The Skinny: Warring With Warren and Fake Labor Class Outreach

 

Warring With Warren and Fake Labor Class Outreach

 

On the article Warren-loving liberals don’t want you to see and Liz’s cosplay career as a professional Native

The white supremacy of Elizabeth Warren

“In today’s article analysis I’d like to go back and look at this March 4th piece from earlier this year by Twila Barnes and Cole DeLaune over at Indian Country Today.

I don’t imagine that a lot of liberals who’re going to vote in the Democratic primary read this meticulously-sourced article back in March and I suspect that if you showed it to them today, they would blithely dismiss it out of hand. From the classic “white moderate” perspective the title (The white supremacy of Elizabeth Warren) will likely seem offensively hyperbolic and modern liberal decorum doesn’t leave a lot of room for indigenous people who self identify as “Indians.” The last uptight Democrat I tried to share it with immediately dismissed it as “just some blog.”

Perhaps it really is too much to expect some light search engine operation from your average liberal at this point, but to paraphrase the good doctor “we’re made of sterner stuff than that” here on the left. I don’t profess to be an expert on indigenous online media but a little poking around on the internet revealed that Indian Country Today is indeed a popular and reputable indigenous news organization with a wide reach and a proud history – currently being operated by the National Congress of American Indians, which itself was founded in 1944 and represents a large number of federally and state recognized Native American tribes (see link below.) Presumably the purely subjective complaint that “this looks like a blog” can be answered by the site’s forward-thinking design which ICT notes is optimized for delivery to your mobile phone.

Okay now that we’ve established that liberals should be reading it (we we’re going to read it anyway) because it’s a credible news site that both reaches and represents perhaps millions of Native Americans, what does it say? Spoilers: not great things about who Liz Warren is and how this next election might go if she’s the eventual Democratic Party nominee.

I really do encourage you to read the full article but the short, short version is that Liz Warren is absolutely not indigenous, there is almost a zero percent chance she’s simply been innocently repeating false “family lore” and that Warren has apparently been outright lying about her heritage for a variety of political and career-orientated advantageous.

The authors also note the blatantly racist overtones of Warren’s decision to use a flawed genetic test to prove native ancestry, her repeated trafficking in native stereotypes (high cheekbones) and that both “phenotypically and culturally”, Liz Warren is objectively a (rich) white woman.

Perhaps the harshest words of critique against Warren however are reserved for describing her repeated failure to support native causes in government, address indigenous concerns about Liz’s “professional native” cosplay and apologize honestly for the damage her yarn-spinning has done to native communities.

The authors accuse Warren of refusing to meet native activists to discuss the issue, allowing her campaign to malign them as pawns of “right-wing extremists” and stonewalling interview requests with Indian Country Today.

This isn’t random malingering here; there is real (and longstanding) anger in this article – in the words of the authors themselves:

“In summary: when confronted with Indigenous perspectives that posed an obstacle to her personal advancement, Warren’s carefully calculated response was to pretend that we didn’t exist.”

“Eventually, of course, the DNA debacle of her own making forced Warren to deliver a qualified mea culpa. But she has never acknowledged – much less apologized for – her active hostility toward the Indigenous critics who first tried to reach out to her and then strived to hold her to account. She has unequivocally failed in the most foundational moral duties of her position: to listen, to engage, and to represent. For almost six years, she intentionally did what colonialism has always done to people of Indigenous origin: she has erased us from our own story.”

This is of course the “elephant in the room” of the Liz Warren campaign and the evidence is clear that the mainstream Democrats and media minions flocking to her banner absolutely know it – once again I quote directly from the article:

“And the fallout is real and concrete. Right now, left-leaning media reeks with the condescension of nominal white progressives – numerous prominent pundits and reporters among them – all too willing to dismiss and demean the insights of their Indigenous counterparts. Because of their Twitter commentary on the subject, Ryan Grim, DC bureau chief of The Intercept, accused Cherokees of “doing Trump’s work” and “enabling his abject racism.”[20] Reporter Thor Benson of The Rolling Stone and The Daily Beast sneered at the “virtue signaling” of critiques about Warren by a Dine/Inhanktowan Dakota author.[21] In an article denounced by the Native American Journalists Association[22], The Huffington Post’s Jennifer Bendery minimized the chorus of Native qualms on the matter (even from the Cherokee Nation Secretary of State) as “crickets.”[23] Bill Maher lectured his television viewers, “If you think this stupid, blown-out-of-proportion Indian controversy makes her inauthentic, you’re the phony.”[24]

Naturally that elite liberal media establishment backlash will sound awfully similar to DACA and immigration activists, young climate protestors and anti-mass incarcerations advocates who have spoken out against a Democratic Party power structure that’s happy to have them for the photo-op, but doesn’t stand up for marginalized people. It will also sound awful familiar to left wing LGBTQ people, Medicare for All advocates and members of the Black Lives Matter movement. Finally of course most supporters of Senator and 2020 Democratic Party nomination contest candidate Bernie Sanders will be *also* be quite familiar with this Bizarro-world application of weaponized identity politics that suggests that those who are oppressed, are actually the oppressors because simply mentioning your problems somehow counts as “racist” or “bigoted” in its own right – an argument that might I add is both absurd and obscene when deployed against full-tribe Native American activists and journalists on behalf of a seventy year old, rich, white Harvard Law school professor.

