this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2025
97 points (100.0% liked)
El Chisme
518 readers
1 users here now
Place for posting about the dumb shit public figures say.
Rules:
Rule 1: The subject of a post must be a public person.
Rule 2: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.
Rule 3: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.
Rule 4: No sectarianism.
Rule 5: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome
Rule 6: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)
Rule 7: Do not post fellow hexbears.
Rule 8: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It is an actual tactic to associate radicals with moderates in order to make them look bad to their supporters. Look at the actual meat of the article:
These are actually two unrelated pieces of information. One is that Kahn has been in contact with Mamdani sometime since his primary win, and the other says someone close to Kahn (but not Kahn) advises Mamdani be more moderate. This is a classic yellow journalism tactic and Adam knows that, or he should, given his job.
Keep in mind that liberals can see our dunk posts on twitter. They can actively measure what riles us up by our posting response. This is why social media successfully replaced COINTELPRO. It's not about just spying in terms of movement and action. It's also about sentiment analysis. We're about to hit August and the NYC general is in November. So these kinds of things are going to continue popping up. They perform several functions. 1) To reassure moderates that the adults are handling it 2) To make Mamdani's team seem like there is public pressure on him to be moderate 3) To make Mamdani supporters, who support Palestine, unsure of his commitment.
It's one thing for us to criticize our own, in our own house. But when we're out in public, other people can see it and capitalist establishment will take advantage. I'm not asking anyone here to support Mamdani if you don't want to, I'm not asking you to get into electoralism. I'm just trying to illustrate that we can't take every bit of news that confirms our bias (that people always sell out) at face value. Even when they do eventually sell out. I think AOC is somewhat of a victim of these kinds of tactics, she wasn't ready for it, and now it's too late. Let's see if Zohran is ready for it.
And it's WILDLY SUCCESSFUL as he makes two of the most milquetoast "concessions" imaginable and half the people here who are all hyped up on the Mamdani train literally the week before act like he's fucking Mechahitler Zionismo III running to implement a hundred years of "you fell for it again" like fuck off you dumb motherfuckers, christ, if Im ever running for election you can take it to the fucking bank not a single person on here will be advising me because some of y'all wanna beat the fucking Democrats on Losing Elections, just in a way that lets you go "death to the 1st world unlimited kkkrackkker genocide" on national tv (while you lose an election) because SOME OF Y'ALL SEEM TO THINK THAT'S ACTUALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT AHHHHHHHHHH
I appreciate the freudian slip of comparing advocating for the Intifada to advocating for genocide. Very moderate and electable.
is that something he did or something you're saying I did because I'm sorry I've been drinking and watching The Hogsfather tonight
The complaint is about him backing down on the intifada issue, and you compared it to wanting a campaign that:
Dawg that’s not what they meant. Respectfully, you’re splitting hairs here.
All I said was that it was a nice freudian slip, because what he actually meant was still to compare Mamdani's reasonable or even slightly conciliatory position to something that only the most pathetically brain-poisoned internet maoists say.
power dynamics
I appreciate this good bit of media analysis, but mamdani isn’t a radical or “one of our own”. So many people queueing up for the fell for it again award rn I stg
JFK wasn't a radical either but they sure as shit treated him like one.
Ok? I don’t really see how that’s relevant? Was JFK about to unleash communism on America before his head exploded?
JFK prevented a full scale amerikkkan invasion of Cuba before his head exploded
You don't have to be a communist to be seen as a threat to capital. You don't have to be a communist to be targeted by capital in terms of smear campaigns and violence. You're being pedantic over my phrasing so you could insert a childish jab at me for some reason.
I was initially responding to the point that commies shouldn’t criticise him publicly because he’s “one of our own”. But he’s explicitly not. If he was running as an independent or in a legitimate worker’s party I’d have much more sympathy for him. Running as a democrat will be the death of any radicalism he might individually possess.
Hold on now, I didn't say anyone shouldn't criticize him publicly. The point was that we should be aware that others are watching and that it can be used against us. So already you're reading into things that aren't there and instead of asking me, just assuming I have a way more lib opinion than I really do.
Im also pretty sure mamdani is a communist anyway
Hey, here's an idea, what if he is but the literal tactic that is being explained to you has worked on you tremendously
Anybody who thinks Mamdani, as mayor of NYC, is going to just magically press the communism button is a fucking idiot and you should be expecting him to do lib shit in office literally by virtue of the nature of politics within liberal bourgeois democracy forcing him to (i don't see him magically having an all communist city legislature and news flash nerds, state governments frequently step in to restrain city governments all the fucking time) but hey, here's another idea- let's wait until he's actually fucking elected before we start shit about how he's sold out instead of going WOOPS HE'S JUST LIKE AOC AND BERNIE because he said he won't keep saying globalize the intifada or what the fuck ever statement you think makes him less radical than him pushing for publicly owned grocery stores and shit does
imma be real, i can imagine mamdani appearing to go full tilt dem to betray every dem once elected, and appointing dsa comrades everywhere, it's perfectly imaginable tactic, it just has not been observed once in modern history. As the truth is in correspondence between idea and the world, until observed (say by who he appoints as nypd commisioner or how investments in entity will be regarded) material reality matches with our ideas of who he is, all of this is precisely gossip, and can fall into what you are describing.
On the other hand, all we have for now is slight evidence of moderating rhetoric and accepting bad faith frameworks in one interview, (and listening to bernie panders, which might be a good idea anyway, even if you think he is a demon).
(i would say, aocia was very evidently political climber in 2019, it's not an unexpected thing for politician to be, i hope he is different)
*adam point is that all the acceptable(tm) media is pressing him to betray justice, not that he already done it
I feel like Trump kind of hid his power levels a bit this election season. He wasn’t really talking all that much about mass deportations or completely gutting the government, definitely leaning more heavily on his ultimately run of the mill 1st term.
Obviously, good things happen only for the worst of us but maybe there’s a microscopic silver lining here
Rightists hide their power level sometimes, in the sense that they pivot right. Centrists also hide their power level sometimes, in the sense that they pivot right. Radlibs also hide their power level sometimes, in the sense that they pivot right.
Pivoting happens often, it just isn't pivoting left that happens often.
he didn't though, people just waved him off as they saw his first go at it, but his sickos did a bit of theory on levers of power (and surprisingly, senate republicans got very much in line, while dems are doing abundance dances or whatever the fuck).