Donald Trump has no idea what has hit him, and it’s a joy to watch
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He’s had yet another horrible week. The old tricks aren’t working. Kamala Harris does not fear him. And it’s showing in the numbers.
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He’s had yet another horrible week. The old tricks aren’t working. Kamala Harris does not fear him. And it’s showing in the numbers.
Hurt them through what mechanism, exactly?
Edit: this is why i constantly have to spell out the implications of your arguments to you, because you bury them in verbose explanations that you hide behind and cry foul when I bring them out into objective language. You're saying that by hurting democrats' electoral chances, it risks bringing more harm to Palestinians because republicans would be worse. But hurting democratic chances is the thing we're actually discussing: any protest against continual Israeli defense aid will hurt democratic chances if and until they commit to stopping the aid. Those protests can only hurt democrats if they continue to avoid addressing the subject of that protest in a satisfactory way.
Kamala has done nothing more than signal support for a ceasefire, but has largely avoided any language that would indicate what she would do if she ran up against the (predictable) resistance of Israel to commit to one. I (and the other protestors) are not satisfied by that ambiguity, so we continue to pressure her campaign to make a firm commitment. A part of that pressure is going to drag down enthusiasm by raising the issue repeatedly, but that is am unavoidable part of protest. That you are satisfied by her soft language around the issue and we are not doesn't suddenly make that form of protest invalid, and claiming something as an objective standard doesn't make that subjectivity disappear.
By getting Trump elected
I already explained it all… I mean it’s fine if you disagree with my calculus and think that what ozma is doing is the best way for good outcomes for Palestinians. I can disagree with that, and it is fine; it’s just talking. But it seems like because what I’m saying isn’t what you want to hear, you keep pretending that I am saying something different (saying that any criticism of Democrats is not allowed or etc), or like it’s too vague to make any sense, or etc etc.
People can have different points of view and still be both aiming for good things. It is possible. They can even talk to each other and understand the points of view without ever really coming to 100% agreement on details. It is actually more common than not; usually the only places where everyone sees it exactly the same way and anyone who disagrees is some wild enemy who’s trying to defeat all the progress, is in weird MAGA-like political monocultures.
... by hurting their reputation through protest.
See my edit above. I haven't misstated your argument at all, I am presenting you with its underlying inconsistency. Referring to your opinion as 'calculus' doesn't suddenly make it objective in any meaningful way. I don't hold my opinion as objective standard, but I also don't accuse those who disagree with me of abuse.
I see the subtle accusation in this statement, and I would probably point out that the 'weird MAGA-like political monoculture' is likely one where protestors are blamed as having 'abuser logic'.
Yes! You have grasped it.
I don’t give a shit inherently about the Democrats’ reputation. I’m fine with actions that may hurt them in the election, as long as they’re aligned with better prospects for the Palestinians. Actions that have a lot of risks on the “getting Trump elected” side and not a lot of benefits on the “getting better behavior from the Democrats” side, I’m not in favor of.
How can that possibly be confusing? I feel like I’ve restated it enough now. If you’re really determined not to pick it up, I will not keep repeating and trying to force you to, though.
It’s not all that subtle. It sounds to me like you’re part of a political monoculture as I described. Most people even in political discussions are not this obstinate about pretending that something they don’t personally agree with must therefore be some crazy thing that doesn’t make any sense, and spending most of your time talking with people who see it exactly like you do is one explanation for maybe how you got to be that way.
Lmao, fuckin.... no, you're not! What could you possibly mean by this? You're fine with hurting democratic chances as long as, what, the alternative candidate is better than or equal-to the democrats when it comes to saving Palestinian lives? Doesn't this mean that you aren't fine with it in our current reality where our only options are Kamala and Trump? Or are you suggesting you'd be ok with it if there was a third-party candidate with a better policy?
