Believing women or actually helping them? (democratic debate)

[Silvanus]

Dunno if twitter and CNN is not sufficient, but it's out there and it is happening yes. You again are correct in your definition but not in the practice of it's application. Here's a very good video to illustrate what I'm describing:

https://youtu.be/_vrzgVczc1Y?t=606

What an absurd tweet. Still, that's all this is-- a tweet and another anchor, not a pattern or evidence of how the phrase is generally applied. You can find tweets for any position on earth; that doesn't make them significant or meaningfully represented.

Also, the video you linked to contains this snippet immediately afterwards;

"Again, you're conflating someone talking about being sexually harassed by someone who has power over them, with a woman running for political office and her campaign lying. [...] Those are not the same thing whatsoever". [...] "It's a false equivalency".

He makes precisely the same point I made. The phrase cannot be divorced from its context-- relating to sexual exploitation and violence-- and applied to just any old political argument.

Your OP was making the same conflation that that video argues against, just with a different intent.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Dunno if twitter and CNN is not sufficient, but it's out there and it is happening yes. You again are correct in your definition but not in the practice of it's application. Here's a very good video to illustrate what I'm describing:

https://youtu.be/_vrzgVczc1Y?t=606

What an absurd tweet. Still, that's all this is-- a tweet and another anchor, not a pattern or evidence of how the phrase is generally applied. You can find tweets for any position on earth; that doesn't make them significant or meaningfully represented.

Also, the video you linked to contains this snippet immediately afterwards;

"Again, you're conflating someone talking about being sexually harassed by someone who has power over them, with a woman running for political office and her campaign lying. [...] Those are not the same thing whatsoever". [...] "It's a false equivalency".

He makes precisely the same point I made. The phrase cannot be divorced from its context-- relating to sexual exploitation and violence-- and applied to just any old political argument.

Your OP was making the same conflation that that video argues against, just with a different intent.

My point was that these absurd things keep happening because of what I describe. To point this out is not to be pro-rape or whatever. The implication is also absurd just as much. It's a tweet and a cnn anchor but then you realize the tweet has over 2000 likes and that the anchor wasn't chastised by anyone from his network and his remark was met with nods from the other anchor, so it's quite a bit more significant than some weirdo writing his weird crazy tweet that gets 3 likes and 2 of them are from his own alt accounts and the third from his mother.


And yes, like I said twice now, you're correct about your definition but people are clearly distorting it for their convenience or political benefit due to its inherent element of disempowering dissent and debate because it's all couched in a veneer of disbelieving rape victims whether you actually do that or not.

What I'm doing here is taking the next step forward and going from calling out the people who do this (I guess there's still merit in doing that since I need to argue and post clips to even have it believed that people do this) to showing what needs to be done to prevent them from doing this moving forward.

Either way, the important point here is that people who claim to care for women's well-being seem to only care for it in the context of it being negatively affected by a very very very narrow demographic. It's not even about how MUCH it's affected, so if you'd think this is the worst way in which it's negatively affected you'd be wrong. As soon as the way in which women's well-being is argued for in a context that doesn't demonize that demographic or is planned to be helped in a form which also helps others too, there's radio silence. I propose consistency.

Surely if someone's gonna give you free healthcare and let you or your kids go to college for free and so on and so forth, that's more of a benefit to your life in its totality than being believed that your boss tried to sleep with you once in a crude way, right? I propose we act like this is the case. Not removing the significance of believing but having the proper perspective of that significance in the greater whole.

Even if you take the lest-charitable interpretation possible of my motives here and imply something ridiculous like the other person who was offended by the pound joke, you're still coming off with a greater increase in women's well-being than otherwise either way. And people aren't acknowledging this.

 

[Seanchaidh]

My point was that these absurd things keep happening because of what I describe. To point this out is not to be pro-rape or whatever. The implication is also absurd just as much. It's a tweet and a cnn anchor but then you realize the tweet has over 2000 likes and that the anchor wasn't chastised by anyone from his network and his remark was met with nods from the other anchor, so it's quite a bit more significant than some weirdo writing his weird crazy tweet that gets 3 likes and 2 of them are from his own alt accounts and the third from his mother.

I'm a bit confused as to what you're getting at. The media is going to tie themselves in knots trying to smear Sanders irrespective of whether or not we should believe women about rape and sexual assault. And yes, Sanders has the most feminist platform of any Democratic Presidential candidate, and we can believe women and still vote for Sanders. I'm sure there's some overly performative 'woke' types (with a big capitalist blind spot) out there that support Warren, but the intersectional feminists are typically for Bernie in my experience.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

My point was that these absurd things keep happening because of what I describe. To point this out is not to be pro-rape or whatever. The implication is also absurd just as much. It's a tweet and a cnn anchor but then you realize the tweet has over 2000 likes and that the anchor wasn't chastised by anyone from his network and his remark was met with nods from the other anchor, so it's quite a bit more significant than some weirdo writing his weird crazy tweet that gets 3 likes and 2 of them are from his own alt accounts and the third from his mother.

