Warren for President 2020

I wrote about the stereotype of Elizabeth Warren as nerdy professor/Poindexter/Lisa Simpson, and why it both underrates her exceptional charisma and betrays our inability to handle smart women: https://t.co/nACDJTCaYx

— Sady Doyle (@sadydoyle) March 22, 2019

Unless, of course, you’re the type of ‘edgy’ media village idiot who thinks Bart Simpson is the president America really needs:

… Warren is bursting with what we might call “charisma” in male candidates: She has the folksy demeanor of Joe Biden, the ferocious conviction of Bernie Sanders, the deep intelligence of fellow law professor Barack Obama. But Warren is not a man, and so those traits are framed as liabilities, rather than strengths. According to the media, Warren is an uptight schoolmarm, a “wonky professor,” a scold, a wimpy Dukakis, a wooden John Kerry, or (worse) a nerdier Al Gore.

The criticism has hit her from the left and right. The far-right Daily Caller accused her of looking weird when she drank beer; on social media, conservatives spread vicious (and viciously ableist) rumors that Warren took antipsychotic drugs that treated “irritability caused by autism.” On the other end of the spectrum, Amber A’Lee Frost, the lone female co-host of the socialist podcast Chapo Trap House, wrote for The Baffler (and, when The Baffler retracted her article, for Jacobin) that Warren was “weak” and “not charismatic.” Frost deplored the “Type-A Tracy Flicks” who dared support “this Lisa Simpson of a dark-horse candidate.”…

There’s an element of gaslighting here: It only takes a reporter a few sources — and an op-ed columnist a single, fleeting judgment — to declare a candidate “unlikable.” After that label has been applied, any effort the candidate makes to win people over can be cast as “inauthentic.” Likability is in this way a self-reinforcing accusation, one which is amplified every time the candidate tries to tackle it. (Recall Hillary Clinton, who was asked about her “likability” at seemingly every debate or town hall for eight straight years — then furiously accused of pandering every time she made an effort to seem more “approachable.”)…

Warren is cast as a bloodless intellectual when she focuses on policy, a scolding lecturer when she leans into her skills as a rabble-rouser; either way, her intelligence is always too much and out of place. Her eloquence is framed, not as inspiring, but as “angry” and “hectoring.” Being an effective orator makes her “strident.” It’s not solely confined to the media, but reporters seem anxious to signal-boost anyone who complains: Anonymous male colleagues call her “irritating,” telling Vanity Fair that “she projects a ‘holier than thou’ attitude” and that “she has a moralizing to her.” That same quality in male candidates is hailed as moral clarity.

Warren is accused, in plain language, of being uppity — a woman who has the bad grace to be smarter than the men around her, without downplaying it to assuage their egos. But running in a presidential race is all about proving that you are smarter than the other guy. By demanding that Warren disguise her exceptional talents, we are asking her to lose. Thankfully, she’s not listening. She is a smart woman, after all.

LOL, yes. Or speak into some kind of voice box that makes her sound like Darth Vader.

— Sady Doyle (@sadydoyle) March 22, 2019

I came to see if anyone had mentioned this. If Elizabeth Warren is Lisa Simpson then she is the chosen one from the prophecy to save us from Trump! But seriously who wouldn’t want Lisa Simpson as president- she’s an ideal candidate.

— Sarah Featonby (@sarah_featonby) March 22, 2019

Related: I find that Warren's audiences, more than other candidates', comment on the way out that they were surprised at how "down to earth" she was. https://t.co/XIQiYuHm8g

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 22, 2019

Election 2020 Open Thread: Elizabeth Warren Is Not Lisa SimpsonPost + Comments (110)