In October of 2018, Elizabeth Warren took the first step to
put Donald Trump in his place. For years
Trump had been calling her “Pocahontas” for having declared Native-American
heritage on a standard questionnaire disseminated by the Association of American
Law Schools. In 1989 her ethnic status where
she taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School was listed as “Native
American or Alaskan Native”.
DNA technology having since improved to the point where she
could verify her family’s cherished story, she quietly checked her heritage
earlier in the year. The testing
verified her claim. She carefully
planned a public roll out of the results sensitive to Native Americans and
families. Her own personal history,
apart from the minor relationship to Native American issues, formed the greater
part of the presentation. She had lived
the life and struggled the struggles of a lower middle class white woman
breaking free through hard work to become a highly respected law professor.
Donald Trump’s reaction was predictably dismissive. The million dollars he had promised to give
to a charity of Warren’s choice if she proved her heritage was decidedly not
going to be honored. Warren had wisely
chosen the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC) such that
Native-American women would be the ultimate beneficiaries of Trump’s misguided
use of the name “Pocahontas” and perceptibly the victims of his lies.
And then it happened.
Chuck Hoskin Jr., Secretary of State of the Cherokee Nation, blasted
Warren for her presumption in a brief official letter. “Using a DNA test to lay claim to any
connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is
inappropriate and wrong.” Other leaders
from the tribe lauded her for trying to be supportive while they supported Hoskin. It was very important that the tribe and only
the tribe, and based upon only the criteria that the tribe chose, declare
anyone to be Cherokee. DNA results alone
were not sufficient. That Warren had not
laid claim to being a member of the tribe was to no point.
Of more recent vintage, Bernie Sanders has been declared the
front runner for the 2020 Democratic primary.
As he has been honing his newest talking points for the agenda so
popular with Bernie-ites, suddenly a number of unidentified members of his 2016
campaign have issued a statement condemning the campaign for sexual harassment
and failure to give equal pay to females staffers. They demand a face-to-face meeting at which
they make clear that they will present further demands for actions and policies
that must be adopted by the 2020 campaign.
They clearly realize the damage the headlines have done and that they
can do further and more severe damage if they are not satisfied.
While the latest Bernie saga was unfolding, news broke that the January 19th Women’s March would not take place in Eureka, in Humboldt County, California, due to the all white composition of the chapter’s leadership. They will hope to correct their lack of diversity and hold the march at a later date. After a year of trying to resolve issues of anti-Semitism and anti-LBGTQIA bias, and close ties among its leadership to Louis Farrakhan, the Chicago chapter also cancelled its 2018 march. Feeling that the National Women’s March Organization has permitted anti-Semitic and anti-LBGTQIA bias in its own handling of the matter the Washington State Chapter has dissolved itself in protest and the Rhode Island State Chapter has disassociated itself from the national group.
While the latest Bernie saga was unfolding, news broke that the January 19th Women’s March would not take place in Eureka, in Humboldt County, California, due to the all white composition of the chapter’s leadership. They will hope to correct their lack of diversity and hold the march at a later date. After a year of trying to resolve issues of anti-Semitism and anti-LBGTQIA bias, and close ties among its leadership to Louis Farrakhan, the Chicago chapter also cancelled its 2018 march. Feeling that the National Women’s March Organization has permitted anti-Semitic and anti-LBGTQIA bias in its own handling of the matter the Washington State Chapter has dissolved itself in protest and the Rhode Island State Chapter has disassociated itself from the national group.
Did the historical Democratic 2018 election landslide
victory come at a price that threatens the party’s success in 2020? The #MeToo movement held its fire when
Republicans all too predictably began accusing various Democratic candidates of
physically and sexually abusing women and others of covering up abuse. Still, New York Attorney general Eric
Schneiderman resigned in the face of accusations. That senior Democratic Senator from Ohio, Sherrod
Brown, had been accused of abuse by his ex-wife was seized upon by his opponent
during the 2018 midterms, and Congressman Keith Ellison was elected Attorney General of
Minnesota in spite of his opponent’s constant cries of horror at allegations of
domestic violence by an ex-girlfriend.
But aware now of importance of the restraint they showed, surely
the various other groups expect, as the result, to
see their agendas more fully realized in the Democratic party. Any one of them can pretty much torpedo any Democratic
candidate. Not just because they don’t
feel they have a seat at the table but because their sense of historical wrongs
overpowers their ability to compromise among the vast number of identity and
issue groups the party needs to cobble together in order to win elections.
At the very least, like the Cherokee Nation, any
of them can choose to chastise any Democratic candidate publicly by way of advancing
their causes any time an opportunity for national media coverage might come available.
Like the Bernie Sanders campaign
workers, they can take over control of the ship and take it where they will at
least for periods of time.
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