In the swamp
Trump. He’s not funny, he’s not cute, he’s not a “rebel.” He’s no more cute than Milo Yiannopoulos or the bullies of reddit or Gamergate or any of this trash. Calling Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” is just trash. He’s trash. He has a trashy mind and mouth and political campaign.
The furor over Trump’s assaults on the impartiality of a Latino judge had just begun to subside when he lobbed two tweets Friday morning responding to Warren, who had lambasted him as a “thin-skinned, racist bully” in a speech the previous evening.
“Pocahontas is at it again!” Trump wrote in one. “Goofy Elizabeth Warren, one of the least productive U.S. Senators, has a nasty mouth.”
Thus demonstrating that he’s not a racist bully at all, I guess.
“He needs to quit using language like that,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a member of the Chickasaw tribe and one of two Native Americans in the House. “It’s pejorative , and you know, there’s plenty of things that he can disagree with Elizabeth Warren over, this is not something that should, in my opinion, ever enter the conversation. . . . It’s neither appropriate personally toward her, and frankly, it offends a much larger group of people. So, I wish he would avoid that.”
Yeah calling her “Pocahontas” is not disagreeing with her in any way, it’s just a substanceless racist sneer.
When asked why he persists in calling Warren “Pocahontas” and what he makes of the alarm it has caused among some Republicans, Trump responded bluntly in a statement Friday: “Because she is a nasty person, a terrible U.S. Senator, and it drives her crazy.”
“The Republicans should find it offensive that she scammed the system by faking her heritage, not that I am unafraid to point that out,” he continued in the statement, which was provided by his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks. “Actually, Goofy Elizabeth, her nickname, is far worse.”
He sounds so exactly like the bullying shits one can find all over Twitter and Reddit. Yet he’s the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
There’s something wrong with us.
Such a vile, boorish person, he is.
What do people find to like about this guy? I thought Boris was bad enough but Trump is Boris on stilts.
He’s about as cute as a smallpox outbreak, or a new, untreatable form of the “black death”.
( disclaimer…I would never vote for Trump)
Does Elizabeth Warren actually have any Native American ancestry?
If she claimed in public she did, but in reality didn’t, then she lied, didn’t she?
And is it now unacceptable to lampoon someone based on false claims they’ve made?
Milos Yannopolis ( spelling?) claims maternal Jewish descent, but there’s no truth to it, and so he’s an idiot.
Pocahontas was a real person who is generally viewed in a positive light. She could actually be seen as a role model that defies the current crude opinions some people have of Native Americans, particularly Native American women. Unlike other historical figures with questionable characteristics and traits, Pocahontas has absolutely no need for rehabilitation…
Now, had Trump called Ms Warren a *squaw*, a truly disgusting and offensive term, then he really would be in a swamp of racism.
Pocahontas, though it may be considered offensive by some, doesn’t quite cut it as racist.
That’s what Trump does; he skirts the gray zone constantly, but never ventures beyond a certain limit. His statements are insulting, generate lots of buzz, but they’re never quite grievous enough to be considered criminal or actionable.
And while on the subject of Native American women, just how many place-names in the U.S. begin with the word *Squaw*?
Why would he stop using language like that? he’s surrounded by people who applaud him for it and who will act on his behalf in real life and real time.
He is confirmation by it in the flesh!
I’ve a colleague I generally respect who said if Trump wins (please not), it would at least tell us about the actual power of the US executive, based on what he could or could not actually enact…
Respectfully, I disagree. We kinda already know this anyway; it’s not a terribly useful experiment, let alone one worth this kind of exposure to the risk of actual batshit crazy from the chief executive. Look at certain relatively recent administrations whose congress was of the other colour. Deadlock is very much a thing. Which, in such a (I begin to think less and less likely, but it’s a long way to November, so don’t anyone get too overly sure of themselves) hypothetical, we may actually find ourselves grateful for.
More accurately, I think, the _election_ is gonna tell just how many people there are in the world who live enough in the Breitbart bubble deeply enough, and who lack bandwidth or interest enough in looking outside it, that distractionary stuff like this actually keeps their limited faculties busy and seething enough not to see just how profoundly they’re being had.
As online voices now repeat (again, never mind how well it worked for them last time) a standard right wing talking point about Ms. Warren’s alleged ‘lie’, a controversy raised by an electoral opponent, some years back. But _that_, in turn, in fact, is a blatant exaggeration, if not an actual lie itself. For, on the face of it, it looks more to me like believing and passing on standard hazy, none-too-easily substantiated family lore (which, as yet, could very well be true; it’s like a lot of things back far enough; any really solid paper trail has blown away, if it ever even existed), evidently in the romantic naivete that a) believing it and b) making it kinda quasi-official as she did in a faculty directory wouldn’t wind up on the news cycle, in the absurdly overheated environment of a senate campaign–and never mind it’s lore which may very well, in fact, still be true. The genetic waters in the area are, indeed, frequently pretty muddy, but knowing for sure, being able to prove it, even if family legend on the fact is pretty widespread, is generally pretty difficult. And this is the fact none-too-honest partisans who need _something_ to keep the opposition too busy to point out their own manifest unsuitability for office are trying to exploit.
