By Anyte
During Super Tuesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren did not even make it past the 15 percent threshold to get delegates. She came in third place in her home state, Massachusetts. For contrast, Senator Bernie Sanders won his home state by a whopping 50 percent, and Warren never finished higher than third place in any of the other states that she ran in. Warren dropped out a couple of days after her humbling performance. Even the billionaire that Warren continuously made fun of, Michael Bloomgberg, did better than her despite him not debating well and coming across as a suspicious candidate. All over Twitter, fans of Warren were tweeting that she did so poorly because America is sexist and not ready for a female president. Warren supporters stated that if she were a man with the same qualifications, then she would have easily been the Democrat nominee.
Jessica Valenti, a known feminist writer, stated that Warren had been “outright erased and ingored” due to “sexism.” In reality, Warren did not lose the election because of her gender, but because of her inability to win the trust of Democrat voters. But, if Warren did lose due to sexism, then she has the sexism of the Democrat Party to blame. It is pretty funny that liberals are arguing that Warren lost due to the sexism of Democrat women and minorities… the same people who, in 2016, voted for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. These are the evil sexists that caused Warren to lose? Really??
From the start of her campaign, Warren made it clear that she believed there has long been a lot of corruption in Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry. In the Democrat Party, this is a popular stance and much of the party liked her because she seemed bold and empathetic to people’s needs. Many voters also liked her story of having come from rural Oklahoma to attend Harvard University and later finding success as a single mother living in Massachusetts.
However, as the election progressed, it became unclear what Warren stood for. She, on one hand, claimed she was a capitalist, but on the other she was arguing for socialist ideas – along with Bernie Sanders – such as Medicare for All and cancelling all student debt. She drifted further left by adopting the ideas of universal child care. She should have taken more centrist positions and adopted a more realistic and flexible health policy. If she had been less wonky and instead more ideologically consistent, she might have taken Joe Biden’s spot. One would be better off believing this was the key factor in shifting the progressive voters to Bernie Sanders since he is clear about what his beliefs are. This also turned away moderate voters since they believe that Medicare for All is not an electable policy and could not beat Trump.
Additionally, Warren was known as the candidate who pushed identity politics too aggressively. She has constantly stated that President Trump “is advancing environmental racism, economic racism, criminal justice racism, health care racism.” However, her loss has shown that most Democrats are less concerned with intersectionality and identity than they are with the transparency, comprehensibility, and electability of the candidate’s platform, and that most Democrats and voters would prefer a candidate who can improve education and lower health insurance premiums.
Furthermore, Warren lost a lot of support due to her claim that she had Native American ancestry, which was ultimately proven a lie by a DNA test. Despite the DNA test clearly showing that Warren possibly has less Native American genes than the average white American, she persisted with the lie and squealed “racism” when questioned. This angered a huge pool of Democrats – as well as the Native American community – since Warren initially refused to acknowledge or respond to any criticism of her blatant, opportunistic lie. By appropriating an ethnic group and its culture for her own professional advancement, Warren permanently damaged her reputation and lost the support of many Democrats.
Thus, Warren should have dropped out before Super Tuesday like Buttigieg and Klobuchar. However, because of Warren’s vaulting ambition and enmity towards Sanders, she decided to stay in, taking votes away from Bernie, which most likely cost him – and the party’s progressive wing – the nomination. Now, the Democrat party has a front-runner who cannot remember where he is, who his family is, or what office he is running for. This is an embarrassing political situation for the Democrat party… and they are in trouble!
Anyte (pseudonym) is a junior at Chapman University. She is pursuing a B.S. in Business Administration.
Awesomeness!