There comes a time in every successful politician’s life when he — or she! — needs to completely backpedal on a long-held assertion without ever admitting that he — or she! — was wrong. Either through willful dishonesty, reflexive self-delusion, or some combination of the two, the trick is to say the exact opposite of what you said before, without ever acknowledging the contradiction. It’s really tricky, and political history is littered with poor chumps who couldn’t get away with it. Some people are just better liars than others, whether by natural talent or decades of practice.
Speaking of which! Two months ago, Elizabeth Warren released this video:
“My daddy’s parents, the Herrings, were bitterly opposed to their marrying because my mother’s family, the Reeds, was part Native American. This sort of discrimination was common at the time.”
Elizabeth Warren said that. Out loud. Into a microphone that she knew was in front of her. It was all part of a press rollout to end the “Fauxcahontas” narrative once and for all. Finally, Warren could hold up the proof of her Native American heritage. Finally, she could rub her critics’ noses in it. Plenty of her fans in the press were more than happy to help her out, trumpeting the announcement as some sort of vindication. Proof of her place in the hierarchy of victimhood.
How’s that working out for her?
Katelyn Caralle, Washington Examiner:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Friday that she is not a person of color, despite her previous claims to Native American ancestry.
“I’m not a person of color. And I haven’t lived your life or experienced anything like the subtle prejudice, or more overt harm, that you may have experienced just because of the color of your skin,” Warren said at Morgan State, a historically black college in Baltimore, Md, according to the Washington Post.
“I’m not a person of color.”
In case you haven’t been paying attention, this is exactly what Elizabeth Warren’s critics have been saying for years. We never believed she was a person of color, no matter how many times she insisted she was. We didn’t believe she experienced any kind of bigotry or prejudice because of her skin color. On the contrary, she only benefited from her false claim of Native American heritage.
Is it too late to reverse the damage from her lamebrained DNA stunt, before Election 2020 really gets into gear? Well…
Most noteworthy in the CNN national poll of Dems in 2020 (which basically just tests national name ID right now) are drops for Harris and Warren pic.twitter.com/JOwv3rcUiC
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) December 14, 2018
She’s polling below John Kerry, which doesn’t seem good because, well, John Kerry. But if it only means fewer people have heard of Elizabeth Warren than John Kerry, then maybe it isn’t so bad. Maybe all this DNA stuff hasn’t hurt her. Who knows? All the polls said Hillary was a shoo-in, didn’t they?
Elizabeth Warren reminds me a lot of Hillary Clinton, actually, in the sense that the sound of her voice makes me wish I were deaf. If that’s sexist, then fine, I’m sexist. Warren’s voice is awful, and even if her policies made sense and she’d never lied about her heritage, I wouldn’t want to spend 4-8 years listening to her scolding me. Say what you want about Trump, but at least he doesn’t sound like the human embodiment of nails on a blackboard. She’s like a creaking door with a law degree.
But nevertheless, she’ll persist. Maybe she’ll power through, and everybody will forget she ever lied about being Native American. Maybe she’ll get the Democratic nomination, and maybe she’ll beat Trump, or Pence, or whoever is sitting in the Oval Office by then.
Who knows what the smoke signals will be?
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