Daniel Strauss and Amanda Chen have compiled a list of Georgia senate candidate and Trump follower Herschel Walker’s “Nine Most Stupendous, Ridiculous, and Offensive Lies”.
The most recent is his claim that his grandmother is a Cherokee. He said his mother told him this recently but she herself has downplayed the claim.
At a little-noticed campaign event late last month, Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker announced with great fanfare that his grandmother was “full-blood Cherokee” and that it means he is Native American.
“My mom just told me that my mom, grandmother, was full-blood Cherokee,” Walker said at the Sept. 28 event in Forsyth, Georgia. “So I’m Native American!”
…Walker hasn’t offered any evidence to back up his claims about having Native ancestry beyond saying it’s what his mother told him.
Two did not respond. But a spokesperson for Cherokee Nation, the largest tribal government in the U.S. with more than 360,000 citizens, said it has no record of Walker in its database of citizens.
…So HuffPost went directly to the source of Walker’s claims: his mother, who said she has no idea if an immediate ancestor was full-blooded Cherokee.
Instead, Christine Walker said she grew up hearing stories about her father’s mother ― so, Herschel Walker’s great-grandmother ― being “kin” to the tribe.
“She was kin to Cherokee,” she said during a brief phone interview on Wednesday. “Back when I was a little child running around, she was kin to the Cherokee.” Asked to clarify what she meant by that, she said her grandmother was believed to be related to Cherokee peoples in some way, but she didn’t know how.
“I don’t know how far back” her apparent Cherokee ancestry went, she said. “See, my grandmother, she passed when I was quite young. I don’t know too much about how she was connected.”
At least Walker’s mother is careful about her words.
It is astonishing that Trump has remade the political landscape to such an extent that being a proven serial liar is no longer a disqualification for a Republican seeking public office. Hell, it might even be seen as plus by some in the party.
It is curious how many Americans are eager to claim even a slight trace of Native American ancestry. Perhaps it is to distance themselves from the genocide perpetrated on them, by claiming to be descendants of the victims.
H. Walker is the ideal republican candidate. He won’t think, he won’t plan, he won’t do anything other than reliably vote the way party leadership tells him to.
In the post-Trump era, we have found the purest, distilled MAGA political candidate.
If not the political balance was at stake it would be hilarious to have him in Washington, disgracing his colleagues again and again.
“It is curious how many Americans are eager to claim even a slight trace of Native American ancestry.”
Raises hand, although I don’t eagerly claim it. It’s just the way it is. Most of my ancestors tried to commit genocide against some other ancestors. In also have ancestors that fought in the Revolutionary War and on both sides of the Civil War. There is nothing I can do about any of it.
Basically, just before the Civil War, white Southerners claimed Cherokee ancestry as a way to say that their white ancestors had been in the southern US for generations -- when the first settlers arrived, there were some marriages between Cherokees and Europeans to create alliances. The claim was a “Southern Pride” thing. The vast majority of these claims were false, but if you grew up being told by your grandparents that you had Cherokee blood in you, it was easy to believe it.
Interesting. Elizabeth Warren mentioned that her family told the story of having a Native American ancestor. Republicans seized on it and howled for her to “PROVE IT”. She took a DNA tests and proved yes, indeed, she had a Native America ancestor. Trump then called her “Pocahontas” and his rabid, deluded base made a huge crazy deal over…the truth.
Walker being Walker, he couldn’t speak a coherent sentence to save his life and his claim (that contradicts what his mother said) is embraced by Trump’s base.
#5 Katydid,
I’m (mostly) a fan of Elizabeth Warren, but the truth of that incident is a lot messier than you described. Before the DNA test, she had nothing but family lore to go on and anybody who has watched a few episodes of Finding Your Roots knows how reliable that is. Yet, The Washington Post reported that in 1986, Warren identified her race as “American Indian” on a State Bar of Texas write-in form used for statistical information gathering. She had no idea which ancestor contributed the native genes. She was never exposed to any sort of native culture, and was in fact raised as a typical white American, yet she decided to identify herself that way.
When the DNA test was done, it found that Warren’s ancestry is mostly European but “strongly support[ed] the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor”, likely “in the range of 6 to 10 generations ago”. So, she is somewhere between 1/64 and 1/1024 Native American, and she STILL can’t name the ancestor.
It whiffs to me of cultural appropriation.
Walker is far from the best candidate the republicans could have put in the race. I don’t think he was candid with the people who encouraged him to run.
I don’t much care for Dr. Oz either, but it baffles me how a basket case/geek show like Fetterman has any support at all.
txpiper:
Really? Very Christian of you.
Dude had a stroke, but his cognitive abilities are fine, and his policies are amenable to many. You know, the things that matter for the job.
That’s probably why.
(Hopefully you are now less baffled)
“his policies are amenable to many”
.
I’m sure they are, the policies and the many.
If you are sure, then “how a basket case/geek show like Fetterman has any support at all.” should be evident to you.
Whence your supposed bafflement, then?
(You reveal yourself with your description of people recovering from a stroke)
I expect a lot out of federal public servants. Fetterman reveals himself by not withdrawing and recovering on his own dime and his own time.
!
Yes what a bastard he is, being determined to do an important job instead of fucking off by himself to leave said important job to a certifiable moron and many times liar.
Meanwhile, where is your concern for Walker? His addled thinking is likely the result of repeated concussions, shouldn’t he also take a convalescence break?
“determined to do an important job”
.
Well, don’t lose hope yet. Oz is still trailing in a very recent poll. Uncle Fester Goes to Washington could very well still happen.
So now a jab at his appearance? Nice priorities you have, preferring as you do a known liar and con artist.
Hey pippy, do you follow “Dr.” Oz’s advice to drink your own urine?