I'm a bit confused as to what you're getting at. The media is going to tie themselves in knots trying to smear Sanders irrespective of whether or not we should believe women about rape and sexual assault. And yes, Sanders has the most feminist platform of any Democratic Presidential candidate, and we can believe women and still vote for Sanders. I'm sure there's some overly performative 'woke' types (with a big capitalist blind spot) out there that support Warren, but the intersectional feminists are typically for Bernie in my experience.

This is the single biggest weapon the establishment has been using against Bernie and they've been at it from back in 2016. At this point I'm sick of it, it's literally better for women to remove this venue of criticism from being something deemed instantly valid than to allow it to keep getting abused like this.


Basically, at this stage, the smears are so numerous and repetitive that the attitude moving forward should be "even if that's true, he's still better for women despite that, so we don't care", and this should be a general thing that everyone upholds moving forward. It's time for that criticism to be thoroughly de-fanged and anyone who purports to care about women and disagrees is at best ignorant or at worst lying about caring for women or cares for women in a very narrow power-based sense and not in a general well-being one. Their goal is men and women suffering but doing so equally rather than both genders flourishing if this flourishing comes with lack of equity attached.


It's not like you gain anything from smearing someone as sexist anyhow, Trump wears the label proudly as he puts his hair on each morning. Their side doesn't care people think he's sexist, I don't think we should at this point either. Policies over personalities.

 

[Seanchaidh]

My point was that these absurd things keep happening because of what I describe. To point this out is not to be pro-rape or whatever. The implication is also absurd just as much. It's a tweet and a cnn anchor but then you realize the tweet has over 2000 likes and that the anchor wasn't chastised by anyone from his network and his remark was met with nods from the other anchor, so it's quite a bit more significant than some weirdo writing his weird crazy tweet that gets 3 likes and 2 of them are from his own alt accounts and the third from his mother.

I'm a bit confused as to what you're getting at. The media is going to tie themselves in knots trying to smear Sanders irrespective of whether or not we should believe women about rape and sexual assault. And yes, Sanders has the most feminist platform of any Democratic Presidential candidate, and we can believe women and still vote for Sanders. I'm sure there's some overly performative 'woke' types (with a big capitalist blind spot) out there that support Warren, but the intersectional feminists are typically for Bernie in my experience.

This is the single biggest weapon the establishment has been using against Bernie and they've been at it from back in 2016. At this point I'm sick of it, it's literally better for women to remove this venue of criticism from being something deemed instantly valid than to allow it to keep getting abused like this.

OK, so I guess you're mostly just talking about the cynical weaponizing of a breathtakingly shallow IDpol. Just be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And remember that the media is not a good reflection of society.

Basically, at this stage, the smears are so numerous and repetitive that the attitude moving forward should be "even if that's true, he's still better for women despite that, so we don't care", and this should be a general thing that everyone upholds moving forward. It's time for that criticism to be thoroughly de-fanged and anyone who purports to care about women and disagrees is at best ignorant or at worst lying about caring for women or cares for women in a very narrow power-based sense and not in a general well-being one. Their goal is men and women suffering but doing so equally rather than both genders flourishing if this flourishing comes with lack of equity attached.

It's not like you gain anything from smearing someone as sexist anyhow, Trump wears the label proudly as he puts his hair on each morning. Their side doesn't care people think he's sexist, I don't think we should at this point either. Policies over personalities.

Trump plays to a very different base. Sanders by and large isn't seen as a sexist (despite a vocal minority of Twitter Democrats whose brains broke in 2016) and it would hurt him quite a bit if he was widely regarded as such. That's why the attacks happen.

It's the Karl Rove playbook: attack the strengths of the candidate. Sanders is the feminist choice, so smear him as a sexist.

[tweet t="https://twitter.com/TheBarbaraSmith/status/1219100841770213376"]

 

[CaitSeith]

You omitted something: Warren said it wasn't a big deal. Isn't that part worth believing too?

See, Warren doesn't need it to be a big deal to be an effective smear, she needs it to just have happened, as long as she keeps saying it did, how much significance she places on it is irrelevant because I'm sure she won't jump to defend Bernie every time a reporter who is against his politics claims it was a bigger deal than she feels it was.


So, sure, I believe it, I just don't see it as being actually significant one bit, and I'm sure the people who believe her will believe everything BUT that one part.

