Sen. Elizabeth Warren is having yet another bad night in the 2020 Democratic primary.
She lost not only her birth state of Oklahoma, but the senior senator from Massachusetts also came in third place in Massachusetts. In other words, her primary campaign has been a complete and total bust.
It is safe to say that Warren, who has only 36 delegates to her name, has no shot whatsoever of winning the Democratic nomination, meaning every minute she allows for her terminal candidacy to thrash around in its misery is a minute wasted on a hopelessly failed effort. Her failure on Super Tuesday also means it is time now to do a definitive ranking of her most embarrassing and desperate panders to the Democratic base. And there are quite a few to choose from, which makes sense considering this is the same 2020 candidate who listed her pronouns in her Twitter account.
In no particular order:
9. Latinx and Chicano
On March 3, Warren’s campaign account warned that “these are hard times” and that “people are afraid.” But, never fear, the account added, “Latinx and Chicano history teaches us the power of fighting back.”
Her use of “Latinx” is an especially silly pander considering only 2% of Hispanics even prefer that term.
8. PACs
Warren promised in February 2019 that she would run her campaign with “no PAC money.” Her campaign took it a step further and boasted the senator “does not accept contributions from any PAC … Elizabeth rejects the help of Super PACs and would disavow any Super PAC formed to support her in the Democratic primary.”
The promise was an obvious and stupid pander to the base’s worries about millionaires and billionaires. Warren flip-flopped eventually on her promise, happily welcoming the help of Persist PAC, which spent $14.8 million ahead of Super Tuesday, making it the top spending outside group of the entire 2020 election cycle.
7. Pregnancy
Warren loves telling voters about the time she was fired in the 1970s from her job at an elementary school because she was “visibly pregnant.” It is an anecdote that is well designed to pander to mothers and other professional women.
The only problem with Warren’s story is that it is likely a fabrication.
6. Gender nonconforming
In November 2019, after Warren won an endorsement from a group called Black Womxn For, her campaign tweeted: “Thank you, @BlackWomxnFor! Black trans and cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I don’t take this endorsement lightly. I’m committed to fighting alongside you for the big, structural change our country needs.”
Important? Sure. The “backbone of our democracy”? Come on. Take it down a notch.
5. A nonbinary Cabinet
In January, Warren pledged that her administration would “be committed to diversity and inclusion, starting on Day One,” explaining that she intends to reach this goal by assembling “a Cabinet and senior leadership team that reflects the full diversity of America.”
At least 50% of her Cabinet, Warren continued, would be “filled by women and nonbinary people.”
This, she explained, would ensure “representation of LGBTQ+ people across all levels of government, including in leadership roles.”
4. Actually, maybe the Iranian terrorist wasn’t a terrorist
After the White House announced in January that U.S. forces had taken out Qassem Soleimani, Warren correctly characterized the Iranian terrorist as “a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans.”
But that strong language apparently upset some in the far-left wing of the Democratic Party, prompting the senator to issue a follow-up statement in which she referred to Soleimani merely as “a senior foreign military official” whom the Trump White House had “assassinated.”
3. Destroy ICE
Warren in June 2018 called for the abolishment of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“The president’s deeply immoral actions have made it obvious. We need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom, starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality and that works,” the senator said during a campaign event in Massachusetts, which she lost Tuesday evening.
By July of that year, Warren amended her position, saying she believes ICE should focus only on fighting the war on drugs and terror.
2. Michael Brown
In August 2019, Warren tweeted, “5 years ago Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael was unarmed yet he was shot 6 times. I stand with activists and organizers who continue the fight for justice for Michael. We must confront systemic racism and police violence head on.”
An independent Justice Department investigation found that there was no credible evidence to support the claim that the white officer “murdered” the 18-year-old black man. Instead, the report found Wilson acted in self-defense. Brown was killed in the violent act of assaulting a police officer.
But, hey, at least Warren, who has a background in law and knows better, was able to make a play for the #BlackLivesMatter crowd.
1. Trans-approved secretary of education
Warren announced this year that her secretary of education would have to be approved first by a child “trans person.”
“[A] young trans person asked about a welcoming community, and I said, ‘It starts with the secretary of education, who has a lot to do with where we spend our money,’” the senator told an audience in Iowa, “and I said, ‘I’m going to have a secretary of education that this young trans person interviews on my behalf.’”
She added that “only if this person believes that our secretary of education nominee is committed to creating a welcoming environment, a safe environment, and a full educational curriculum for everyone, will that person be advanced to actually be secretary of education.”
Like many of the pledges mentioned in the above, Warren’s bit about a transgender person-approved Cabinet member is not a serious proposal. It is red meat meant to excite the base. Unfortunately, for the senator, Democratic primary voters appear to be interested in a bit more than Warren’s hyperpartisan brand of identity politics, as Warren’s fantastic flop on Super Tuesday proves.
