The Bubble: Trump's Pocahontas comment wasn't racist because Warren isn't Native American, conservative says

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During an event at the White House honoring Native American World War II veterans, President Trump referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren as ‘Pocahontas.’ Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said it’s not a racial slur.
USA TODAY

Each week, USA TODAY’s OnPolitics blog takes a look at how media from the left and the right reacted to a political news story, giving liberals and conservatives a peek into the other’s media bubble.

This week, liberals were infuriated after President Trump insulted Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on Monday by once again calling her “Pocahontas” — this time at an event to honor Navajo Code Talkers who used their language to keep messages secret during World War II.

Trump has used the historical figure, Pocahontas, as a nickname for Warren to criticize her claims of Native American heritage. While many conservatives were critical of Trump for choosing the occasion honoring Native American veterans as the time to attack Warren, many also thought it was absurd to call Trump’s comment racist and said the media overreacted.  

Last week: Time for another look at Trump’s accusers, liberals say

From the right: ‘Pocahontas’ comment wasn’t racist because Warren isn’t Native American

The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway said it is “beyond reasonable” to criticize Trump for “mucking up a ceremony honoring World War II heroes” by using it to attack Warren. But instead, the media “did what they have done so well for the last couple of years. They matched Trump’s lack of good sense with even greater silliness.” 

Hemingway said calling Trump’s Pocahontas label racist is “idiotic” because “there is zero evidence that Warren is Cherokee, as she claimed for years.” 

The typical insult for Warren among her critics isn’t Pocahontas, but “Fauxcahontas.” For some reason Trump just goes with Pocahontas. These are not insults of Native Americans, but of people falsely claiming to be Native Americans. And one need not be that smart to understand that …

The only way the Pocahontas insult makes sense is as a joke about Warren’s false claim of being Native American. He’s not insulting her for being a Native American, because she’s not Native American

More: Is ‘Pocahontas’ a racial slur? Eric Trump defends his dad, but Native Americans say otherwise

From the left: Here’s why it was racist 

Despite the claims of Trump’s supporters, Trump’s “Pocahontas” crack was racist, “Because calling someone by a stereotypical name that is not their own because of their alleged ethnic or racial background is racist,” said The Root‘s Michael Harriot. 

“But here is the biggest reason Trump’s nasty nickname is racist: because Native Americans said so,” Harriot wrote, citing National Congress of American Indians President Jefferson Keel’s objection to Trump using the name as a slur. 

Harriot derided the idea that white people “believe that they can decide for nonwhite people whether something is racist or not.”

Not only do they think they can do whatever they want, but they also believe that they should be able to control people’s responses to their actions.

And if you think I’ve contradicted myself by stereotyping white people, you might be right. I might be a little bit racist.

But I like to call it “presidential.”

More: Readers on ‘Pocahontas’ remark: Trump is just petty and childish

From the right: Warren should be thanking Trump

The only thing worse than a politician who uses “an alleged racial slur” is the politician who fundraises off it, said Philip Wegmann in the Washington Examiner. 

After Trump called her Pocahontas, Warren “wasted little time before fundraising off the incident,” Wegmann wrote. “Proving she could paint with the colors of liberal outrage, the progressive fired off a fundraising email less than 12 hours after the incident.” 

The truth is that Warren has no room to complain. Outrage is a valuable political currency. It picks people up off the couch, moves them to the kitchen table and their checkbooks. It then carries them outside to the mailbox — campaign contribution in hand …

Warren can’t really be outraged. If anything, she should thank the president. He’s helping her fill her war chest.

More: What does Mulvaney’s appointment mean for the future of CFPB?

From the left: Trump lied about his own heritage

In The Atlantic, David Graham pointed out the irony that Trump mocked “a senator who claimed Cherokee descent, by using a Powhatan name” weeks after proclaiming this month to be National Native American Heritage Month. 

Trump’s comment was astonishing. During an event honoring a specific group of Native American veterans of the Second World War, Trump suddenly veered into congratulating the men as exemplars of the all Native American peoples since time immemorial. He did so while standing in front of a portrait of Jackson, infamous for driving Native Americans out of the southeastern United States. And he used the ceremony to snipe at a political rival, delivering a personal insult while using an offensive nickname.

Graham cited a 1993 discussion about Native American casinos — in which Trump told radio host Don Imus, “I think I might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians that are trying to open up the reservations” — as well as Trump’s past denial of his German heritage, to argue that the administration “should perhaps be careful about casting this particular stone in their glass house.” 

More: It’s not just ‘Rocket Man.’ Trump has long history of nicknaming his foes

From the right: Trump’s insult didn’t help anything 

The Pocahontas comment was “classic Donald Trump,” said The Weekly Standard‘s Michael Warren, adding that “the setting was inappropriate,” “the comment was immaterial to the event” and “there was no point.” 

“What should concern the White House (beyond the president’s cringe-inducing utterances) is that his name-calling distracts from a potential substantive policy victory — namely the wresting away control from liberals the leadership of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” Warren wrote.

He added that “needlessly targeting Warren for ridicule in the middle of a CFPB leadership dispute — and about which Warren was already scheduled to speak on numerous TV networks — makes Trump’s attempts to change the agency look less principled and more personal.”

More: What the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau battle means to you

From the left: ‘A slur against all mixed-race Americans’

Trump’s attacks on Warren “descended to a new low Monday” and slurred not only the senator, but “all American families whose histories include ancestors of differing races,” historian Martha Jones wrote in The Washington Post. 

Jones said for millions of Americans, race is “no straightforward matter” and that “a family history of race can never be reduced to a precise result.” Even definitions of race are fluid, she said, pointing out that for much of U.S. history a person with a single black ancestor was considered black, while people with as much as 1/16 Native American ancestry were considered white. 

Jones also pointed out that Warren is from Oklahoma, which she said was labeled an Indian territory until 1907 and where more than twice the national average of residents report being of more than one race. 

More: Trump calls Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ while hosting Native American vets event

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