Then the problem would no longer come from believing women or not; it would come from cherry-pickers who ignore the women's full account of the fact.

What I'm saying is that this cherry-picking is an inherent trait where once an accusation is leveled people cease listening to women and substitute their imagination or their personal past traumas for the facts they ought to be believing the woman about.

Or disbelieving.

Not disbelieving any more so than one disbelieves any claim of similar severity which lacks evidence to a similar degree. I think healthy skepticism in such a litigious society is a good thing. I mean, think about it, if someone tried to claim you stole something that if convicted stealing would send you to jail for multiple years and they had no evidence of the thing missing or it being in your possession or you even having been in the scene of the crime, do you really think people would jump to twitter and act as though you're a thief? Hell, if you happen to be black and such a thing happened to you you'll have a parade in your name within a week lol.

I'm a nobody, so people on Twitter can't care less of whenever I'm jailed for false charges. And a parade for being a black person jailed under false charges? LOL, good one Dreiko. Call me when the next one happens; I can always use some positive celebration in my daily life.

 

[Pseudonym]

You'd hope people would show the same amount of skepticism and deference to claims regardless of the gender of who claims it, though people, including myself might have all kinds of biases. You'd also hope that when people can't know something with a reasonable degree of certainty they are careful about giving anybody a hard time for alleging or being alleged of something. To my knowledge the 'believe women' thing is about sexual assault/harassment allegations and the fact that people, often women, who come forward with such claims are often treated very poorly.

As for the specific thing we are to believe Warren about: only two people were in that room, both would have a reason to lie about this. Thing is, Sanders stated he believed the opposite of what Warren claims he said, both after and before (long before) the conversation. Warren on the other hand has a history of dishonestly weaponizing social justice issues for personal gain. She has falsely claimed to be native american and has to have been fired for being pregnant and a long list of other things. Not only that but this claim was tossed out there via CNN citing her campaign people anonymously at a very opportune time. Warren then claims he did say it but she doesn't want to talk about it, pretending to be above it all. This also conveniently falls in line with a longstanding narrative that Sanders 'has a problem with women', usually formulated with exactly that vague phrase. This certainly looks like a smear by Warren. So to be blunt, I don't believe Warren here, and I don't even find it likely that this is an honest mistake (though it might be, so I would hold off on tweeting pictures of snakes at her).

 

[Trunkage]

You don't get to make accusations that demean someone and then retreat unscathed yourself into the middle ground.

Ah... that's exactly what you are doing. (Let's put aside this potentially being used politically by Warren). You claim is that this accuser is lying, doing this to smear Bernie, that it's just 'political jiu jitsu' to trap Bernie. Got ANY evidence for that?

Literally none?

So, what should we do with this woman whose accused Bernie? Ban her from speaking? Stop her from making any accusation? How do we know which woman will accuse? Should we just ban everything? Oh wait... you made an accusation without proof that was meant to smear someone's reputation and take out a political opponent. So whatever you decide for her, NEEDS to be applied to you and your accusation. I await your decision.

I listed the evidence, there's a video of him from literally 30 years ago (back from the era where she was a republican, I might add) telling little girls they can grow up to be president just as much as boys can. He wasn't running for president back then, he didn't need to boost his image doing that stuff, he clearly genuinely believed it. Also, again, he asked Warren to run vs Hillary in 2015 in his place, which he wouldn't do if he thought she couldn't win. That's proof enough for most rational people.

As for what we should do, I think twitter has taken to calling her a snake (who knows, maybe it's her spirit animal) and people are requesting refunds of their donations, so I think that's fair enough. Political repercussions for a bungled attempt at smearing someone are pretty standard I think.

Dreiko. Your evidence for Bernie side is logged. Fantastic. That in no way is any evidence of whether the accuser is telling the truth or not. 'Proving' someone thinks they are telling the truth doesn't make the other side automatically telling lies. I know this might be radical for you but: they literally could both be telling the truth AT THE SAME TIME.

And you still have dealt with my main issue with your claim. You blamed someone for lying with no evidence. You also claim that blaming someone with no evidence is terrible. You keep bringing up evidence of another person and not dealing with the fact that your providing no evidence.

When someone lies and you call them a liar you're not "accusing" them of anything, you're just saying that what they're claiming sounds unlikely or untruthful to you. The default state of an accusation isn't believing it, it's healthy but kind skepticism.


Finally, you may be confused about what the claim actually is, the claim isn't about what Bernie said in particular, since Warren herself has not even specified a particular quote, merely saying that he unspecifically disagreed. The claim is that whatever thing he said, it signifies his lack of belief that a woman can be president. That, that is what I'm calling a lie. He may have said whatever, nobody specified so you can't "disprove" what hasn't been specified. See, again this is a game of ambiguity aiming at tricking people into thinking the ability to disprove undisprovable things means anything.