Any form of protest risks damaging democratic electoral odds, it is only a matter of degree. I've been saying this the entire time. I'm not at all confused about what it is you're arguing, you just don't like saying it outright because it sounds (and is) arbitrary, petty, and completely subjective. When a protest gets big enough to present a genuine threat to the Democratic electoral machine, suddenly it's the protestors fault for, what, successfully raising the issue and pressuring the democrats? Lol fuuuuuucccckkkk offfffff. If a substantial portion of the electorate is turned off by their stance on an issue being protested, it's not fault of the protestors, it is the thing being protested that's doing the damage. The Palestinian genocide and the US's complicity in it is happening in real-life objective terms. Protestors are simply pointing out the US's continued roll in it and asking the democrats to put an end to it (quite peacefully i might add). Fuck, even simply making a definitive statement or commitment to it would be great, but they continue walking on egg-shells because they still value Israel as an ally more than they care about Israel committing war crimes.
Your "calculus" is simply 'democrats have moved as much as they are willing, and any more protest will hurt their electoral odds, so let's top now'. There is a HUGE, MASSIVE GULF of subjectivity in that thinking. Instead of acknowledging that as subjective, you keep doubling down on what is essentially your personal gut feeling (which, i might point out, has already been proven quite wrong in one notable example this electoral season).
You are entitled to your opinion. I realize you are less optimistic than I am when it comes to realistic political responses, and more pessimistic about the risk of the protests impacting democratic odds. That's perfectly fine. But don't confuse your opinion with objectivity, and certainly don't compare those who disagree with you as 'abusers' (i keep giving you opportunity to amend your language here, but you don't seem like you want to)
I am fine with hurting Democratic chances as a side effect as part of a campaign which will produce better behavior from the Democrats. Sorry, I should have made that clear. I think there’s been a slight (pitifully slight) shift in the Democratic line on Gaza this year, and I think a lot of that is because of how much pro-Palestinian activism was creating real credible threats to them electorally. To me that is fine, that’s a good thing.
It would be great if our system supported a third option, but it doesn’t 😢. Not in this election. I think advocating for reform of the system in the future, and pushing for more humanity from the Democrats, is the best we can do for now.
Anything which actually goes as far as leading to Trump getting elected for real will be an unmitigated catastrophe for the Palestinians (even relative to their existing level of catastrophe which is already hell on earth). I think they might literally all be dead or pushed into Egypt by the end of a Trump term. (They might be at the end of a Harris term, too, but it’s at least less likely).
No. I don’t know how many times I need to keep explaining that this is not what I am saying, or why you keep not listening to me when I do. Do it one more time and I will report you for strawmanning and see if the mods feel that that represents approaching the conversation in bad faith, and either way just end my side of the conversation.
It is highly relevant whether the thing being protested is actually happening.
So e.g. when the uncommitted voters punish the Democrats for their support of Israel, I’m in favor of that. When ozma makes something up about the Democrats that isn’t accurate, which only hurts their chances but doesn’t do anything productive for anyone except Trump, I’m against that.
Why do I keep having to explain this? This is such a weird conversation.
100% agree
I feel like just typing again the same thing I have been typing will not be productive here
Let me try just pure pattern recognition
Is that what I am saying?
Pick one
No, I do not. I can take another stab at explaining it, but first let me ask something: Would you agree that Trump would be an even worse catastrophe for Palestinians (as well as many many other vulnerable people) than a second term of the existing Democratic status quo?
This is it, I think. If it were just about misinformation, we'd be having a different conversation. I don't think anyone here would defend sharing outright false information. But that isn't the only complaint you've had about Ozma; you've complained that they only post bad things about democrats, not just that some of them are incorrect (not even incorrect in entirety, sometimes simply incorrect it its framing, or maybe even factually accurate but simply uncharitable in its framing). I disagree with suggesting that behavior is 'over the line', outside of any alleged misinformation. Similarly, if there are pro-Palestinian protestors at the DNC today, I wouldn't classify those people as ""useful idiots"" (I cannot put enough scare-quotes around this). The democrats have not moved hardly at all on their Israel policy, why wouldn't they be legitimate protestors? I am indignant that I have to keep defending loosely-targeted attacks against protestors coming from you, when you are still being vague about what makes a protest or online protest behavior something that you consider to be "actually leading to Trump getting elected". How the fuck do you measure that? What proof to you have that Ozma or Linkerbann or anyone else is "actually leading to Trump getting elected", or that their building popular discontent around democrats on this issue isn't "helping lead to better behavior from democrats"? Fuck you for accusing me of misrepresenting your argument, when your argument seems completely dependent on some imagined future that only you could possibly see. Honestly, 'actually leading to x' is effectively meaningless. Who the fuck knows if something "actually leads" to something? And it also still incorrectly places the responsibility of the protestor, who is protesting against a policy they would like to see changed, instead of the person in power, who is consistently refusing to take meaningful action toward better policy.
