Paywall removed: https://archive.is/Ngr8G
Haven’t you read his own self report of his motivation? He cares so much about left wing causes that he’s decided to accomplish them by making a part time job out of attacking the most left wing person (whoever that might be) in this election for a variety of made up reasons.
It’s a hugely effective strategy. MLK did the exact same thing; he just made up hostile nonsense about the most civil-rights-friendly candidate at any given time, and presto! It pushed them to the left. That’s how we got the voting rights act and all this other good stuff.
I understand the logic, and it’s actually fairly shrewd. But in practice here, it’s looking to me a lot like just shitting on a candidate and sapping enthusiasm on topics that she does not currently have agency to act on. And then there’s the electoral pragmatism angle, in the context of an election where the other party has been subsumed by overt fascists and Nationalist Christians.
I don’t mean to demean or diminish the struggle of Palestinians, or any number of other extremely important causes. But failing to win this election is going to destroy so, so much. So my argument is that this is a “stop the fascists at all costs” situation, and confusing and snarling the issues like this is counterproductive. There’s a time and a place for that strategy, and I just don’t think this is the appropriate time.
he just made up hostile nonsense about the most civil-rights-friendly candidate at any given time
Just checking in: is THIS article made up hostile nonsense? Or are you vaguely referring to some other thing
Correct.
If you want to evaluate the candidates on their energy policies (for some fuckin reason, as if it is necessary to have a comparison between these two on the merits), you can check into what each of them wants to do, and how much sense it makes.
If you want to pressure the Democrats to be more climate friendly in their policies, probably the best way is just to educate voters about what a vital issue it is (change the calculus of what positions will win or lose them elections), or maybe make the case to the Democrats that support for the fossil fuel industry isn’t as vital as it used to be (e.g. point to candidates in PA who were openly hostile to the industry who still got elected e.g. Fetterman)
Picking out one random wedge issue, and covering it in terms of whether Harris “flip flopped” between her support for the Green New Deal several years ago which included this one provision and now at this point not really saying much about it, as if that is gonna make anyone better informed about what is going on, makes no sense. It’s just creating a conflict between two random single statements at the very fringes of what a coherent energy / climate policy would even be. But it makes perfect sense if you’re casting about for some random cherry picked thing to say about her that sounds bad (and in a very particular way that will lose her support from both fossil fuel people and climate people, because each of them can focus on one time frame of her position which is alarming to them that they disagree with.)
OK, so your complaint isn’t about the factual nature of the reporting (Harris’s policy stance hasn’t been misrepresented as far as I can tell) your complaint is how it’s being contextualized and presented.
So it’s not “made up” hostile nonsense, it’s maybe just simply “hostile nonsense” from your perspective.