Are you only talking about the Warren thing here and not the sexual harassment case that Bernie apparently bungled? Between his staffers and has been backing up that Bernie isn't such a good guy? When I say accuser, I'm talking about that case. And a lot of people have got their backs up when their 'hero' let someone down so much. Me personally, I haven't seen enough details to pick one way or another. BUT, a whole bunch of people feel let down by Bernie.

And sorry for the confusion.

It's character evidence towards the credibility of Bernie's denial which is more credible than her assertion. That's the point. Both people just have a claim so the relevant evidence in the absence of a witness or a recording of the chat or something is comparing their credibility and ascertaining who is more believable.

Yep, if you only take or even look for evidence from one side, you sure will find it very one sided. You ONLY provided evidence why Bernie was credible and nothing about Warren. And then wondered why you're pro-Bernie.

And let me be clear. I would pick Bernie still over Warren. I think he's a better person and candidate. I am pointing out that if there are accusation, you must take in all evidence. Not just the evidence that feeds your narrative. Someone's being believable doesn't make the other person a liar. If your pro-Warren, and you believe her 100%, these accusations shouldn't determine your thoughts on Bernie. Definitely take in his record. Also, be mindful that he hasn't been perfect. Same with Warren.

No, the thing I'm showing you proof of here is about the core of the accusation, not the mechanics. The accusation is that he doesn't think a woman can win and the proof that he thinks they can is abundant and I've provided it.

This here specifically, I will wait to see how he acts if he makes it to president. At the moment, he does a great talk. But, when put it that position, would he walk the walk. And remember, I am pro-Bernie. But I am also not beholden to a person. I'd prefer to be beholden to ideals. If Bernie doesn't live up to them, I WILL be calling him out. Just like I did with Obama. I'm not going to believe what he says over what he does. I think this whole turning candidates and presidents into heroes or even your identity is a terrible plague on the world today. Don't blindly follow someone just because you like them.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Yep, if you only take or even look for evidence from one side, you sure will find it very one sided. You ONLY provided evidence why Bernie was credible and nothing about Warren. And then wondered why you're pro-Bernie.

Elizabeth Warren's record on using untruths and misrepresentations to further her career isn't exactly a closely held secret at this point...

She's not Cherokee.
She wasn't 'fired for being pregnant'.
Her parents did not 'have to elope' because of the real or imagined indigenous heritage of one of them.

But thank you for making someone spell it out.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

I don't believe Bernie said " A woman can't be President". My guess is that he may have said something like "It would be more difficult for a woman to beat Trump" and now Warren's campaign is trying to twist that into something close enough to the truth that they can't be said to have completely fabricated it while trying to smear Bernie and take a bigger share of the base that they are both competing for. Warren seems pretty desperate at the moment because of how far she has slipped in the polls. I'm not entirely sure why she has slipped so much though. Before this there hasn't been any significant scandals for her between her big rise and eventual fall other than maybe complaining about the wine cave thing. At first the obvious explanation would be that "medicare for all" was far less popular than she had hoped but if that was the reason then why would Bernie be surging? I'm not really sure what changed that suddenly made so much of her support decide Bernie was preferable. My only guess is that maybe it comes down to "electability", that Bernie was largely ignored while she took the brunt of the heat for their fairly similar platform, so now she is perceived to be unpopular and Bernie looks like he has a better chance to those that support that platform.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

You don't get to make accusations that demean someone and then retreat unscathed yourself into the middle ground.

Ah... that's exactly what you are doing. (Let's put aside this potentially being used politically by Warren). You claim is that this accuser is lying, doing this to smear Bernie, that it's just 'political jiu jitsu' to trap Bernie. Got ANY evidence for that?

Literally none?

So, what should we do with this woman whose accused Bernie? Ban her from speaking? Stop her from making any accusation? How do we know which woman will accuse? Should we just ban everything? Oh wait... you made an accusation without proof that was meant to smear someone's reputation and take out a political opponent. So whatever you decide for her, NEEDS to be applied to you and your accusation. I await your decision.

I listed the evidence, there's a video of him from literally 30 years ago (back from the era where she was a republican, I might add) telling little girls they can grow up to be president just as much as boys can. He wasn't running for president back then, he didn't need to boost his image doing that stuff, he clearly genuinely believed it. Also, again, he asked Warren to run vs Hillary in 2015 in his place, which he wouldn't do if he thought she couldn't win. That's proof enough for most rational people.

As for what we should do, I think twitter has taken to calling her a snake (who knows, maybe it's her spirit animal) and people are requesting refunds of their donations, so I think that's fair enough. Political repercussions for a bungled attempt at smearing someone are pretty standard I think.

