Efforts to smear, co-opt and deflate protesters who demand the US end support for the Gaza genocide are well underway.
The Democratic National Convention is taking place this week in Chicago, and efforts to smear, co-opt and deflate the planned massive protests — and the Uncommitted movement within the convention itself — are already underway. Since securing the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Vice President Kamala Harris has not only refused to signal any real break from President Joe Biden’s Gaza policy of lockstep support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, instead she has reaffirmed it.
Those committed to pressing Democratic Party leadership into ending their arming of Israel have not let up their pressure campaign. After all, the supply of weapons stands in violation of both U.S. and international law (namely, the January International Court of Justice ruling compelling states to cease selling arms to Israel). Despite the party and the presidential campaign’s best efforts to distance Harris from Biden’s deeply unpopular support for Israel’s destruction of Gaza with “I See You, I Hear You” bromides and Brat summer “Gen-Z powered” memeing, those focused on actual policy are not budging from their demand that the United States cease arming an ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Under the banner of “party unity,” those tasked with ridding the partisan pep rally of anything that has the vaguest whiff of unrest and discontent are already deploying a set of familiar talking points to belittle, disparage and undermine efforts to pressure Harris into committing to end U.S. support for Israel’s countless war crimes in Gaza. Here are some of those talking points — and why they’re unconvincing.
1. “Why didn’t pro-Gaza activists protest the Republican National Convention?”
This is a popular (and lazy) way to belittle protestors of Democratic politicians that has a very attractive superficial appeal. Setting aside the fact that pro-Palestine protesters, including members of the Coalition to March on the DNC, did protest the RNC in Milwaukee in July and protested Donald Trump’s recent visit to Chicago, this feigned whataboutism fundamentally misunderstands how protesting and pressure work.
Let us illustrate a basic point about Activism 101, because it can be a bit confusing: Imagine there’s a city council with five members, and a plan to remove cars from the street is up for debate. Two members are funded by the car industry and reject the plan out of hand, two already support getting rid of cars, and the fifth and final member is undecided but claims to support safe street measures. If I’m an activist — and I occupy a universe of limited resources — which council person am I going to spend my capital lobbying for the proposal? Whose office should anti-car activists protest outside of? The answer is common sense.
Activism is about intervening in the most efficient manner possible for your cause — it is not an expression of abstract moral preferences.
But in the context of Gaza protests, many observers play stupid as to why the nominally liberal, pro-human-rights party would be the subject of the most pressure from those seeking to end the genocide in Gaza. And this is even setting aside the fact that it is the Biden-Harris administration funding and arming this particular genocide at the moment, not Republicans.
