I think Elizabeth Warren can win.

I'm saying that if you want any Democratic candidate to not discuss civil rights and BLM and immigrant rights and freedom of religion (especially for Muslims and Muslim Americans) and reproductive rights, you know, those divisive issues, then Trump has won whether he wins the election or not.

As long as they don't talk about it and don't plan any policy around it? No thanks.

We agree on this.

The Democratic candidate should discuss civil rights, BLM and immigrant rights and freedom of religion and reproductive rights. But it should be a respectful discussion that acknowledges disagreement.

You might note that I am a big fan of Obama. He presented his ideas and policies and accepting disagreement. He discussed ideas, rather than attacking people. And he invited people who disagreed with him on one issue to find common cause on other issues. You didn't see Obama attacking the character of large parts of the American public.

This is very different from Hillary. Hillary ran a campaign with the slogan she chose "I'm with her", she didn't focus on ideas as much as on her "qualifications"... and the underlying tone of her campaign was that any difficulties were based on her gender and that any disagreement was misogyny. You don't think the "deplorables" line was a big deal. I think it was the main theme in her campaign. I never saw her sincerely reach out to people who disagreed with her. Voters like me felt alienated.

The Democrats need another Obama. They do not need another Hillary. And they sure as hell don't need a Democratic version of Trump.

I think Warren can fill this role.

I don't think that's the case. I think what they are doing is grooming them into more covert racism/nationalism/fascism. How, after all, do you think the Democrats got from being the Dixiecrats with the KKK marching unmasked in the first half of the 20th century to being a secret hate organization?

Really, the KKK began as a secret underground resistance during reconstruction after the Civil War and covert/underground movements have been popular with fascism/racism around the world in various ways. Take a look at laws in Europe censoring nazi propaganda, for example, and ask yourself whether these laws do more to stop (neo)nazism or whether they just push people to sanitize it and repackage it as something more vanilla-scented.

Hint: take a look at the statistical relationship between declining economic growth and xenophobia in Europe and try to figure out whether national socialism ended in 1945 or whether migrant flows are controlled in Europe as a mechanism of economic regulation and support/protection of citizen welfare.

To make a long story short, it is logical that the Democrats would groom their white nationalists into suppressing outward expressions of their views by persistently condemning white nationalism. Those who fail to wear the mask will be deemed 'deplorables,' and then excommunicated/identified as GOP supporters in order to demonize the enemy.

What you might hope for will never happen.

I disagree with your assessment of Warren as a unifying figure, but even if this is the case, during the primaries, all of the candidates will be fighting to be seen as the farthest left; the most stalwart Resistant.

It's why Clinton made the "Deplorable" comment. She was cheered by her audience when she did.

To my point:

Apparently, Julian La Babosa Castro is thinking about running in 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/democratic-congressman-says-jared-kushner-possibly-orchestrated-khashoggi-death/

Most of the argument here revolves around how electable we think Warren might or might not be. That's obviously important as it is the prerequisite for holding the office but then we have the real world concerns of how we think the candidate might behave and what they might accomplish in office. I don't see anyone on the horizon that I'd trust more than Warren in this regard.

As regards her concentration on economic issues, this is motivated not merely as some wonkish interests of hers but more deeply, I think, by her understanding of the consequences of economic injustice for minorities and the under-privileged generally. I see no reason to imagine she is blind to their plight. Her in-depth knowledge of economics and particularly of how the system has been rigged to maintain/increase the power of the wealthy (and her profound moral indignation at this) suggests to me the US is unlikely to find a better rep for the disadvantaged.

As to her demeanor once in office, she seems to me as hard-working as anyone in US politics presently and I have yet to see her be intimidated. And, as noted by everybody here, she's smart as hell.

Re ancestry, I really do not get why anyone is bothered by this issue. Two reasons: the first is that it is precisely this sort of slur which the right now uses all the time and if it wasn't this it would have been something else. And the same will happen regardless of who is the candidate. I think it is a nothing issue but one which the right has been successful (as they often are) in getting folks like us to zestfully bite into the hook. I am very, very tired of this stupidity. The second reason arises from my own family history where it was held as a high certainty that we had a significant Jewish contribution to our genetic inheritance. A recent DNA test done by my sister's daughter found not the slightest trace of what we'd believed, what we'd passed down as lore through several generations.