Dreiko. Your evidence for Bernie side is logged. Fantastic. That in no way is any evidence of whether the accuser is telling the truth or not. 'Proving' someone thinks they are telling the truth doesn't make the other side automatically telling lies. I know this might be radical for you but: they literally could both be telling the truth AT THE SAME TIME.

And you still have dealt with my main issue with your claim. You blamed someone for lying with no evidence. You also claim that blaming someone with no evidence is terrible. You keep bringing up evidence of another person and not dealing with the fact that your providing no evidence.

When someone lies and you call them a liar you're not "accusing" them of anything, you're just saying that what they're claiming sounds unlikely or untruthful to you. The default state of an accusation isn't believing it, it's healthy but kind skepticism.


Finally, you may be confused about what the claim actually is, the claim isn't about what Bernie said in particular, since Warren herself has not even specified a particular quote, merely saying that he unspecifically disagreed. The claim is that whatever thing he said, it signifies his lack of belief that a woman can be president. That, that is what I'm calling a lie. He may have said whatever, nobody specified so you can't "disprove" what hasn't been specified. See, again this is a game of ambiguity aiming at tricking people into thinking the ability to disprove undisprovable things means anything.

Are you only talking about the Warren thing here and not the sexual harassment case that Bernie apparently bungled? Between his staffers and has been backing up that Bernie isn't such a good guy? When I say accuser, I'm talking about that case. And a lot of people have got their backs up when their 'hero' let someone down so much. Me personally, I haven't seen enough details to pick one way or another. BUT, a whole bunch of people feel let down by Bernie.

And sorry for the confusion.

It's character evidence towards the credibility of Bernie's denial which is more credible than her assertion. That's the point. Both people just have a claim so the relevant evidence in the absence of a witness or a recording of the chat or something is comparing their credibility and ascertaining who is more believable.

Yep, if you only take or even look for evidence from one side, you sure will find it very one sided. You ONLY provided evidence why Bernie was credible and nothing about Warren. And then wondered why you're pro-Bernie.

And let me be clear. I would pick Bernie still over Warren. I think he's a better person and candidate. I am pointing out that if there are accusation, you must take in all evidence. Not just the evidence that feeds your narrative. Someone's being believable doesn't make the other person a liar. If your pro-Warren, and you believe her 100%, these accusations shouldn't determine your thoughts on Bernie. Definitely take in his record. Also, be mindful that he hasn't been perfect. Same with Warren.

No, the thing I'm showing you proof of here is about the core of the accusation, not the mechanics. The accusation is that he doesn't think a woman can win and the proof that he thinks they can is abundant and I've provided it.

This here specifically, I will wait to see how he acts if he makes it to president. At the moment, he does a great talk. But, when put it that position, would he walk the walk. And remember, I am pro-Bernie. But I am also not beholden to a person. I'd prefer to be beholden to ideals. If Bernie doesn't live up to them, I WILL be calling him out. Just like I did with Obama. I'm not going to believe what he says over what he does. I think this whole turning candidates and presidents into heroes or even your identity is a terrible plague on the world today. Don't blindly follow someone just because you like them.

Very confused. Who brought up the campaign sexual harassment case? I certainly didn't so I wouldn't be referring to it lol.


I'm actually not very versed in that case, I just know that people in his campaign were sexually harassing women and then he found out and he got rid of them. Which sounds like what you do in such a case. Male feminists have a tendency to be sexual predators using feminism to mask their true nature as a way of getting close to women and I can see them being in Bernie's camp just as much as in any other. Hell, I remember there was this religious consultant in Hillary's campaign that was accused of rape and she not only didn't fire him but defended him, so if you wanna look at bungling, that's what it looks like.


But yeah, I'm not married to a person either, as evidenced by my actually voting for Hilldog last time cause she was still not trump. Though I can proudly say I never voted for Obama cause he seemed too rehearsed to me. Too charismatic to be authentic in a sense. Oh and btw, in case this is lost somewhere here, Warren is still way better than everyone else up there other than perhaps Yang. It's not like I hate her personally, what I hate is the tactics she employs and that's what I wish to nullify.

I don't believe Bernie said " A woman can't be President". My guess is that he may have said something like "It would be more difficult for a woman to beat Trump" and now Warren's campaign is trying to twist that into something close enough to the truth that they can't be said to have completely fabricated it while trying to smear Bernie and take a bigger share of the base that they are both competing for. Warren seems pretty desperate at the moment because of how far she has slipped in the polls. I'm not entirely sure why she has slipped so much though. Before this there hasn't been any significant scandals for her between her big rise and eventual fall other than maybe complaining about the wine cave thing. At first the obvious explanation would be that "medicare for all" was far less popular than she had hoped but if that was the reason then why would Bernie be surging? I'm not really sure what changed that suddenly made so much of her support decide Bernie was preferable. My only guess is that maybe it comes down to "electability", that Bernie was largely ignored while she took the brunt of the heat for their fairly similar platform, so now she is perceived to be unpopular and Bernie looks like he has a better chance to those that support that platform.

