Source: AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
An epidemic of false identities, massaged resumes,
and warped ancestries has broken out among the current Democratic presidential
primary candidates.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for years claimed Native
American ancestry. An embattled Warren ironically took a DNA test that only
proved her critics' contention that she was no more of Native American heritage
than the vast majority of Americans.
Another Democratic candidate, Robert Francis O'Rourke,
is a rich white male who grew up in affluence. O'Rourke some time ago
adopted the name "Beto," an abbreviation for the Spanish
"Roberto." The Spanish-speaking, Irish-American O'Rourke, with
a wink and nod, has assumed a useful near-Latino identity.
That ruse became a caricature in O'Rourke's 2018 race for
the Texas Senate. The second-generation Cuban-American incumbent, Sen.
Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz, was portrayed by the media as the
non-Spanish-speaking "white guy" pitted against the more authentic
Irish-American Latino "Beto."
Few would know that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio
was actually born with the alliterative European name Warren Wilhelm Jr. With
today's politically correct calibrations of avoiding Northern European
nomenclature, the Latinate "de Blasio" apparently ranks higher than
the overtly German "Wilhelm."
It has long been a populist tradition that presidential
candidates downplay their financial success or even fabricate a "born in a
log cabin" myth of early poverty and adversity. But recently, Democratic
candidates have taken that trope to identity-politics extremes.
Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro emphasizes his
common-man Latino roots. But Castro never spoke fluent Spanish. Castro's
parents were solidly middle-class, and he took Latin and Japanese in school.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) often poses as a spokesman for
the African American inner-city and is hoping to gain the nomination on the
strength of his minority bona fides. But Booker grew up in the affluent and
nearly all-white suburbs of New Jersey, the child of two IBM executives who
sent him to Stanford, after which he became a Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law
School graduate.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) attacked
former Vice President Joe Biden in a recent debate by claiming that his
opposition some 40 years ago to court-mandated busing had endangered her own
chance at a good primary-school education. Perhaps.
But the city of Berkeley,
where Harris briefly lived in as a child before migrating to Canada, was
well-integrated. A local school district, not a federal court, instituted
the busing program she joined. Both of her parents have Ph.D.s, one a former
Stanford professor, the other a scientist who often flew the young Harris to
India to visit relatives.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) is running again as an
unapologetic socialist, waging rhetorical class warfare against the haves on
behalf of the have-nots. But while Sanders was often underemployed in his
earlier years, after a lifetime of public office he is now a millionaire. He
reportedly owns three homes and earned nearly $1 million from book royalties in
both 2016 and 2017.
All of these candidates are running hard against President
Donald Trump, the assumed wealthier, whiter and more toxic male in the White
House.
Trump may be many things, and he may exaggerate data and
fudge facts. But he at least seems authentically Trump. He does not claim to
be a poor victim, but instead brags on, or even exaggerates, his billions.
Trump does not downplay his politically
incorrect Scottish and German background. Instead, he often
emphasizes both to the point of overstatement.
He always appears with his customary comb-over hair,
orange tan, long tie, and suit, and he speaks in the same Queens accent whether
he is talking to Alabama farmers, West Virginia miners, or Michigan auto
workers.
In contrast, Trump's Democratic rivals do not
seem especially forthcoming about who they are.
When convenient, they play down their advanced degrees, the success of their
parents, their own advantaged upbringings, successful assimilation, and
stereotypically bourgeois lives. And based on their attacks on front-runner
Biden, they seem to want to distance themselves from anyone
upper-middle-class, white, male, heterosexual, Christian, or old.
Yet at this late date in the American republic, it is
hard to find middle-aged presidential candidates without successful business or
political backgrounds, much less any who were or are poor — or who are
victimized women or ostracized minorities.
No matter. The mantra of the new progressive movement is
that racism, misogyny and class oppression are everywhere — and that no one is
better acquainted with such endemic hatred than upscale Democratic candidates,
who have supposedly lived through such ordeals.
No wonder such fantasies so often result in farce.
