Jul 24, 2019
Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez taking
to Twitter to criticize House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we are told,
“plays into the hands of Trump.” Russians are using Black Lives
Matter and anti-fracking activists to “sow discord,” insists
CNN. We must “be united” rather than
“divided.”
Everywhere we turn we are told by high-status pundits
that we shouldn’t air our criticisms of power at this particular
moment with any reasonable degree of severity lest our mutual
enemies exploit these divisions to empower
themselves.
We
are told again and again that progressives criticizing party
leaders is helping Trump. That fighting Trump’s racism is merely
“playing into his hands,” that we shouldn’t attack other democrats
in the primary too harshly lest it “give us four more years of
Trump.”
But
there’s a major problem with this: There’s no evidence that
intra-party fighting loses elections or assists the "other side."
In many ways, it may actually help engage voters and make them feel
heard, rather than viewed as box-checkers for the already
anointed.
We
are joined by Maximillian Alvarez of the podcast Working
People.