So there's the question of electability. I do not give a **** that her gender might prove an impediment. That will always be true until we break some old barriers and they have to be broken. There's another aspect to this as well - if she is seen by women voters as being pushed out of contention because she's a woman then I think the US will have just throttled any foreseeable route to recovery short of some significant political and social catastrophe. On charisma, I don't buy the claim that this perceived lack is determinative. Or even very measurable, for that matter.

We'll have to wait and see who else is going to run but if someone appears who has undeniable charisma but who is without exceptional background qualifications and talents and is yet chosen due to charisma, then the US political system will have become a full-blown celebrity TV show.

Corey Booker and Kamala Harris will be... bet your life on it.



Well, that's big of you, but it won't be, so don't worry.



What you mean "we" pasty white Canadian?

You mean to say Joaquin Castro.

In that case, he would be el baboso, masculine adjective. Unless you're trying to emasculate him as part of your insult.

Yes and yes

source

1) Saudi Crown Prince Boasted That Jared Kushner Was “In His Pocket”

2) Saudi crown prince bragged that Jared Kushner gave him CIA intelligence about other Saudis saying 'here are your enemies' days before 'corruption crackdown' which led to torture and death

I can't vouch for the accuracy of either story but the National Review's headline:



was deceptive, making it look like an accusation when it was actually a response to reports which had already surfaced in April. Castro never said that Kushner "orchestrated" the killing. Given Kushner's close ties to the Crown Prince it's not surprising that the purported list arouses some suspicion. Raisng the question is hardly as "irresponsible" as Curtis Houck would have us believe.

Then I'll explain to you why it bothers me. To me, Warren's conduct from the 1980s to the early 2000-s shows dishonesty, and her handling of the affair today shows bad judgement. Neither is a deal-breaker, but both bother me in a potential president.

Let's start with dishonesty. Elizabeth Warren, more than most other politicians, is presenting herself as a plain-Jane, no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is candidate. A candidate people can trust over the shifty liars on the other side. Warren directly contradicted this self-image with her choice to assume a Native-American identity, off and on, depending on professional convenience.

Warren has never participated meaningfully in any Native-American community or Native-American traditions. She has no more Native Americans among her ancestors than the average White American does. And yet she let Harvard present her as a diversity hire and use her as a reason not to hire more Native Americans.

And we're not talking about facile, identity-political vanity here. Warren's lies directly hurt real people --- whoever Harvard didn't hire because she was 'Cherokee'. And while this is not a deal-breaker --- all humans lie sometimes --- it does contradict the image she is choosing to present of herself, and this bothers me.

Moving on to poor judgement: In addition to Warren's lying in the first place, the genetic test, her "in your face, Trump!" presentation of its result, and the timing of her presentation all bother me. To start with, genetic tests do nothing to decide your membership in a Native-American community, so it was an idiotic approach to begin with. Moreover, the result of the test confirmed rather than contradicted Trump's "Pocahontas" sneer Warren is no more Native American than the average White American. Trump could with equal justice have called her the Rachel Dolezal of the Cherokee. And finally, the Democratic Party needed this 'Cherokee' distraction like a hole in the head. What was Warren thinking, derailing her party's campaign three weeks before the elections like that? Couldn't this wait another month or two?

To be sure: Warren's poor judgement is no show-stopper for me, either. All humans trouble-shoot imperfectly sometimes But it bothers me. I'd rather check out Harris, Gillibrand and the other Democrats before making a commitment to Warren.

You wouldn't and most of us wouldn't. Unfortunately the electorate may have a different idea. I doubt very strongly that, should Warren do well in the primaries any effort would be made to "push her out of contention". And if she does poorly in the primaries, especially in open primaries, that supposedly represents the choice of free people, not an orchestrated effort on anybody's part to discriminate against a woman candidate. As many here have said, we'll just have to see who runs and what happens. I think Trump says that a lot.

