On Friday, MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi bemoaned far-left Senator Elizabeth Warren quitting the 2020 presidential race, lionizing her as a “dream candidate” who “laid out policies the way a scientist publishes findings in a peer-reviewed journal.” In frustration, he wailed: “What’s enough? What does a woman to have to do?”
“And when Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren kicked off her campaign last February, she sought to shatter that final glass ceiling in American politics,” Velshi announced at the top of the segment. He then gushed over the Democrat’s candidacy: “She released a slew of detailed policy plans, she took over 100,000 photos with supporters, and she brought energy and enthusiasm to every single debate.” The frustrated host declared: “But apparently that’s not enough.”
Velshi then seized on a sycophantic article claiming that Warren was just too “competent” for voters: “The Atlantic summed up Warren’s run in this headline, quote, ‘America Punished Elizabeth Warren for Her Competence.’ It reads in part, quote, ‘The country still doesn’t know what to make of a woman – in politics, and beyond – who refuses to qualify her success.’”
Turning to a pair of liberal pundits, Velshi proclaimed:
Elizabeth Warren...laid out policies the way a scientist publishes findings in a peer-reviewed journal. Right? She laid it all – for a policy-oriented journalist like me, it’s a dream candidate, because everything she says is written down, you can challenge it, and many did challenge it. I don’t know what – and this is not a political statement about who you should support in the election – I don’t know what a more perfect candidate looks like, in terms of policy, wherever you are on the ideological spectrum.
Completely glossing over all of Warren’s extreme policy proposals, the anchor fretted: “How much of Elizabeth Warren’s lack of success was her actual policy and ideology versus the fact that it’s just – it’s hard for a woman to succeed in this place?”
Velshi continued to whine about Warren’s failed campaign and kept insisting sexism must be the reason why she didn’t gain traction:
What is it about America and a woman president? I just say this noting that of major industrialized countries, we’re one of the last to have a woman leader....I think most people will tell you or believe, whether they were supporting Elizabeth Warren or not, that she was authentic. What’s enough? What does a woman to have to do? What’s enough?
He never explained how a woman who lied about having Native American heritage could possibly be considered “authentic” by anyone.
Here is a transcript of the March 6 segment:
3:17 PM ET
ALI VELSHI: The 2020 race for the White House began with the most diverse field of Democrats ever, after voters sent a record-breaking number of women to Congress back in 2018. And when Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren kicked off her campaign last February, she sought to shatter that final glass ceiling in American politics. She released a slew of detailed policy plans, she took over 100,000 photos with supporters, and she brought energy and enthusiasm to every single debate. But apparently that’s not enough. And now that she’s exited the race, Democrats are left with two major contenders, both white men in their late 70s.
The Atlantic summed up Warren’s run in this headline, quote, “America Punished Elizabeth Warren for Her Competence.” It reads in part, quote, “The country still doesn’t know what to make of a woman – in politics, and beyond – who refuses to qualify her success.”
Joining me now, Aimee Allison, the founder of She the People. Also with us, Soraya Chemaly, the director of Women’s Media Center Speech Project. Welcome to both of you, thank you for being with us.
Elizabeth Warren, Soraya, laid out policies the way a scientist publishes findings in a peer-reviewed journal. Right? She laid it all – for a policy-oriented journalist like me, it’s a dream candidate, because everything she says is written down, you can challenge it, and many did challenge it. I don’t know what – and this is not a political statement about who you should support in the election – I don’t know what a more perfect candidate looks like, in terms of policy, wherever you are on the ideological spectrum. How much of Elizabeth Warren’s lack of success was her actual policy and ideology versus the fact that it’s just – it’s hard for a woman to succeed in this place?
SORAYA CHEMALY [WOMEN’S MEDIA CENTER SPEECH PROJECT DIRECTOR]: You know, those are so closely tangled it’s virtually impossible to say what the weight of each is. I think the paradox that was described in The Atlantic article and has been described by scholars for a long time is that the more competent a woman is, the more she proves that she’s capable, the less likely are – people are to like her. And so, it’s a dynamic inverse relationship between these two thing that ends up hurting a woman candidate, when, in fact, “normally,” quote/unquote, which means according to the standards of white men, it would help her.
VELSHI: Let me read you a little more from the article, Aimee. “She is” – talking about Elizabeth Warren – “She is competence incarnate. She has a plan for that, just in general. She is unapologetically-and-unavoidably-credentialed. She is a professor at Harvard. She created the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau. She embraces those facts as assets. Which is also to say that, on the campaign trail, she has done what campaigning requires candidates to do: She has sung her own praises. She has sold her own story.”
What’s your take on this, Aimee? Because what you and your organization have done is you have seen women be elected in other places with remarkable success. What is it about America and a woman president? I just say this noting that of major industrialized countries, we’re one of the last to have a woman leader.
AIMEE ALLISON [SHE THE PEOPLE FOUNDER]: Absolutely. You know, let’s give her a little credit. Elizabeth Warren, the Senator, did better in this run for president than Joe Biden did in his first two attempts. And I think we need to give her credit for breaking ground. The thing out of that long laundry list of competence and her being just an excellent candidate and leader, one of the things she did was she really showed what a campaign that values women of color and collaboratively creating policy that address race and gender, as well as the economy, looks like. And the exit from the race, I don’t think we – anyone can underestimate the level of grief that millions of people are feeling right now without her presence, her voice there. And people are wondering, you know, what to do next.
(...)
3:22 PM
VELSHI: I think most people will tell you or believe, whether they were supporting Elizabeth Warren or not, that she was authentic. What’s enough? What does a woman to have to do? What’s enough?
ALLISON: Yeah. I really think it’s the kind of thing that’s set up for women to fail no matter how they try to contort themselves.
(...)
