fellow White House wannabes in the coming days.
Last week, an analysis from Bloomberg News likened the forming field of contenders to the start of the March Madness college basketball bracket. It’s an appropriate analogy, not only because of the vast number of names, but also the unpredictability of the outcome. The Democratic nominating process is quite literally a jump ball.
Another worthwhile comparison to the Democrats in 2020 is looking back at the Republican nominating process in 2016. Four years ago, the 17-person GOP field boasted the brightest stars from Congress and statehouses across the country. United in their opposition to President Barack Obama, they all offered a change of direction. They all struggled to understand the undercurrents in their party that, driven by pitchfork populism, had shifted many of its bedrock principles on trade and America’s role in the world. One candidate recognized the changing political winds, and he now sits in the Oval Office.
It is a similar story now on the other side. There could be as many as 40 household names vying for the Democratic prize. A recent CNN headline stated “Democrats head into 2019 split on everything but Trump.” Populism has hijacked the left-of-center policy debate, with polls showing socialism more popular than capitalism. Ideological purity and litmus tests on energy, health care and immigration are driving the discussion. The center-left governing days of the Obama era championing global trade deals are a distant memory.
Speaking of debates, Democratic bigwigs tried to head off headaches by announcing they will hold at least a dozen, beginning in June 2019. Last time, the debate over debates consumed attention in both parties. Supporters of Bernie Sanders accused the Democratic National Committee of rigging the process for Hillary Clinton, while Republicans argued about the qualifying threshold to make the primetime contests.
How the party infrastructure accommodates the immense number of candidates is an open question and promises to be messy process. In this age of cable news sound bites and viral social media videos, one thing is certain: being on the big debate stage matters. It made and broke candidates in 2016 and will again in 2020.
Ultimately, the successful Democratic nominee will be able to do two things: win over at least two of the competing factions of the party – establishment, liberal, diverse and outsider – and articulate an authentic economic vision that goes beyond reflexive opposition to Trump. The actions of the 44th and 45th occupants of the White House offer clues on how that process will play out.

Trump is presiding over an economy that remains healthy. The Democrats have yet to find a compelling alternative economic message.

Not content to fade into retirement, Barack Obama’s post-presidential life has broken from tradition. A vocal critic of his successor, Obama actively campaigned for Democrats in last year’s midterms, endorsing more than 300 candidates. His blessing remains highly coveted, and the public comments from his former staff and advisers are parsed for clues about his thinking.
While the party he once presided over is divided on most everything, they are united in their reverence to Obama. Should he throw his support behind a candidate down the road, he could be the only prayer the party has of a semblance of unity.
That brings us to President Trump. Despite the recent turmoil, the nomination is his for the taking as long as he runs again. It’s difficult to unseat a sitting president, and you can’t beat someone with no one –  a lesson the anti-Nancy Pelosi House Democrat insurgents just learned.
Beyond incumbency, Trump is presiding over an economy that remains healthy. The Democrats have yet to find a compelling alternative economic message.
Speaking of breaking from tradition, Trump is not going to take the route of focusing on being a president and ignoring the noise from his competition. Hours after Warren made her news, Trump was questioning her mental health in a media interview, reminding voters of her Native American scandal and denying her valuable news oxygen.
Trump’s megaphone and ability to disqualify his opponents are unmatched. Unlike last year’s midterms, next year’s presidential race will be a choice between two candidates and not a referendum on one. That’s a fight that favors Trump, regardless of what Democrat ends up facing him.

DNA is irrelevant — Elizabeth Warren is simply not Cherokee

 

 

© Anna Moneymaker

Elizabeth Warren has repeatedly identified herself as Cherokee. From 1986 to 1995 she listed herself as Native American in the Association of American Law Schools directory of law professors. After gaining tenure, she insisted University of Pennsylvania categorize her as Native American, too. She then identified herself as Native American to Harvard — in her application and hiring materials and in other forms beyond. 

Harvard has insisted that Warren’s Native American ancestry made no impact on their hiring decisions. Yet, the university immediately held up the recruitment of Warren, a “Native American woman,” to push back against claims that they were insufficiently diverse and diffuse pressure to hire more people of color. Warren was described as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color” in a 1997 Fordham Law Review article. She even published multiple recipes to a cookbook, Pow Wow Chow: A Collection of Recipes from Families of the Five Civilized Tribes — all signed, “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee.”