Let's start here... You contend she has knowingly misrepresented herself in a manner which worked to her benefit (and which did/may have? resulted in a native american not gaining acceptance to Harvard. I may be missing information here. Do you have credible reporting on those claims?

Elizabeth Warren is a politician. It should not be surprising that she is acting like a politician. That doesn't bother me so much. I get the criticism of the ham handed DNA roll out, but I think the idea is to counter Trump's overblown attacks. I hope she is smart enough to have this issue fade.

I accept your criticisms, Thomas. I am still in the Warren camp, at least at this point. Harris and Gillebrand are playing to the angry women in pink hats crowd. I don't think that this is what the country needs. I also think that either Harris and Gillebrand can lose to Trump... they will play on his terms. You can't out-Trump the Trump.

I think Warren is fine, but you keep comparing her to Harris and Gillebrand. Biden, Castro, Booker, Kaine, Brown, Hickenlooper are all solid candidates Warren may have to compete with in addition to Harris and Gillebrand. Bullock in Montana is a proven Democratic winner in a deep red state, add him to the list as well. Has Sanders ruled out a run? I like Warren, I think she has some pretty decent qualifications, but I think she has some baggage compared to some of the others we're going to see put their hats in the ring. Of course, you get baggage by getting out there and fighting so that is not necessarily a negative, but I think you should read Thomas's comments again. Warren has really offended some people, she's not doing anything to smooth it over and it has two years to fester. Inside the Senate, she is a force, if she gets mauled on the campaign trail, her effectiveness in the Senate might take a hit as well.

The democrats have a problem with hypocricy concerning racism. They claim to be against racism, but then they have problems understanding the difference between ethnicity as an individual experience and ethnicity as a culture of collectivizing people and organizing them into competitive groups. The latter is racism, i.e. the traditional cultural practice of classifying people into biological/cultural collective groups and treating individuals merely as parts of larger collective wholes.

Democrats are confused because they think that equalizing groups/collectives is less racist than if one or more groups per nation work together to subjugate other groups/races as subordinate. When there are group hierarchies, and people are treated according to group identity, you're going to end up discriminating against individuals if you want to protect one or more groups, whether they are whites, blacks, Asians, tribal people, or whatever. If you want to end racism and discrimination, you have to stop treating people in terms of group identity.

By showcasing Warren's DNA test, the Democrats are basically taking a shot at soliciting voters to discriminate in favor of Warren as being a minority woman. They love doing this because it turns the tables of racist discrimination around so that minorities and women end up favoring and justifying discrimination because now it is favoring them instead of the reverse. It is terrible when you can ask someone with minority status whether they are against racial preference and they have to say no because they are afraid of being discriminated without it.

Most minority people are against any form of racial preference and they would just like to be respected and treated as individuals, yet they will hesitate to be against racial preference for minorities out of fear that they will be discriminated against if they don't. In other words, they just don't trust whites not to favor each other over them for subtle cultural reasons, and rightly so considering how many more avenues there are for whites to attain cushy middle-class and higher positions while blacks and other minorities remain disproportionately poor and lower class.

And I can't say all this without mentioning the fact that the whole social-economic status hierarchy is based on a subversion of the true American dream, which is about self-sufficiency. Whereas many working class minorities work hard to build and renovate their own houses with their own hands and sweat, the middle-class corporate culture has taken away that DIY American dream and replaced it with one where you show up at school/work/etc. and gain status points on your resume, which you then cash in for purchases that are produced for you by other people. That is not the American dream because it's all about status and economic burden-shifting, but it has been marketed as the American dream because it generates more transactions and thus stimulates GDP, tax revenue, and the ability to extract money from stock markets so money can moved between countries, so it can be used to fund better welfare state systems in some while maintaining worse economic conditions in others.

Oh please. It was a political attack and not just an observation.

Well yeah. He is a politician. It's election season. Potential candidates are jockeying for position, who, as you say, can appear as "the most stalwart Resitant".

But I don't see why that invalidates his concern with Kushner's close ties to Mohammed bin Salman and why the National Review thinks that questioning the relationship is so irresponsible.

Neither I nor the NR author will be able to persuade you otherwise.