Somewhere, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Joe Biden and a host of other Democrats are quietly giggling. They can now comfort themselves with the fact that one of their chief competitors for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination has shot herself in the foot with an arrow.
Somewhere else, Rachel Dolezal, the white civil rights activist who famously claimed to be black, must be nodding her head and saying to herself, “been there - done that.”
Contenders
When the midterm elections are over and the presidential election campaign begins - about one minute after the stroke of midnight on November 7 - there will be one less serious contender among the dozens of Democrats fantasizing about a knockout of President Trump.
In one of the most inexplicable, self-immolating political moves since the deplorable/irredeemable remarks of Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) set out to prove she is indeed a Cherokee Indian by hiring a DNA specialist to drill down on her true heritage. In releasing the results proving she is actually less Indian than the average American, she has managed to achieve the impossible - making herself into even more of a laughingstock than she already was - and assuring she will be mocked and ridiculed endlessly, just as she prepares to launch her all-but-certain presidential campaign.
Dominating the Media
Fauxcahontas might have simply ignored or buried the embarrassing findings, but somehow decided to not only trumpet the results as proof of her Indian “heritage” (she is somewhere between 1/32nd and 1/1024th native American), but turned it into a political ad. It raises the question of whether she is actually employing Hillary as a strategic advisor.
The Indian thing will surely dominate coverage of her from here on out, just as the email scandal did with Hillary. It will be a steady undercurrent that resonates through her every appearance. Smirks, jokes, and ridicule will follow her everywhere, and she will be thoroughly unelectable. If I were a Democrat who previously favored the Indian goddess, I would now be looking for a more respectable candidate. CPL (Creepy Porn Lawyer) Michael Avenatti, anyone?
Failed Strategy
Most confusing about this inexplicable decision by the aging progressive Senator is that, having already established her bona fides with The Resistance, she had been working tirelessly to ingratiate herself with the Democratic establishment. She has now essentially thrown all that work out the window by making a fool and spectacle of herself three weeks before midterm elections, amidst her party’s hopes for a much-ballyhooed blue wave.
Could Fauxcahontas not see how Trump would instantly make mincemeat of her? The President tweeted that she is a “complete and total fraud” and that she “should apologize for perpetrating this fraud against the American Public.”
Certainly, she must have been taken aback by the outraged response from a source she probably expected to be supportive, the actual Cherokee Nation: “It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens.” Wow, even her “relatives” are disgusted. No campaign wampum forthcoming from them.
This move has only amplified a moniker that has stuck to her like brown on Indian rice. Heck, the nickname Fauxcahontas has already become so familiar that Google redlines and auto-corrects the misspelling of it.
Perhaps, just as Ms. Dolezal claimed to “feel” black, Fauxcahontas is channeling her true inner Indian. Perhaps like transgender folk, she feels trapped in her European body. Or perhaps she simply realized that the reality of launching her career on a flagrant falsehood (Harvard Law School touting her as their first “woman of color” professor) would ultimately represent her Achilles heel on the national stage, and required some type of bold action. But there is a difference between bold and reckless.
No matter the reason for her jaw-dropping decision to essentially out herself, the list of Democratic presidential hopefuls can effectively be narrowed to dozens minus one, for Fauxcahontas has just set fire to her own teepee. And no rain dance can undo the damage.
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