Warren has consistently struggled to substantiate her claims to Native American ancestry (beyond her grandfather’s “high cheekbones”). Warren asserts her mother was “part Cherokee and part Delaware,” yet a prominent Cherokee genealogist who traced Warren’s maternal ancestry all the way back to the Revolutionary War era found no evidence of any Native American heritage. Some relatives have publicly disputed Warren’s narrative about their family. And, of course, Warren phenotypically presents as white.

For these reasons, she has faced consistent accusations that her claims to Native American ancestry were either mistaken or cynical. The president of the United States mockingly refers to her as “Pocahontas” —  and told Warren he would pay $1 million dollars to a charity of her choice “if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian.” He precited Warren would decline this challenge. It would have been better for her if she had.

What the test shows (and doesn’t)

According to the test, Warren’s DNA is between 1/64 and 1/1032 Columbian, Mexican and/or Peruvian (used as proxies for measuring Cherokee heritage for reasons described in the report); between 0.1 percent and 1.5 percent of her DNA may be Native American in origin; she may have had a Native American ancestor between six to 10 generations back.

Warren depicted this as “slam dunk” proof that she really is of Native American ancestry. This is a base-rate fallacy. In fact, the average white person in America has 0.18 percent Native American DNA — meaning they could be described as about 1/ 556 Native American or as having a Native American ancestor nine to10 generations back. Warren does not seem to have a unique claim to Native American heritage over and above the typical white American.

For comparison: the average U.S. white also has about 0.19 percent African DNA; they can be said to be 1/ 526 black or to have a black ancestor nine to10 generations back. Rachel Dolezal might have about the same genetic claim to being black as Elizabeth Warren does to being Cherokee. Already, memes are circulating comparing the two. Of course, Warren and supporters can make arguments explaining how the two cases are not similar, but this is beside the point. If it has to be explained why or how Warren is substantively different from Dolezal, the war is already lost. 

Non sequitur

Rather than acknowledging she has no meaningful claim to Cherokee / Native American heritage or identity, Warren has doubled down. She claims to have “won” the bet, and has demanded Trump donate $1 million to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. The president has refused, insisting he won the wager. Unfortunately, he is correct: although Warren did take the test it did not prove she is “an Indian.”

Genes, race and ethnicity are non-identical and the relationship between them is complicated. Warren is phenotypically white. She has no identifiable Native American ancestor, no clan affiliation, and no meaningful connection to Cherokee language, customs or culture. As a result, even if the DNA test had suggested she could meet the 1/16 blood quantum required by Cherokee for a federally recognized Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood(she was nowhere near this) — it would still not have established Warren is “an Indian.”

It was actually impossible for Warren to actually win Trump’s bet: Cherokee do not decide who is (or is not) one of them the basis of DNA; what matters are clan ancestry, tracing one’s genealogy to an ancestor on the “Dawes Rolls,” or being adopted into a clan by a Clan Mother.  Elizabeth Warren fails to meet any of these criteria. As a result, she is simply not Cherokee — not even a little. DNA is irrelevant.

This point was powerfully driven home by the Cherokee Nation’s Secretary of State, who described Warren’s attempt as wrong-headed and insulting. He went on to say that Warren is “undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage” (neither Warren nor her team consulted with Cherokee leadership before conducting the test or releasing the results).

And so, rather than neutralizing Trump’s attacks, it is now has made it far easier to portray Warren as a phony: She appropriated Native American heritage for years in both private and professional settings.

Confronted with evidence that her claims were illegitimate (her DNA is comparable to the average white; she has no other empirical proof of heritage) — Warren nonetheless claimed vindication, emulating Trump’s “post-truth politics.”

Throughout, she failed to challenge (and in fact, reinforced) Trump’s false narratives about race, Affirmative Action and the quality of the minority applicants who benefit from it.

Rather than using her platforms and energies to discuss her own agenda, hold Trump accountable for his record and proposals, or speak to constituents’ priorities — we are instead discussing Warren’s (lack of) Native American ancestry because she herself dragged the issue into the spotlight.  

Elizabeth Warren tried to play Trump’s game. She lost. Democrats, take heed.