Therein of course lays the crux of the problem for both Liz Warren and the Democratic Party at large:

Angry leftists and outraged indigenous people might not cost Liz Warren the nomination contest; especially if the media continues to abuse, shame and malign anyone who speaks up about it – but then what?

While it’s certainly possible that through attacks against marginalized people, smearing lies or falsehoods and hyper-aggressive tone shaming you can keep anyone on the left from mentioning that Warren is a rich old white lady who faked being indigenous to further he own career; what happens if she wins?

When you’re surrounded by leftists and liberals, you can get away with saying Sanders supporters who don’t like her are just sexist, you can pull off spouting that indigenous people who are outraged at Warren wearing their culture like a hall pass are just “virtual signaling” and you can arrogantly dismiss the largest online Native news source as “just a blog.” Do the Democrats sincerely believe that calling Trump racist is going to stop him from bringing all of this up when the cameras are rolling?

The answer is of course no and the sad truth is that rich liberals don’t care – they would rather lose a culture war election about “affirmative action” to nazis with Liz Warren, than risk surrendering one inch of power to the labor class and marginalized people by nominating Bernie Sanders.

And if that’s starting to sound a lot like how they lost to a reality TV show pederast rapey fascist in 2016 to you, please know that you aren’t the only one.

Dear god, please save us all from bougie white moderates.”

 

On the Truthiness behind the Re-Radicalization of Liz Warren – from Mastodon:

As those of you who follow my work across multiple platforms are no doubt aware, I spend a lot of my time dissecting establishment propaganda designed to manufacture consent from the American people to do all kinds of terrible sh*t in their name that is almost always against the best interest of the labor class.

This isn’t always about raw politics, but elections and primary seasons are where this phenomenon is easiest to perceive.

Naturally this means we’ve recently spent a lot of time talking about the open campaign to manufacture consent from the left wing, American labor class to nominate the candidate of the bourgeoisie (Liz Warren) while discarding the political revolution lead by the candidate of the labor class (Bernie Sanders) – as you’ll recall, I was not for this plan or particularly fond of the propaganda used to sell it.

There is no question that parts of the liberal establishment want you to settle for Warren.

Which is why you’re going to have to excuse me for being a little bit skeptical of the too clever by half liberal media furor over precisely how much Wall Street, Mark Zuckerberg and various other elements of the elite establishment still absolutely “loathe” Elizabeth Warren.

From fake-progressive economic guru Paul Krugman to numerous liberal influencers claiming Facebook’s ire is the “best endorsement ever” for Warren, this line of argument is being pushed everywhere online, and pushed hard.

As we’ve come to learn, whenever a whole bunch of sock-puppet accounts and bougie liberal influencers start repeating the exact same talking points with the exact same phrases, it’s wise to stop and take a look around because there is almost certainly “something rotten in the state of Denmark” going on here.

After all, it was only over the past few weeks that we learned that much of the media and elite Dem party establishment was coming around to Liz Warren, wasn’t it?

While I have no doubt that Mark Zuckerberg hates Warren’s plan to break up Facebook and that there are some rich folks on Wall Street who’ll go back to supporting the Republicans before they support the shouting regulator lady who yelled at them on TV, it’s certainly not true that all rich people hate or fear Liz Warren.

Hillary Clinton doesn’t, Democratic Party super-delegates don’t, Paul Krugman and other affluent liberal media influencers don’t, Obama’s former staffers don’t, bougie white suburban liberals don’t.

I mean who are we kidding here? Rich people who donate to political campaigns sure seemed to like Liz Warren when she used 2018 big ticket price fundraisers to stockpile away 10.4 million dollars for her Presidential campaign (as reported by the New York Times, where today Krugman is telling you the rich fear Warren) – are you really dumb enough not to smell the okie dokie here?

Doesn’t it seem odd to you that careerist NGO and union LEADERS love Warren, but the rank and file love Sanders?

Naturally the data and even Warren’s own statements bear this out – anyone can open up their respective pages on OpenSecrets.com and see that Sanders is funded by the labor class while Warren is funded by some combination of the bourgeoisie and the uber wealthy. Warren herself has made no qualms about accepting rich people’s money in 2018 and promising to do so again if she wins the nomination – does “I don’t believe in unilateral disarmament” ring any bells to you?

So no, the rich don’t hate Elizabeth Warren – some rich people who are dead set on changing absolutely nothing and would strongly prefer Joe Biden win the nomination, hate Liz Warren and that is being framed as a “shut up and dance” style response to charges by the labor class left that Warren does not represent the interests of common voters as well as Sanders. All of this is very obvious to anyone immersed in the online liberal-left discourse and how mainstream media manipulates that discourse.

You know who the rich do hate however? Not some of them, not certain companies, not just folks who might vote Republican?

