Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was un-ironically invited to speak at the DNC’s Native American Caucus meeting on Tuesday but the online chat was forced to shut down when the livestream got swarmed by trolls and outraged onlookers.
Warren’s self-identifying American Indian heritage was brought to a sudden halt in 2018 after a DNA test proved she only had a negligible 1/1024th Native American ancestry. She was accused of masquerading as a “person of color” to propel her professional career. President Donald Trump gave her the nickname “Pocahontas” as a result of the fiasco.
“Pocahontas (the bad version), sometimes referred to as Elizabeth Warren, is getting slammed. She took a bogus DNA test and it showed that she may be 1/1024, far less than the average American,” Trump once tweeted.
Former Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D), invited followers to the online event, posting on Twitter, “I’m excited for the DNC Native American Caucus meeting today. Please join @Deb4CongressNM, @sharicedavids, @ewarren, and me (and whole bunch of other good folks) today!”
The Washington Examiner reported Trump’s inner circle condemned the event, which was featured as part of this week’s Democratic National Convention, and mercilessly teasing Warren about her disproven Native American lineage.
“The DNC is including ***Elizabeth Warren*** as one of the participants in its Native American Caucus meeting today,” Deputy Director of Communications for Research with the Trump campaign, Zach Parkinson, posted earlier on Tuesday in a tweet.
“Can’t make it up,” he continued before suggesting that Rachel Dolezal would be a guest speaker at a DNC Black Caucus. Dolezal is famously a white woman who resigned from the NAACP in 2015 after getting busted for pretending to be black.
??
The DNC is including ***Elizabeth Warren*** as one of the participants in its Native American Caucus meeting today
Can’t make it up pic.twitter.com/KDDjvyzTnq
— Zach Parkinson (@AZachParkinson) August 18, 2020
The troll community recruited others to enter the live chat to mock Warren and her fake Native American heredity. “Pocahontas” was used quite a few times to reference Warren, and people in the chat also reminded her about the “1/1024” from her DNA test, which proved her earliest Native American ancestor was from “6-10 generations ago.”
“Will @ewarren be speaking for 1/1024% the amount of time the actual Native Americans will be speaking?” one poster wrote.
Another added “Let me preface this by saying I am voting for Joe Biden. But, with that said, how is it nobody at the DNC recognized the optics of @ewarren coming anywhere near the Native American Caucus? Perhaps what happened was overblown. But, why poke that bear?”
One commenter posted “Hi my name is Elizabeth Warren and I’m here to take your culture for my own personal benefit.”
Some Warren fans attending the online event begged the trolls to be civil while posting in the chat.
“Please be respectful. No matter your opinion on Sen. Warren’s heritage, she established one of the strongest platforms for Indian Country,” a poster wrote, according to the Washington Examiner. “Please do not alienate her. We need all the help we can get.”
Event organizers realized this may not be the best idea as the flood of jokes continued and they pulled the plug on the messaging feature a half hour before Warren’s appearance, to the satisfaction of some trolls.
“They disabled the chat! We’ve singlehandedly set a new land speed record for bullying the DNC into silencing free speech!” wrote one commenter.
During her speech, Warren used Tuesday’s Native American Caucus meeting to blast Trump by criticizing the president’s removal of reservation status for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.
“I say it’s time to have a president who will fight even harder, but this time to protect Indian country,” the Warren said. “With Joe Biden in office, Indian country will not need to worry about that kind of disrespect any longer.”