More critically: re Trump’s ‘she scammed the system by faking her heritage’, this is the _actual_ lie here. Look at the epistemology of it: Warren cannot prove her ancestry; it’s equivocal, but, probably, in a lot of contexts, you’d give her the benefit of the doubt, given what the rest of her family say, so long as she wasn’t, say, actually looking to join a tribe (which she’s not). Trump and Brown, on the other hand, are positively refuted in their rather bolder claim by those who were actually _present_ for hiring decisions (on top of the announcements around them), and who seem to have regarded it as, probably what it is: a story common as dust, not even terribly significant or terribly interesting, but if she figures that’s part of her identity, and may be right, fair enough, whatever floats her boat; its generally considered rude taking that away from people without pretty decent evidence _to the contrary_ (which also does not exist). So: it’s started by one political opponent, repeated by another remarkably even more unsavoury one. There’s every indication she never benefited professionally from this…
And more critically still: it’s classic right wing nut red meat: look at the story, look at that dogwhistle: the minorities get all the advantages; anyone can benefit just by pretending to be one, even. Stir that pot, boys. Maybe enough people will be angry enough and dumb enough to give you votes for it.
And yes, again, it’s strongly indicative of just what Trump is: a demagogue. He knows who he’s enraging (or trying to). And as Warren herself pointed out: mostly just distraction.
It’s another thing I’d add this election is about. A lot of people I think are noticing: Trump, along with a lot of the right wing, are very much influenced by this bubble of online echo chamber, from Breitbart to Reddit to points even more remarkably unsavoury. He and his staff, indeed, may be _so_ enmeshed they may not even realize just how alien and silly it looks from outside. And it’s a lot of stuff like this: overheated hatred, taking anything you can, painting it in the worst possible light. Like inquisitors who will find in any statement, however banal, evidence for congress with demons, a woman’s taking her family’s stories about their ancestry reasonably enough into her own sense of identity gets amped to this absurd level, anything rather than discuss actual legislative directions, which tend to be rather less helpful to their cause.
So: as to what the election is about: I think it’s also this. In November 2016, please, America, ensure this bubble of at once gullible and uncharitable idiocy _shrinks_ and does not continue to grow. As it’s quite a large enough tumour already, thank you kindly.
(See also http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/is-elizabeth-warren-native-american-or-what/257415/ for decent context, I guess.)
My mother often told her children we were of Native America ancestry, as a way of explaining the sudden dark haired, darker skinned coloration of her mother, of pretty pale German ancestry.
As an adult, I found out a cousin was told by my uncle we had some Jewish ancestry, as a way of explaining the same non-blonde grandmother.
Another cousin, the one into genealogy, swears neither is true. Of course, she’s assuming all children are the offspring of their married parents.
That’s always true, right?
My point is, until I heard the stories from the other cousins, I had no reason to seriously doubt my mother’s account, and my cousins had no reason to doubt their father’s account.
Maybe we should require DNA testing before anyone claims any ancestry.
John @ 4 –
One, whether or not Warren said she had NA ancestry – I don’t care. I don’t see why it matters. And if she said she does but she doesn’t then no, she didn’t necessarily lie; she could have been mistaken. Either way I don’t see why it matters.
The spelling of Yiannopoulos – well it’s right there in the post (and yes I had to look it up yet again because it’s been awhile and I was again unsure of where the “i” appears) so why not just get it right instead of getting it wrong while saying you might be getting it wrong?
Finally, about calling Warren “Pocahontas” – no, absolutely not. Don’t be ridiculous. Trump doesn’t call Warren that because he admires Pocahontas. Calling her that is pretty much on a level with calling her a “squaw.”
Just to prove that anti-Trump conservatives are virtually identical to him, ‘Genocide Ben’ Shapiro posted a whole heap of racist tweets about Warren on Thursday (he’s trying to be funny). An example:
https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/741099573091831808
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Trump was funny during the GOP debates. Watching him torment creatures like Cruz and Rand Paul was something beautiful. Seeing American conservatives tear themselves apart over this bloke has been a joy to behold.
It would have been even better if Bernie had been the Democratic nominee and thumped Trump in November, with the GOP losing both houses. I would have grabbed a giant bag of popcorn and parked in front of the laptop for a month to watch these goons completely disintegrate.
John @4:
Are you under the impression that the difference between legally protected and unprotected speech in America is how “grievous” it is? Like, if only he said something really really really nasty and racist, he could be sued or criminally prosecuted? Because that’s simply not true.
[…] Because of this claim in a comment: […]
Don’t be ridiculous. Trump doesn’t call Warren that because he admires Pocahontas.
I never claimed that he did. I’ve no idea what the guy thinks of her, and I don’t really care.
so why not just get it right instead of getting it wrong while saying you might be getting it wrong?
Straight answer? Was short of time and had to go grocery shopping.