I reject your question.
FFS, how about you apply your logic on your own example, then? If there are massive palestinian protests in the DNC this week that constantly interrupt the proceedings, is that an example of a good or bad protest? Is there additional information that you need to make that determination?
Or maybe online: if there's a user who exclusively posts (factually accurate) information about the Democrat's culpability in the ongoing Palestinian genocide, is that a good or bad protest behavior? What makes it so? How do you know if that behavior "actually leads to x or y outcome" without traveling to the future to see what impact it had?
I'll answer your question with another question: would you agree that supporting any amount of genocide is beyond indefensible? Hint: the answer should be fairly obvious and the question should feel incredibly condescending.
If I wanted to be petty I'd apply your own logic on your own behavior in defending democrats on their inaction. Does mozz's behavior lead to better or worse policy from democrats? Does making excuses for their lack or response improve their policy on Gaza? No? Well fuck, looks like he's just another useful idiot, then. 🤷♂️ Absent any concrete qualifiers i guess anyone or everyone could be a bad-actor
This is totally weird to me. Why would you possibly advocate for any particular course of action, except in terms of what it’s likely to accomplish?
What else would lead you to what you’re deciding to do? Vibes? Allegiance to the group? I’m just lost. I mean of course it’s impossible to know for sure what the outcome will be, but you can at least make an educated guess.
Why else would you do a protest, unless you were aiming to impact the future? That is a serious question.
Hm. So, I just looked over a bunch of Ozma’s recent history and it honestly looks fine. Maybe it’s a little dishonest to characterize one of the main architects of the IRA and the Paris Agreement as “former alum of Blackrock” as if that’s the most relevant thing about him. But I mean basically it’s fine and that’s the only story I have much of any complaint about.
I think most of my complaint about ozma is historical at this point. Back in the day he would do stuff like say Biden betrayed his voters on marijuana policy because he said he would do X Y and Z and then he didn’t. When I pointed out he had done X and Y and tried to do Z but failed, ozma would ignore it and post more memes about how Biden betrayed his voters on marijuana. That to me seems like it implies you don’t give a shit about X Y or Z, or pushing Biden to better marijuana policy, but you do want to try to get Trump elected. That’s weird and counterproductive. To me.
No idea. I’m not even plugged in enough to that culture to know. Probably it’ll be a good thing; anything that’s directly putting pressure on the Democrats and bringing public awareness to the issue will probably be a good thing, because those are two excellent things.
Like I said, I don’t know if there are any people who are doing protests at the DNC who think the answer is to unconditionally blow up support for the Democrats, imply that they caused inflation and they love what Netanyahu’s doing and are cheering him on, and so vote instead for Cornel West. I know they exist on Lemmy, and if they’re in Chicago too, then I would classify those people as useful idiots.
Does that help answer the question?
Dude, I am not asking that as any kind of “gotcha” question or anything. I want to know where you are coming from.
If it’s a choice between blowing up the earth and destroying India or something, and those are the only two possible options, then I would choose destroying India. That’s sort of the type of choice you have to make in modern American politics. If there was a way to lean on the lever to make the blow-up-India explosion smaller, I would definitely support doing that.
If someone was saying, blowing up India is SO BAD that it is indefensible, and so I want to aim a whole bunch of criticism at the blowing up India option (and in a way that seems only in the vaguest of senses to connect with leaning on the lever to make the explosion smaller and in practice seems more likely just to make more likely the blowing-up-earth option), that would alarm the fuck out of me and I would disagree with that person.
I mean doesn’t that make sense? If the alternative is no genocide, then supporting genocide is indefensible. If the alternative is a bigger genocide, then supporting genocide can be an “acceptable” (if you want to call it that) lesser evil. Putting pressure on to reduce the magnitude of the lesser genocide, while also advocating for it to be the lesser and not the greater genocide, sounds perfectly defensible. It sounds right to me.
