# Elizabeth Warren 2020. How do you feel about it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 9, 2018, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028 "2018-09-09T00:14:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/361 "2018-10-18T16:13:23Z")
> [@](#): > > It would be highly unusually to lose all DNA linking you to an ancestor only 5 generations back. There’s a difference between “all DNA” and “all distinctive DNA”. The vast majority of our DNA doesn’t vary at all from one human to another, and so finding that DNA doesn’t tell you anything at all. To do these kinds of tests, you need to find markers, such that most members of group X have that marker, and most non-members don’t. There aren’t very many such markers, and so it is possible to not end up with any of them left after a fairly small number of generations. It might well be that I happened to get my gene for, say, the transcriptase enzyme from that great^4 grandmother… but every living thing on the planet has a transcriptase enzyme, and most of them are very similar, so how would I know? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/362 "2018-10-18T16:22:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There’s a difference between “all DNA” and “all distinctive DNA”. The vast majority of our DNA doesn’t vary at all from one human to another, and so finding that DNA doesn’t tell you anything at all. To do these kinds of tests, you need to find markers, such that most members of group X have that marker, and most non-members don’t. There aren’t very many such markers, and so it is possible to not end up with any of them left after a fairly small number of generations. It might well be that I happened to get my gene for, say, the transcriptase enzyme from that great^4 grandmother… but every living thing on the planet has a transcriptase enzyme, and most of them are very similar, so how would I know? True, but the vast majority of our DNA doesn’t differ between any human bering and any mouse. I believe those graphs were concerning DNA distinguishing individual humans from one another, but I’ll have to dig them up to see. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/363 "2018-10-18T16:58:09Z")
A lot of you seem to be playing a game of “Heads Trump wins, tails Warren loses.” She has confirmed both with documentation & with DNA that she is what she says, actually mixed, unlike a lot of white folks. This week, she won this on the facts. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/364 "2018-10-18T17:12:53Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > A lot of you seem to be playing a game of “Heads Trump wins, tails Warren loses.” > > She has confirmed both with documentation & with DNA that she is what she says, actually mixed, unlike a lot of white folks. This week, she won this on the facts. Yes and no. There are two things going on here, not just one: one factual and one political. Warren can win or lose in any combination. Warren wins on the facts, IMO. I’m not sure who wins on the politics, but I would not recommend wrestling with the pig here. YMM. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/365 "2018-10-18T17:15:19Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > A lot of you seem to be playing a game of “Heads Trump wins, tails Warren loses.” > > She has confirmed both with documentation & with DNA that she is what she says, actually mixed, unlike a lot of white folks. This week, she won this on the facts. Too bad facts don’t matter anymore. Trump dismissed the results as more “fake news” and went back to calling her Pocahontas. Meanwhile, Warren now has problems among people who previously would’ve supported her. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/366 "2018-10-18T17:18:23Z")
With 3 billion base pairs altogether, there are 3 million potential markers even if 99.9% of the nucleotides are invariant. The problem isn’t so much insufficient markers, as it is inadequate knowledge of what those markers “mean.” This is particularly a problem with Native Americans, IIUC, because few have been tested. (The typical DNA test doesn’t map your whole genome; it just looks for a few 100,000 of these potential markers – is that correct?) And, at least for very close relationships, the software doesn’t just count matching markers — it looks for long identical strings. Two siblings will have dozens of matching strings each tens of millions of nucleotides in length. The matching strings in 2nd cousins may just be millions in length, and so on. If you’ve tested your DNA at [ancestry.com](http://ancestry.com), remember to open a free account at [GedMatch.com](http://GedMatch.com) and transfer your data there. (I assume the same is true if you tested at 23andme or wherever.) GedMatch offers several free analyses. (And offers more analyses to paying customers, I guess — can anyone advise about those?) I get a huge number of 4th cousins matching at GedMatch. With default parameters, the 4th cousins typically show one match of about 15 centiMorgans. Two matches of 37 cM each is typical for 3rd cousin. My niece and I have 53 matches of 7 cM or more, including one of 144 cM. Gedmatch will show the exact location of each of these matches. (You can do certain cross-checking manually to get more information.) I see a 2nd cousin 1x removed who shares a 66 cM segment with me. Is that just by chance or is there a special meaning there? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/367 "2018-10-18T17:43:55Z")
