# Elizabeth Warren Stands by DNA Test. But Around Her, Worries Abound.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-stands-by-dna-test-but-around-her-worries-abound/825682>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [December 6, 2018, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-stands-by-dna-test-but-around-her-worries-abound/825682 "2018-12-06T16:33:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 12

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**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-stands-by-dna-test-but-around-her-worries-abound/825682/221 "2018-12-26T13:12:49Z")

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What exactly was the lie? Use an exact quote, please.

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**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:** [December 26, 2018, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-stands-by-dna-test-but-around-her-worries-abound/825682/222 "2018-12-26T15:17:22Z")

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> [@Ancient\_Erudite](#):
>
> Warren used a lie to help advance her career.

The Boston Globe did a fairly exhaustive and frequently cited article showing that to be completely untrue.  
[Ethnicity not a factor in Elizabeth Warren’s rise in law](https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/09/01/did-claiming-native-american-heritage-actually-help-elizabeth-warren-get-ahead-but-complicated/wUZZcrKKEOUv5Spnb7IO0K/story.html)  
Short version: She changed her ethnicity selection after being hired and no one hiring her thought anything other than she was a caucasian woman.

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**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2018, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-stands-by-dna-test-but-around-her-worries-abound/825682/223 "2018-12-27T15:07:17Z")

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> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> The candidate will suddenly become a far left-wing socialist who will either be a dreaded insider that can’t be trusted **or** a naive outsider that doesn’t know how things work.

emphasis mine

Shouldn’t that be And? Logical contradictions never seemed to bother them before.

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**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:** [December 29, 2018, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elizabeth-warren-stands-by-dna-test-but-around-her-worries-abound/825682/224 "2018-12-29T14:53:23Z")

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This thread has become too long to read. Let me summarize it for newcomers by quoting the best posts.

> [@enipla](#):
>
> We have a traitor and criminal in the White House.  
> He’s a narcistic, bigoted, racist moron. The stupid fuck can’t string an idea together on Twitter.  
> He shows us every day that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.  
> And people are worried if Warren is Native American enough?

> [@DWMarch](#):
>
> Trump purports to be a President and we let him get away with that.
> 
> The whole “Pocahontas” thing is Trump repeatedly using a racial slur against a political opponent. Yet somehow Elizabeth Warren is the villain for embracing something that may or may not be as big a part of her heritage as she thought.
> 
> It’s an asinine controversy built on the ravings of a racist madman. See also birtherism.

Those two posts are key. The very existence of this thread bears witness to how nonsensical American political “thought” has become.

And, most sadly:

> [@NDP](#):
>
> The real problem related to Warren’s DNA test results is not whether this kerfuffle might undermine her 2020 presidency bid but how easily it led to internecine warfare among people on the left side of the political spectrum. If this is a preview of what 2020 is going to be like for the Democrats, Trump’s going to end up winning by default.

I love Elizabeth Warren. But, with or without the Cherokee controversy, the fact that she’s seriously touted for the Big Nomination reminds me how masochistic Democrats tend to be.

> [@Lamoral](#):
>
> She would be a really poor candidate for President even without the whole Native American thing. I’ve watched videos of her speak…

Genealogy is just a fun hobby. The fact that I share 0.2% of the DNA of John Brown the (crazy?) abolitionist doesn’t make it more likely that I have humanitarian ideals (nor that I am crazy). It’s just a fun useless fact. Tracing ancestry is like stamp collecting. I’m sure this is similar for Professor Warren. So she contributed an entry to a cookbook? _Gasp! Should we appoint a Special Prosecutor?_ Thousands of words in dozens of pointless posts in this thread are best summarized by

> [@Batano](#):
>
> This thread reminds me of a kid who just learned the word “poop” and wants to use it every chance they can, except the word is “racist”.

[off-topic] While it’s true that all humans are closely related genetically, DNA does allow interesting details of prehistory to be deduced:

> [@](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > So is there really a Sardinian or East Asian gene or genetic variation? Of course not. If there is one fact that we know about human history, it’s that ours is a history of migrations…

Interesting that _Sardinia_ was mentioned here. Like many isolated islands, Sardinia is a migratory cul-de-sac and preserves some haplogroups that have almost disappeared from the mainland. You can Google and find at least a dozen papers that have derived conclusions by studying Sardinian DNA specifically.

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