I doubt anyone from the DNC is on Lemmy. I think the impact of anything I am saying, if any, will be on the voters.
That’s what makes it not make sense to me why shitting on Democrats on Lemmy is supposed to help any Palestinians. It seems more likely to get Trump elected, which will hurt them.
Lmao no it's not, you've been articulating the other reason repeatedly, haven't you? According to you, a great many people protest simply to get Trump elected, right?
There's good news here: there actually is a condition to running interference to democratic support, and it's very well communicated.
The funny thing is that people want to treat the opposition as a monolith, but it's a coalition of various interests just like any other group. If there's a group within the group that is hard-lining a Palestinian liberation movement, the good news is that group likely isn't big enough that you'd need their support. But there's likely some compromise policy that gets the support you need from that larger group without conceding the least practical conditions.
But when you treat them as a monolith, it's easy to complain that nothing you do can appease that group of crazies so they must not be acting in good-faith!
Lol this would be more funny if it weren't so depressing. You don't even see the self-contradiction. It reminds me a little of that conservative minority trope: "our opposition is both laughably weak and existentially dangerous"
Let me try a different tactic: I'll just ask it as a question. Am I supportive of people protesting at the DNC, trying to get the Democrats to improve their policy on Israel by vocally demanding change, and withholding support unless they do?
I've given you the answer as to what my feeling on this is, several times.
Based on your varied responses: sometimes.
It seems to depend a great deal on what you think the likely outcome of that protest is, and if your imagined calculus puts the protest on the wrong side of some imaginary line, suddenly those protestors are 'useful idiots' at best or 'bad-actors' at worst.
Yes. You have grasped it.
If someone's protesting with the most likely result being better outcomes for the Palestinian people (because of useful pressure on the Democratic party, or even better some longer-term reform to our broken system that leaves these as the only two options), then I'm in favor of it.
If someone's protesting in such a way that the most likely result is Trump winning the election and making things 10 times worse for the Palestinians, then I'm against it.
I have no idea why that would be weird or surprising, but yes. There's a little bit of overlap between those two goals, and it's impossible to know the future or the impact of any particular action definitively, but a lot of real-world situations are messy. Them's the breaks.
I describe as "useful idiots" people who are falling for deliberate propaganda which is being deployed to turn them unconditionally against the Democrats, alongside a lot of objectively false criticism, producing only a vague level of improvement to the Democrats' behavior but a strong result of making it more likely that Trump will win, yes. If you're not doing that them I'm fine with you. And I have no idea, as I said, how many (if any) of the DNC protestors will fall into that category in practice. I just know how I categorize people based on the outcomes they're promoting, and I know I see people in that "useful idiot" category on Lemmy. I don't think you're one of them, for the record; that's why I laid out some of the specific accounts I'd describe as more specifically promoting propaganda as opposed to good activism and tried to be specific about it.
Hope this all is helpful; glad we could clear it up.
Jesus christ. Do you consider US culpability in the Palestinian Genocide a part of this 'deliberate propaganda'? At what point does someone protesting against democratic involvement and complacency in Israeli war crimes become someone who is protesting against democrats generally? Is there any grey area that you're willing to acknowledge between these two categorical binaries you've proposed? Can there be a legitimate protest against the democrats, that hurts their odds at winning, but doesn't directly result in a change of policy? If the democrats and the protestors both refuse to bend to the other, is it categorically the protestors' fault if and when trump wins? Even if it isn't apparent that they've lost explicitly because of those protestors? Is it also the fault of the protestors if the democrats adopt a pro-palestinian policy in response to the protestors, AND THEN lose? What i'm gathering from you is that it is ALWAYS the protestors fault for the loss, no matter what the democrats do in response.
Fuck off with your electoral reductionism. The democrats are not helpless here, and they could absolutely be fighting to save palestinian lives and it is 100% their own fault if voters decide they can't support them over it. They are welcome to weigh the electoral calculus to predict how voters might react to their policies but it is completely their own fault if they've chosen the wrong ones.