The rich, all of them, hate Bernie Sanders. There can be no compromise with Sanders and the Democratic Party isn’t coming around to a compromise that involves Bernie any time soon – and yet these same folks who would rather craw through a field of broken glass than see Sanders nominated, are the ones telling you there is no difference between Bernie and Warren because “look, Zuck hates Liz too!”

You bougie liberals aren’t smart enough to play a player and I saw that crap coming a mile away; to the rest of you folks reading this, my advice is “don’t believe the hype.”

 

On What Democrats Really Mean When They Talk About Appealing To “White Working Class” Swing Voters:

Although it’s probably not a very good idea to spend too much time and energy unpacking the bad faith arguments of bourgeoisie Democratic Party mandarins, I’d like to take a couple of moments to talk about what’s really behind the seemingly obsessive attempts by liberal politicians to appeal or at least appear to appeal, to a mythical “white working class swing voter” that probably doesn’t really exist – at least in the context that voter is described by affluent liberals who claim to be courting that vote.

First of all you have to realize that the Democratic Party doesn’t give a flying f*ck about the working class, white or otherwise and that this often-employed excuse about the need to “do more racism” for the white working class, is in and of itself a form of anti-working class propaganda.

How do I know? Well because if the Democratic Party really gave a damn about peeling off white working class voters in the Rustbelt (and elsewhere) they’d be throwing their support behind Bernie Sanders – who is thus far, demonstrably the only candidate who appears to have any crossover appeal to that audience at all, if the numbers and comments section threads generated by his recent Fox News town hall appearance are any indication that is.

Look I objectively hated that Bernie Sanders went on the Joe Rogan show because Rogan is a clown-shoes opportunist who frequently invites fascists on to his broadcast to mainstream reactionary right wing thought to the masses. I’ll be the first to admit that I questioned whether or not Sanders had any hope of reaching potential voters on such a program and I worried that even being associated with Rogan because of the interview might harm Bernie’s campaign. Well the recording of that interview now has over ten million views on Youtube so it probably safe to say it doesn’t f*cking matter what I thought and Bernie was right to reach out to potential voters on Rogan’s clearly popular show – it seems highly unlikely to me that all ten million viewers are bored nazi Trump supporters who tuned in just to laugh at the old commie.

The point here is that if the real purpose of shifting right in terms of policy is to attract independents, this is the guy the Democrats would be backing and it doesn’t involve lurching rightward; Bernie Sanders is the only working class 2020 Democratic Party nomination candidate who has repeatedly walked into the belly of the best and he’s the only one whose left folks who usually vote Republican talking about why they’d like to vote Sanders.

Now you might at this point be tempted to believe that because Democrat leaders don’t actually know any “working class people” and instead choose to just make them up in their heads (no, really, Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer has constructed a whole fake working class family in his head, look that up online), all this might just be a mistake – born of pure incompetence.

It’s not – it’s a deliberate strategy to protect the rich and to protect Democratic Party politicians who support policies that harm the labor class on behalf of the rich, and nothing more. In fact none of the awful and often vaguely racist sh*t elite Democrats tell you they do to appeal to “undecided moderate right-leaning swing voters” is really about peeling off working class folks who usually vote GOP.

You appeal to working class voters who vote Republican the same way you appeal to working class voters who’ve been voting Democrat and are unsatisfied with the returns on that investment – you give them something they want more than what the other guy is offering, which in the GOP’s case is mostly racism and the culture war.

The working class in the Midwest are busy burying their own children in the middle of an opioid epidemic and staring down the harsh reality of a gig economy job market in the cored out husk of what used to be America’s manufacturing sector. There is real pain, anger and desperation here and just like labor class voters elsewhere they want good-paying jobs and free healthcare; and they want these things more than they want racism and the cultural war – it’s just that right now the GOP says “have some racism” and the Democrats say “f*ck you” so you can easily predict how that’s going to turn out in an admittedly white supremacist country.

Sanders grabs the attention of working class voters who don’t usually vote Democrat, whether they be Republicans or declared independents, because he has cash on the barrel-head, money on the table promises that are obviously and unarguably going to make their lives better. If the Democratic Party actually cared about flipping “Rust Belt Swing Voters” as part of a 2020 election strategy, the obvious answer would be to nominate Bernie.

Rich Democrats just don’t actually care about those voters however, or any other working class voter either; it’s all just an excuse to help rich donors and adopt discriminatory (but profitable) policies on behalf of those donors. Thus for example, when voters ask the Party why it consistently does horrible things that harm the average labor class person in America, the party chimes in with vague grumblings about the need to appeal to a (presumably) racist and conservative “white working class” swing voter somewhere in the Midwest or Heartland.

The obvious question then becomes how does protecting insurance companies from clients who might declare bankruptcy, helping mindbogglingly evil corporations dismantle labor regulations and allowing pay day lenders to flood marginalized communities win over the “white working class swing voter” at all?

The obvious answer is in turn that it simply doesn’t, it only benefits rich donors and the companies they own; that’s why they’d rather shove a senile cracker like Joe Biden down your throat while blaming the inherent racism of “white working class voters” for that decision than nominate the one guy who might actually give them those coveted swing votes – Bernie Sanders.

 

• Nina Illingworth