She took in Obama/Hillary staffers who pushed her to be more centrist and go back on medicare for all. That cost her a ton of support. See, it's that medicare for all is more popular than she thought it was, and her deal is one where it states that she'd only push for it in her third year, but we all know that in her third year she'd be again campaigning for re-election so it'd not be an opportune time to push for such a policy because it'd hurt her chances. She's basically not for medicare for all any more in all but name.

She's basically trying to be Vagina Biden too hard but we already have Klobuchar taking up that spot and she's not doing too hot lol.

 

[Trunkage]

Yep, if you only take or even look for evidence from one side, you sure will find it very one sided. You ONLY provided evidence why Bernie was credible and nothing about Warren. And then wondered why you're pro-Bernie.

Elizabeth Warren's record on using untruths and misrepresentations to further her career isn't exactly a closely held secret at this point...

She's not Cherokee.
She wasn't 'fired for being pregnant'.
Her parents did not 'have to elope' because of the real or imagined indigenous heritage of one of them.

But thank you for making someone spell it out.

Remember how everyone thinks Bernie campaigns positively. But behind the scenes he uses thug to smear rivals. All so he can pretend to be righteous. Hes got out and he's had to retract ads. Add the potential inappropriate handling of harrassment and you realise why people have grievances with Bernie (plus all the Trumpers and Dem Elites who have their own seperate grudges.)

To me, I was suprised that people thought Bernie didn't smear his rivals. There is one thing I know for absolute certrainty about Bernie, he doesn't play fair and he loves smears, just like everyone else. But hey, here we are. Spelling it out for you.

When I say I think him being president will disappoint his allies, its because he HAS to play the politcal games to win.

And remember, I would vote for Bernie. I think he's got a great platform. If someone else comes up with the same platform but a cleaner background, I'd pick them over Bernie. Because I favour ideas over personalities. But no one in thise primaries are clean, so here we are. Stuck in the muck, pretending that being better than Trump is good enough

 

[Trunkage]

She's not Cherokee.

Just wanted to deal with this separately. When did the left take the racial purity pill from conservatives? She was 1/138th Cherokee or something right? Why is her blood/ DNA important? Shouldn't the beliefs and traditions determine if she's Cherokee? (As far as I understand, she fails there too, so you can get her on that.) Is this like calling Obama the first black president when he's half black and white? Because he's not full white, he automatically defaults to black?

It almost makes me believe tstorm when he calls liberals the real racists. But then Conservatives always jump on that bandwagon, usually leading such race derived charges

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

She's not Cherokee.

Just wanted to deal with this separately. When did the left take the racial purity pill from conservatives? She was 1/138th Cherokee or something right? Why is her blood/ DNA important? Shouldn't the beliefs and traditions determine if she's Cherokee? (As far as I understand, she fails there too, so you can get her on that.) Is this like calling Obama the first black president when he's half black and white? Because he's not full white, he automatically defaults to black?

It almost makes me believe tstorm when he calls liberals the real racists. But then Conservatives always jump on that bandwagon, usually leading such race derived charges

She was less than 1/1000th Native American (1/1024 I think it was). This matters in the sense that that's less Native American than the average white person is. By that definition literally everyone is Native American.


And yeah Obama is mixed so marketing himself as he was black is definitely iffy too but way less so. Remember, the one drop rule is what's actually racist. Claiming that any mixing at all makes you instantly nonwhite, that's racism.

 

[Seanchaidh]

She's not Cherokee.

Just wanted to deal with this separately. When did the left take the racial purity pill from conservatives? She was 1/138th Cherokee or something right? Why is her blood/ DNA important? Shouldn't the beliefs and traditions determine if she's Cherokee? (As far as I understand, she fails there too, so you can get her on that.)

The Cherokee say she isn't Cherokee.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-cherokee-apology_n_5d5ed7e6e4b0dfcbd48a1b01?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004

Tribal affiliation and kinship determine Cherokee identity-- not race or biology. At a time when the far right is equating Native identity with race to undermine Native rights, the myths that lie in the wake of Warren's missteps are extremely dangerous. Yes, she apologized, but we are left cleaning up the mess she made.