Why don’t you start a GQ or IMHO thread? ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/368 "2018-10-18T18:45:29Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > A lot of you seem to be playing a game of “Heads Trump wins, tails Warren loses.” That’s what happens when you fall for a sucker bet. She shouldn’t have played the game that Trump wanted, because like you’re seeing she looses either way. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/369 "2018-10-18T19:15:48Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > A lot of you seem to be playing a game of “Heads Trump wins, tails Warren loses.” > > She has confirmed both with documentation & with DNA that she is what she says, actually mixed, unlike a lot of white folks. This week, she won this on the facts. I don’t know what you mean by “playing a game of…” She really did put herself in the exact position of “Heads you win, tails I lose.” Releasing the results of the test does several not-so-good things, if you’re Warren. –It underscores the fact that her “Indian heritage” is genetic, not cultural, which reminds us that she is not an enrolled member of a tribe anywhere, and that among most NA groups it is culture, not genetics, that matters, which weakens the impact of the test; –It puts her status as “minority law professor” back in the public eye, and as has been said earlier this probably wasn’t something she benefited from affirmative-action-wise…but no one can be sure, and she certainly brought it up when she was hired by Penn and Harvard, and it doesn’t _look_ good; –It seems so silly. Who cares whether she’s right? I mean, really, Warren being right about having a tiny percentage of American Indian blood matters to me not a whit. She’s right; okay, good for her, that’s nice, but so what? Is this going to sway anyone’s vote? (If it’s going to sway yours, **foolsguinea** , I’d really be interested in knowing why this rather than a hundred other things that seem, you know, consequential…:)) She may have “won…on the facts,” but it’s a very, very small victory. She would’ve done better never bringing it up again, at all. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/370 "2018-10-18T19:17:47Z")
Warren has also said many times that her parents had to elope because her father’s family was against him marrying a native woman. This is a picture of her parents: [Elizabeth Warren’s parents](https://goo.gl/images/mSiZHK). We now know that at best her mom had 1/32 Native American ancestry, and she looks about as white as Warren herself. The story doesn’t pass the smell test. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/371 "2018-10-18T19:30:13Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > That’s what happens when you fall for a sucker bet. She shouldn’t have played the game that Trump wanted, because like you’re seeing she looses either way. What’s even worse is when the game chooses to play _you._ Even if Warren hadn’t done or said anything, Trump was going to keep ridiculing her as “Pocahontas” because it made her look like a silly woman with silly opinions. However, Trump just copied what Scott Brown did against Warren in their senatorial race in 2012. Brown, in turn, drew upon Warren’s answer to a question on a job application over 20 years before and a recipe she contributed to a college cookbook. In scheme of things, Warren’s fuzziness about the details of her ancestral background shouldn’t even reach the level of trivial misdemeanor (especially when compared with what the current Commander-in-Chief’s done) but the old rules no longer apply. Everything is out of whack. On one side, we have a leader who, in his own words, “could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” and not suffer any consequence. On the other side, we have a well-qualified potential challenger who’s political career may go down the dumper because she clumsily addressed a vague rumor about her family tree. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/372 "2018-10-18T19:34:43Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > Even if Warren hadn’t done or said anything, Trump was going to keep ridiculing her as “Pocahontas” because it made her look like a silly woman with silly opinions. If you’re running for president, you have to expect people to ridicule you for a lot of stuff. If you’re going to let it push you into bad decisions, you’re just not cut out for the job. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/373 "2018-10-18T20:32:14Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Warren has also said many times that her parents had to elope because her father’s family was against him marrying a native woman. > > This is a picture of her parents: [Elizabeth Warren’s parents](https://goo.gl/images/mSiZHK). > > We now know that at best her mom had 1/32 Native American ancestry, and she looks about as white as Warren herself. The story doesn’t pass the smell test. Not really. There was never a claim the mom was “a natve woman”, but that she had native roots. No one would have know how much (or how little). And there were times and places where looks did not matter do much if your pedigree was suspect. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/374 "2018-10-18T20:36:23Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > A lot of you seem to be playing a game of “Heads Trump wins, tails Warren loses.” > > She has confirmed both with documentation & with DNA that she is what she says, actually mixed, unlike a lot of white folks. This week, she won this on the facts. She lost bigly. All she ‘proved’ was that she had a very remote genetic connection with some Native Americans. She has claimed membership to a tribe while inheriting none of its culture, which is why she was called out by some members of the Cherokee nation in the wake of her releasing her DNA. As I said, she’s in the kitchen wearing an apron, fetching Trump’s beer and making him a sandwich. