this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
92 points (93.4% liked)
Chapotraphouse
14294 readers
719 users here now
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
i completely disagree tactically. never play defense. Zohran's strength is that he offers positive things.
it's also empanada's second channel so really nobody should be watching it or taking it seriously but we came from the chapo subreddit so whatever.
I think playing defense here would be defending "globalize the intifada". It... isn't really an actionable phrase. It has nothing to do with their platform.
And what if people want to see someone standing for something with rigour? What many are claiming is that the "bravado" about really held positions is how you win. I don't always agree with that, but here I do. And losing while maintaining your positions is more likely to move more people left. Giving in and then losing is disastrous for the left. It's why it's a strategic failure, I think, to have not held his position strongly
I just disagree entirely about it making anything more difficult at all to hold his position. It's easy to relate it to material positions that he holds through small rhetorical tricks and then he will be doing both good through rhetoric and through his material policies. For New York his material policies are important, but everyone knows he's more than that at this moment. And he's giving that up too easily. Now his failure is a strategic loss instead of also being a possible strategic step forward. And his winning is less of a strategic win than if he'd told them to fuck off.
Het didn't even have to say the word intifada, just ignore it as a stupid attack and reiterate that he supports 1 state of equal rights in historic Palestine/current Israel.
Disagree on Corbyn, he gave in immediately and constantly, trying to appease the Zionist cries for investigations instead of dismissing them. (He could've done a real check that there weren't tons of real anti-Semitism without the rhetorical loss he gave immediately)
I didn't say it was the only way to win the election, I said it's the way that his success or loss can matter most for a broader movement.
It seems I'm arguing why rhetoric can have material impact, and you're arguing that the rhetoric will be blamed afterwards. The unfalsifiability is exactly why it'll be used like that for or against a broader left movement whether you want it to or not, so might as well play your hand well
Why does that disagree with me? To be a national movement with any power, it can't do these simple rhetorical concessions for nothing. It's a terrible strategy if that's the goal. People want someone representing the popular opinion of leftists about Israel, not someone willing to concede when pushed hard enough. That's how you lose that cycle
He hasn't lost any election, but he lost a strategic public image for no reason because he was likely to win the race either way! And now, if he loses, he didn't even prove anything about how terrible the propaganda machine is to expand the grassroots organizing! The energy will leave if he does anything more. I care way less now that I feel like he's slowly turning into Corbyn. I hope he can flip that, but the energy will dissipate because of such a thing. We've seen it often. It doesn't make him a DNC sellout, I disagree with comparing him to AOC. I think Corbyn is much more relevant, and he didn't learn the lesson. He's a radical that thinks downplaying that is strategic instead of uplaying it, and it won't help in the battle but will lose the war if he stays on that path. So hopefully hearing that you think we're more aligned than before?