Donald Trump Tweeted An Apparent Trail Of Tears Joke About Elizabeth Warren


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America’s current president is a bit of an odd duck, with a bottomless well of unexpected and often alarming eccentricities. One of his strangest? His obsession not only with Senator Elizabeth Warren, but with her claims — since largely verified by a DNA test — that she has Native American ancestry going back about six-to-ten generations ago. Because of this — and because he doesn’t much like women in general, and vice versa — Donald J. Trump likes to call her “Pocahontas,” which is definitely not racist. He also likes to repeatedly point out that he came up with the name, which delights and amuses his definitely not racist supporters.

Only a few weeks after making a joke about the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre that was probably distasteful, to put it lightly, Trump is back at it again. Saturday Warren formally added herself to the Democratic presidential line-up for 2020. It was only a matter of time for Trump to bust out some “Pocahontas” action. It only took a couple hours.

“Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for President,” tweeted a repeatedly bankrupt businessman who lost the popular vote and had to rely on the very Electoral College he used to disparage before it put him in the most powerful position on the planet. “Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!”

Why the all-caps? It didn’t take long for social media heads to figure that one out.

https://twitter.com/joshscampbell/status/1094372848896897024

Once it was all but clear the trail in question was the Trail of Tears — the forced relocation by the U.S. government of Native Americans to the West in the 19th century, which resulted in thousands and thousands of deaths — people were not, shall we say, amused.

https://twitter.com/Yeggo/status/1094374458666700801

https://twitter.com/misslaneym/status/1094383247612669953

Some were shocked the former reality TV host knows what the Trail of Tears was to begin with.

Or maybe they shouldn’t be shocked. After all, this is a president whose favorite predecessor is Andrew Jackson.

https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1094380169119199232

https://twitter.com/bendreyfuss/status/1094372944925655045

https://twitter.com/4everNeverTrump/status/1094383156772229120

Actually, perhaps it was simply his former staffer Steve Bannon who taught him this historical tidbit.

And of course, there’s Trump’s aforementioned crack about Wounded Knee.

https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1094384972847349760

Just a reminder that it’s not just Trump making questionable Native American jokes, in 2019, no less. Another famous person getting in on the race-based humor craze is a certain beloved Parks and Recreation alum who once made a sex tape of him having sex with a 16-year-old girl.

Meanwhile, one of the president’s sons thought it was cool to Instagram a screengrab of a Trump fan cheering on the continued “Native American genocide.”

https://twitter.com/fiondavision/status/1094400353762721794

Anyway, does any of this mean Trump has finally gone too far? To quote Cher: As if. Trump’s mien can be summed up by a stray line in the Blur deep cut “Moving On”: “No matter how low there’s always somewhere to go.”