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/375 "2018-10-18T20:39:16Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Warren has also said many times that her parents had to elope because her father’s family was against him marrying a native woman. > > This is a picture of her parents: [Elizabeth Warren’s parents](https://goo.gl/images/mSiZHK). > > We now know that at best her mom had 1/32 Native American ancestry, and she looks about as white as Warren herself. The story doesn’t pass the smell test. The looks aren’t even important. [Joshua Wheeler,](https://s.hdnux.com/photos/62/63/01/13316184/3/920x920.jpg) the Delta Force Master Sergeant who was killed in Afghanistan, was a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and he would have looked at home in Finland. It’s not someone’s phenotype that makes them Native American, it’s having a connection to a specific tribe. They take this shit very seriously. You either have a connection to the tribe or you don’t. It’s totally true that this should not be relevant to her qualifications and it’s absolutely nothing compared to Trump’s endless list of misdeeds. The thing is, when you are a generally inoffensive individual, one single thing you did wrong can be singled out and a whole narrative created around it to the point where it defines you. When you’re an _offensive_ individual who has done a million fucked up things, each individual one seems less and less important. Now, you would _think_ that having done a million fucked up things would sully someone’s reputation more than having done one fucked up thing. But you’d be wrong. In Trump’s case, he built an image of himself as someone who will do whatever it takes to win. He’s not ashamed of it in any way. There’s sort of a form of Social Darwinism in his whole appeal: he bulldozes his way over everyone else to get what he wants, and people get crushed, but he’s _our_ bulldozer and he’s going to push _our_ agenda through at all costs, so either get on board or get out of the way. All the people who have been fucked over in his path to victory, well, it’s easy enough to just write them off as being too weak to make it in the world. This is why _no amount of criticism of Trump’s personal character_ will win voters away from him. It _could_ rattle him on the debate stage, if delivered forcefully and audaciously enough to make him choke. But it’s pointless to try to campaign on it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/376 "2018-10-18T23:13:59Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > She lost bigly. > > All she ‘proved’ was that she had a very remote genetic connection with some Native Americans. She has claimed membership to a tribe while inheriting none of its culture, which is why she was called out by some members of the Cherokee nation in the wake of her releasing her DNA. > > As I said, she’s in the kitchen wearing an apron, fetching Trump’s beer and making him a sandwich. This is the 2nd time you made that claim in this thread (emphasis added). The first time you made it, I asked you for a cite. Do you have one? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2018, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/377 "2018-10-18T23:36:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > This is the 2nd time you made that claim in this thread (emphasis added). The first time you made it, I asked you for a cite. Do you have one? I’m not **asahi** , and not trying to defend his claim, but in the interest of shedding some more light on this subject: [Snopes says](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elizabeth-warren-wealthy-native-american/) that Warren " has often spoken of her Native American ancestry." I’m not aware of any precise claim of (legal) membership in a tribe, but back in 2012, [The Atlantic reported](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/is-elizabeth-warren-native-american-or-what/257415/) that she told the Boston Herald “Being Native American has been part of my story I guess since the day I was born.” That’s the most damning quote I could find in a few minutes of searching. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2018, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/378 "2018-10-19T00:11:12Z")
That’s not at all damning. “Family lore” is, of course, part of one’s story. But claiming tribal membership would be something significant, and if she did that, it’s worth citing. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/379 "2018-10-19T00:33:26Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Warren has also said many times that her parents had to elope because her father’s family was against him marrying a native woman. > > This is a picture of her parents: [Elizabeth Warren’s parents](https://goo.gl/images/mSiZHK). > > We now know that at best her mom had 1/32 Native American ancestry, and she looks about as white as Warren herself. The story doesn’t pass the smell test. Dude, you’re _Canadian._ You have people are even more prejudiced against indigenous people than folks can get over here. Look, Sen. Warren isn’t part of an Indian Nation. She’s part of _my_ nation. I know people who are actually Indian, & I know (and come from) people who may have a tiny fraction of Indian blood but don’t know and don’t claim it. If Betsy Warren is fractionally Indian, that’s cool with me. But there are still jerks who use “Indian” as an insult. _One is President._ This story from her heritage is about that, about the difference between proudly unadmixed Europeans and “breeds” within the dominant culture that look all white to outsiders. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2018, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028/380 "2018-10-19T01:41:16Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > You have people are even more prejudiced against indigenous people than folks can get over here. …_who_ are even more… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-2020-how-do-you-feel-about-it/821028.md?page=20)