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Things are moving fast in American politics, but see if you can remember back five months to last fall. At the time, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was the most likely Democratic nominee.
She had big leads in both Iowa and New Hampshire. She had overtaken establishment designated front-runner, Joe Biden, in the national polling.
DEMOCRACY 2020 DIGEST: WARREN IN NO RUSH TO BACK BIDEN OR SANDERS
The race last fall was Warren’s to lose — and lose it she did, spectacularly.
Warren didn’t win a single state. In fact, she never took second place. She got creamed in Massachusetts where she lives.
On Thursday, finally, Warren dropped out, having succeeded only in humiliating herself. As the Babylon Bee put it, “Warren returns to tribe in shame after failing to take land back from the pale faces.” You can imagine how disappointed the Cherokees were.
So what happened to Elizabeth Warren? Well, it’s an interesting story, actually, filled with valuable lessons for political candidates as well as for the rest of us.
But Warren was in no mood for learning. She already knew the answer, as she so often does. And it turned out to be the very same answer she has offered in response to virtually every question she’s been asked over the last six months: It was sexism. That’s why she lost.
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Democratic voters, the majority of whom are female, hate women, Warren explained. They may have nominated a woman in the last presidential race, but that was probably an act of sexism, too. That’s how sexist they are. Super-duper sexist.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., former presidential candidate: If you say, yes, there was sexism in this race, everyone says, “Whiner!” And if you say no, there was no sexism, about a bazillion women think, “What planet do you live on?” I promise you this: I will have a lot more to say on that subject later on.
That’s a promise, she said. In other words, there will be many more lectures on sexism to come from Professor Warren. Buy your tickets now, the hall is certain to be packed.
One day Warren was talking about raising wages and protecting American workers. The next, she was ranting about strange forms of racism nobody had ever heard of, and then attacking the country she has once sought to improve.
In the front row, you’ll see your favorite cable news commentators, who are themselves lifelong warriors against sexism. Yes, it is true that these are the very same people who have spent months now acting as publicists for Michael Bloomberg, and now Joe Biden, both of whom are demonstrably male. But in their hearts, our friends on TV were always rooting for the woman. That’s the kind of people they are — highly unsexist people.
Karen Finney, former senior adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign: Our country is still very uncomfortable with women in power. Men come into a race with the expectation that they’re qualified, women have to prove themselves. When a woman takes a hit at particularly a male candidate, she takes a hit in her likability.
David Swerdlick, CNN political commentator: Senator Warren was hammered on her Medicare-for-all plan and her tax plans in a way that none of the men were the entire last year. To me, that was a sexist double standard.
Zerlina Maxwell, former Clinton campaign media director: She would have done much better if she were a man, and I would like more men to be vocal about the fact that they want to see women in positions of leadership.
Yeah, sexism. She can see why Elizabeth Warren is so upset.
To be fair, Bernie Sanders did warn her more than a year ago that a woman couldn’t win. He didn’t want her to get hurt, but she just wouldn’t listen.
Just kidding. That never happened. Warren made it up, or maybe she believed it happened, which is worse. Warren has convinced herself of a lot of strange things recently. It’s been poignant to watch it happen.
Warren is no Beto O’Rourke; she isn’t doing bong hits on her skateboard after lunch. She’s a legitimately smart person — without question, the smartest candidate in the Democratic field. She’s also tough as hell, and fake Indian affirmative action ploy aside, she’s fairly accomplished, especially by the low standards of political life.
Nearly 20 years ago, Warren wrote a book called “The Two-Income Trap” about how the mass entry of mothers into the workforce left families poorer. It was not a predictable academic diatribe that ends with a call for socialism. In fact, it was interesting and well-researched. And above all, it was serious.
Warren wrote about a real problem, one that affects most Americans, and then thought deeply about how to solve it. The book was impressive. It could have been the basis of a populist presidential campaign that would have forced much needed national conversations about these issues, and in the end, might have won.
But none of that ever happened. Warren got derailed. More precisely, she became infected with a virulent strain of identity politics. By the end, like tertiary syphilis, it drove her insane.
One day Warren was talking about raising wages and protecting American workers. The next, she was ranting about strange forms of racism nobody had ever heard of and then attacking the country she has once sought to improve.
Identity politics is always just a form of narcissism. That’s not appealing to anybody. You can’t get elected doing it.
Elizabeth Warren went intersectional and it killed her. Here were some of the first symptoms:
Warren: We live in a country now with the President is advancing environmental racism, economic racism, criminal justice racism, health care racism.
So raise your hand if you ever heard of health care racism. Raise both hands if you think it’s one of this country’s top 500 problems. Elizabeth Warren thought it was.
Then she decided it was important — in fact, our moral obligation — to invite the rest of the impoverished world here to America to share our job market and our health care system. How exactly would that help American workers?
Warren no longer cared. She was too woke to worry about actual people. By earlier this year, she clearly needed inpatient care. You watched her speeches hoping that men with nets would spring from the shadows to carry her off to a secure facility somewhere for a much-needed rest. Unfortunately, it never happened.
The mania seemed to reach its peak in January when Warren suddenly announced out of nowhere, that she would ask transgender children to pick her Cabinet members.
Warren: I’m going to have a secretary of education that this young trans-person interviews on my behalf. And only if this person believes that our secretary or secretary of education nominee is someone who is committed to creating a welcoming environment, a safe environment and a full educational curriculum for everyone, well, that person actually will be advanced to be secretary of education.
You like that? Let’s do that.
So who is this young trans-person who gets to staff the federal government? No one in the news media even asked because it turns out Warren wasn’t the only one who’d gone insane.
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All of this seems perfectly normal to CNN. But it wasn’t normal. It was shockingly crazy, almost hilariously crazy.
But Warren was not amused. Most of the time, she appeared to be floridly enraged, like she might lunge forward and bite someone. For reasons that were never really clear, Warren really hated Bernie Sanders, the elderly ex-mayor from Vermont.
At one point Warren claimed that Sanders was in fact, a dangerous sexist, but nobody believed her. It was just too implausible, whatever else he is. So she turned her wrath on Michael Bloomberg, a far richer target.
Warren: I’d like to talk about who we’re running against. A billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians. And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump, I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.
Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women and of supporting racist policies. Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.
You’ve got to give her credit – she can deliver a line.
But by this stage in the campaign, no one outside cable news sets and college campuses was listening. Elizabeth Warren kept talking, but nobody cared. Why?
Because it turns out that most people, even Democrats aren’t that interested in intersectional politics. They don’t know how to pronounce the word “Latinx,” and they don’t want to learn. It’s stupid and weird and kind of threatening. It has precisely zero relevance to their lives.
They want to hear politicians talk about making the schools better or lowering health insurance premiums, the things they actually think about at home. They don’t want to hear some middle-aged lady drone on in an extended guilt trip.
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Because in the end, it’s really all about her. Identity politics is always just a form of narcissism. That’s not appealing to anybody. You can’t get elected doing it. Elizabeth Warren just proved that conclusively.
Let’s hope everyone else in politics learns that lesson.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson’s monologue from “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on March 5, 2020.