 

[tstorm823]

Just wanted to deal with this separately. When did the left take the racial purity pill from conservatives? She was 1/138th Cherokee or something right? Why is her blood/ DNA important? Shouldn't the beliefs and traditions determine if she's Cherokee? (As far as I understand, she fails there too, so you can get her on that.) Is this like calling Obama the first black president when he's half black and white? Because he's not full white, he automatically defaults to black?

It almost makes me believe tstorm when he calls liberals the real racists. But then Conservatives always jump on that bandwagon, usually leading such race derived charges

To defend seanchaidh, I don't think blood was actually mentioned. That claim could have been about heritage from the get-go.

To clarify my own positions, I don't think Democrats are the real racists, I just don't buy the spin that there is a fixed amount of racists in America that 50 years ago all decided to swap parties. I think there are fewer real racists than there used to be, but I don't think Democrats are going to stop maligning all Republicans as racist until black Americans start voting red again.

The only time I would claim Democrats were the real racists is with Lyndon Johnson in 1964, where the racist candidate won in part by claiming his opponent was a racist.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

Just wanted to deal with this separately. When did the left take the racial purity pill from conservatives? She was 1/138th Cherokee or something right? Why is her blood/ DNA important? Shouldn't the beliefs and traditions determine if she's Cherokee? (As far as I understand, she fails there too, so you can get her on that.) Is this like calling Obama the first black president when he's half black and white? Because he's not full white, he automatically defaults to black?

It almost makes me believe tstorm when he calls liberals the real racists. But then Conservatives always jump on that bandwagon, usually leading such race derived charges

To defend seanchaidh, I don't think blood was actually mentioned. That claim could have been about heritage from the get-go.

To clarify my own positions, I don't think Democrats are the real racists, I just don't buy the spin that there is a fixed amount of racists in America that 50 years ago all decided to swap parties. I think there are fewer real racists than there used to be, but I don't think Democrats are going to stop maligning all Republicans as racist until black Americans start voting red again.

The only time I would claim Democrats were the real racists is with Lyndon Johnson in 1964, where the racist candidate won in part by claiming his opponent was a racist.

There is also the factor that there is quite a bit of unfortunate recent history(well some of it is still happening so maybe history is the wrong word) of people falsely claiming Native American heritage in order to profit either by enhancing their personal brand or to take advantage of various government programs or legal exceptions intended to help and/or give a little bit of sovereignty to the tribes. Even if it was an honest mistake on Warren's part and she genuinely believed it to be true, it was still an unfortunate reminder/example of that practice.

Republicans also definitely don't have a monopoly on racism. There unfortunately no shortage of examples of times some aspect of progressive ideology, or at least people claiming to fight in the name of it, somehow comes full circle to ironically call for racist practices their predecessors fought so hard to tear down. That's usually the sort of thing people are referring to when they claim the Democrats/Left/SJWs or whatever other label used to stand in for the "them" in us vs them thinking are the real racists. It's frustrating because as a result of this it is very difficult to call out those bigoted ideas or practices without coming across as an apologist for Republicans or more traditional forms of racism because people start barking about dog whistles and what not

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Just wanted to deal with this separately. When did the left take the racial purity pill from conservatives? She was 1/138th Cherokee or something right? Why is her blood/ DNA important? Shouldn't the beliefs and traditions determine if she's Cherokee? (As far as I understand, she fails there too, so you can get her on that.) Is this like calling Obama the first black president when he's half black and white? Because he's not full white, he automatically defaults to black?

It almost makes me believe tstorm when he calls liberals the real racists. But then Conservatives always jump on that bandwagon, usually leading such race derived charges

To defend seanchaidh, I don't think blood was actually mentioned. That claim could have been about heritage from the get-go.

To clarify my own positions, I don't think Democrats are the real racists, I just don't buy the spin that there is a fixed amount of racists in America that 50 years ago all decided to swap parties. I think there are fewer real racists than there used to be, but I don't think Democrats are going to stop maligning all Republicans as racist until black Americans start voting red again.

The only time I would claim Democrats were the real racists is with Lyndon Johnson in 1964, where the racist candidate won in part by claiming his opponent was a racist.

There is also the factor that there is quite a bit of unfortunate recent history(well some of it is still happening so maybe history is the wrong word) of people falsely claiming Native American heritage in order to profit either by enhancing their personal brand or to take advantage of various government programs or legal exceptions intended to help and/or give a little bit of sovereignty to the tribes. Even if it was an honest mistake on Warren's part and she genuinely believed it to be true, it was still an unfortunate reminder/example of that practice.

