Why Elizabeth Warren's second attempt to solve her Native American problem is smart



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"Like any honest person with herself, I know I made a mistake," said the Massachusetts Democratic senator at a forum on Native American rights in Iowa. "I'm sorry for the harm I caused."

This "excuse" was part of Warren's more general attempt to ask questions about his long-standing Native American heritage, to rest a second time as part of his presidential candidacy. And unlike his first test run – late 2018 – there is good reason to believe that Warren's treatment of his estate this time has a much better chance of succeeding.
Let's start with last year, when Warren, who was clearly preparing for a presidential bid, aired a five-minute video in which she is shown and returning to her state of Oklahoma to locate her identity. Native American ancestors. (Warren had claimed the Native American heritage in the past – citing his mother's assertions about the family's ethnicity.) The video resulted in a Stanford geneticist telling Warren that "the facts suggest that you absolutely have an Amerindian ancestor in your pedigree ". But estimates of the amount of blood Warren actually possessed in Native Americans ranged from 1/64 to 1/1024.
This has hardly illuminated the question. And things got worse for Warren when a Cherokee Nation official responded to his DNA test, claiming that such claims were "useless" to determine tribe membership. President Donald Trump seized the thing – as he did – referring again to Warren, "Pocahontas", a term widely regarded as an ethnic insult.
Warren's second attempt on the issue is a clear attempt to erase this first problem from the memory of the campaign. (I mean quite literally, according to CNN MJ Lee, the original five-minute video was totally cleaned from Warren's campaign website.)

Warren's approach this time, which culminated in his Monday speech to the forum led by Four Directions, a Native American advocacy group, is radically different from the relatively easy way in which she and his campaign tried to solve the problem last year.

In the courtyard of the Native American leaders of Elizabeth Warren
The centerpiece of this approach was a series of political proposals – and a legislative plan – for the Warren campaign released last week. This is broadly consistent with the "I have a plan for this strategy" strategy that has allowed Warren to also be a leading candidate in the last eight months or so. This also allows Warren to make a more powerful argument than the simple "I am one of you!" She can now share a series of ideas to improve the lives of Native Americans, a move that diverts the attention from Warren's personal story and clearly focuses on the fate of Native Americans. in the USA.

Do not underestimate the power of simply saying "sorry" either. We are all inclined to give people a second chance if they seem truly contrite and seem to have learned their lesson. And again, Warren's excuses divert the attention from the "me" and put it squarely on the "we" – a powerful thing in politics.

There is also the fact that Warren has the wind in the sails, politically, to think about it. She is a more confident and confident presidential candidate today than she was last fall. She has gone through difficult times and has risen – by pure willpower and intellectual weight – to the high level of 2020. Warren is simply more comfortable with herself as a candidate. in the presidential election, which allows him to more effectively convince the Amerindian community of the purity of his intentions yesterday and today.

To be clear: None of what Warren said on Monday – or anything that she will say during the primary struggle at the presidential election in the coming months – will prevent Trump from attacking him for his Native American heritage . He is a tyrant; insults are what bullies do.

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But Warren does not need to convince Trump and his ardent supporters of the sincerity of his apology to the Amerindian community and his commitment to advancing them. She only needs to convince hesitant Democrats that she will be able to withstand deadly attacks that Trump will be watching closely about this appearance of political weakness.

Warren's actions over the last four days suggest that she's really on the right track.

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