Republicans also definitely don't have a monopoly on racism. There unfortunately no shortage of examples of times some aspect of progressive ideology, or at least people claiming to fight in the name of it, somehow comes full circle to ironically call for racist practices their predecessors fought so hard to tear down. That's usually the sort of thing people are referring to when they claim the Democrats/Left/SJWs or whatever other label used to stand in for the "them" in us vs them thinking are the real racists. It's frustrating because as a result of this it is very difficult to call out those bigoted ideas or practices without coming across as an apologist for Republicans or more traditional forms of racism because people start barking about dog whistles and what not

To add to this, Corporate Democrats may not care about us any more than a potential voting pool, but at least they had out a few concessions every once and a while.

Democrats didn't create Bluemap [https://www.npr.org/2016/06/15/482150951/understanding-congressional-gerrymandering-its-moneyball-applied-to-politics] in order to restructure minority-laden districts to lessen their political power. Democrat-lead state governments didn't go out of their way to purge millions of votes in minority sections of their state [https://thinkprogress.org/17-million-americans-purged-from-voter-rolls-between-2016-and-2018-new-report-finds-38c2c5c3124b/], for the fear of how they will vote. Democrats didn't bring out voter ids [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/10/kentucky-republicans-voter-fraud], which is a slap in the face of the civil rights era ruling designed to validate the black vote.

You don't have to actively hate different ethnicities to take apart of detrimental racist practices. If you personally like me as a person yet support measures to make sure my vote is lesser than yours because it politically benefits you, and the basis for that action is my skin color and the belief of how I'll vote due to it? You've promoted racism. You might not be racist, but you're strengthening racism. There's no two ways about that.

 

[tstorm823]

Democrats didn't create Bluemap [https://www.npr.org/2016/06/15/482150951/understanding-congressional-gerrymandering-its-moneyball-applied-to-politics] in order to restructure minority-laden districts to lessen their political power. Democrat-lead state governments didn't go out of their way to purge millions of votes in minority sections of their state [https://thinkprogress.org/17-million-americans-purged-from-voter-rolls-between-2016-and-2018-new-report-finds-38c2c5c3124b/], for the fear of how they will vote. Democrats didn't bring out voter ids [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/10/kentucky-republicans-voter-fraud], which is a slap in the face of the civil rights era ruling designed to validate the black vote.

a) Read your own sources, the redistricting that benefited the Republicans created the largest Congressional black representation to date. Making deliberate majority-minority districts is traditionally a tool to increase minority representative, not lessen it. If those districts didn't exist in that way, it wouldn't mean there are more districts representing the interests of black Americans, it would just let there be more white southern Democrats in Congress, which isn't necessarily going to better represent minorities they way you imagine.

b) Voter purges are necessary for maintaining accurate voter roles. People move. The only reason there were bigger purges in places known in the past for racial discrimination is because those places were basically banned from doing effective purges for years. It was "you can't purge those people that might not even live there anymore because we think you might target black people", then "alright, you can purge again... why are you purging so many people at once! (must be targeting black people.)" It's completely dishonest criticism.

c) You have a photo ID, I guarantee it.

 

[SupahEwok]

She's not Cherokee.

Just wanted to deal with this separately. When did the left take the racial purity pill from conservatives? She was 1/138th Cherokee or something right? Why is her blood/ DNA important? Shouldn't the beliefs and traditions determine if she's Cherokee? (As far as I understand, she fails there too, so you can get her on that.) Is this like calling Obama the first black president when he's half black and white? Because he's not full white, he automatically defaults to black?

It almost makes me believe tstorm when he calls liberals the real racists. But then Conservatives always jump on that bandwagon, usually leading such race derived charges

Mixed white/black ancestry has a problematic history. You've got the history of white slave owners raping their slaves, for a start. Then you've got the fact that those of mixed race (called such things as "mulattos" or "quadroons") were pretty much treated as badly as "pure" blacks. And lastly, unless they're relatively recent immigrants, genetics studies show that the average African American is on average around 20% European. Basically, the average black person has white ancestry somewhere. Yet in the heydays of racial purity, we treated even majority white African Americans as black, for the purpose of discrimination.

This is an old bit of ugly history. Mark Twain even wrote a story about it: a white plantation owner had a son by his white wife while also having a son by one of his servants, a mixed race woman. The servant saw that the two babies were virtually indistinguishable, and secretly traded them, so her biological son wouldn't go through life with the stigma of being "black". And it worked, basically. The "black" child grew up white, and the white child grew up "black". That's a piece of fiction, but Twain was using an extreme fiction as satire for societal attitudes about how much of racial discrimination was based on perceptions than any real justification.

Because of this history of discrimination, we don't really question when someone of mixed descent claims to be black. As far as Elizabeth Warren goes, she gets shit on because she tried to leverage her supposed ancestry for political points, only to have that be proven false (if it wasn't an outright lie from the beginning).