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Looking Beyond the Facade (youtu.be)
submitted 2 days ago by Vupware@lemmy.zip to c/politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
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curious as to what you all think of this!

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I knew this was coming lol

This video's whole thing here is that there is a consulting agency ("Fight Agency"), which formed earlier this year and who Mamdani and Platner both seem to have hired, with one single person who worked on Fetterman's campaign (and one who worked on Bernie Sanders's 2016 campaign, i.e. not a Democrat and challenging the existing Democratic establishment). They seem to be saying, not that the agency is one part of all these candidates' strategy, but that they are the ones in the driver's seat of all these campaigns who have hired them, in order to advance a sinister Democratic plot to run fake leftists in the election so they will siphon off support for real leftists who you should be voting for instead presumably (no suggestions are provided).

So... these shadowy Democratic fake consultants secretly funded and organized Bernie Sanders's campaign in 2016, because the Democrats loved the fuck out of that happening and they really wanted that primary challenge to take place to collect a lot of support from leftist voters, so they could trick them into voting for their secretly-establishment candidate. Who was Bernie Sanders. It was all part of the plan we all saw play out.

There's also a good helping of wild factual exaggeration. One good example is at 4:08: "while simultaneously doing PR for Graham Platner in the wake of it being revealed that he's a neo-Nazi with SS Tokenov tattoo on his chest." HE'S NOT A FUCKING NEO NAZI. No one is actually claiming he is a Nazi, that I have seen, they're just freaking out over the tattoo and leaving the reader to connect the dots that having this type of death's-head tattoo probably means he got it on purpose because he's a Nazi / he should have known / he definitely knew it was a Nazi symbol even if he's not a Nazi / well I don't know but it sure SOUNDS fishy and so on. It is kettle logic and feels-based character assassination which is the bread and butter of American politics at this point.

I've seen BadEmpanada do this before. I never heard of the guy until a week or two ago, but they seem to be the source of people saying Graham Platner was a prison guard at Abu Ghraib, apparently by taking one random line from one random interview and spinning it out into a wild exaggeration of what it actually says so they can toss a big bucket of shit in his direction.

Anyway, I think you can expect a lot more of this as actually progressive candidates are gaining a little traction now. We're going to see a whole bunch (a whole bunch) of super forcefully presented stuff about how you definitely shouldn't be voting for them, what's the worst that could happen, in fact if you do vote for them then you're to blame for (from 36:55) "millions of fucking dead non-Americans" and you don't care.

OP: Okay, so say Mamdani's a fake. Who should we be supporting? Who should we help break into the establishment instead?

[–] Vupware@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Something that you glossed over: I found Zohran’s capitulations to Zionists to be the big problem here and I think BE should have opened with that. BE is certainly an alarmist hothead but he does make valuable points that go against the status quo all the time, and I don’t think it’s wise to write him off because of his hyperbole.

I don’t think Mamdani is a fake by any stretch, but I do think it’s very important to acknowledge that he’s working with noteworthy figures of the Dem establishment and sacrificing his principles, going so far as to ensure his team includes Zionists. It could be rationally believed that this outcome was inevitable, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t shine a light on why it happened.

If I lived in New York, I still would have voted for Mamdani. If I lived in Maine, I’d be voting for Platner. When/if we vote for our next president, I will vote for any candidate that fits into this Mamdani/Platner political class if no better alternative is available. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t forget about/overlook Mamdani/AOC’s capitulations, Platner’s imperialist agenda and bloody past, or Bernie’s complacency.

If these politicians are elected into office and nobody bats an eye at who they’re talking to, working with, etc. then the citizenry are not doing a good job. Even the most “progressive” candidates need to be challenged, otherwise we’ll never move the needle further left and the establishment’s corporate masters will never be unseated from their place of power.

LMK

[–] PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I found Zohran’s capitulations to Zionists to be the big problem here

I don't. He's not running for mayor of the State Department. His impact on Israel will be jack shit. His entire focus and responsibility is on (a) fixing some of the economic insanity of New York that basically doesn't care if people live or die as long as Wall Street is throwing parties (b) making significant inroads and showing everyone that point a is an election-winning strategy. There's nothing in there that's going to impact the US's horrifying foreign policy as pertains to Israel. It's nice that he's pro-Palestinian, it's a point in his favor, but it literally doesn't mean shit and extensively nail biting about whether he's really pro-Palestinian enough to be mayor of New York City is just fuckin' weird.

Is he walking back some of his pro-Palestinian stuff? Sure. He started out with this "arrest Netanyahu" stuff which I am sure is fun and popular with his base, but now all of a sudden he's in a role of major responsibility and has to get along with people including a lot of powerful people who do support Israel, so now he has to tone it down a little. I AM EXTREMELY SURE HE STILL HATES ISRAEL AND SUPPORTS PALESTINE. I don't get where it comes from, this whole freakout about it all of a sudden being super important even what he thinks about Israel in the first place (actually, not just what he thinks about it, because that is already clear, but how we can scrutinize every public statement on wedge issue framings like "globalize the intifada".)

Actually, I do know where it comes from. People who support fascism have seen how incredibly effective it was to give Biden well-deserved criticism and suppress support for him so that they can make all these problems ten times worse and dress it up in a cloak of virtue and Palestinian-support, and so now they're globalizing it to Bernie Sanders, AOC, and now they're trying it out on this guy that has LITERALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH ISRAEL IN ANY CAPACITY. He has absolutely nothing to do with it in his government role. Nothing. The only thing that talking about it can do is help create reasons for people not to support him.

Even the most “progressive” candidates need to be challenged, otherwise we’ll never move the needle further left and the establishment’s corporate masters will never be unseated from their place of power.

How'd that work out with Kamala Harris? People "challenged" her on all kinds of walk-backs, bad statements, insinuations, and attempts to thread the needle on the Israel issue. Did that unseat anybody from their place of power? Did it make anything better? Or did it make it horrifyingly worse than the genocide that was already in progress?

That's what strikes me as so stupid about the whole business. Sure, give criticism to whoever you want for whatever reason you want. Do what you like. But I don't get how, for example, pretending Bernie Sanders "is a Zionist" and doesn't deserve our support for that reason accomplishes anything of either truth or progress.

[–] Vupware@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

How'd that work out with Kamala Harris? People "challenged" her on all kinds of walk-backs, bad statements, insinuations, and attempts to thread the needle on the Israel issue. Did that unseat anybody from their place of power? Did it make anything better? Or did it make it horrifyingly worse than the genocide that was already in progress?

Perhaps it resulted in the success of campaigns like Mamdani’s and Platner’s? Perhaps it showed that the people will no longer take guff from the Democratic Party and they need to at least try to refine their image?

I don’t know I’m not a political analyst but I can say that I was radicalized through the resistance to Harris and that my ideology was changed for the better. I’m not an idiot that throws my vote away — I still voted for Harris — but I was not happy about it solely due to people’s outspoken opposition. Had it not been for them, I’d probably still be gobbling up liberal talking points.

[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

On your point about what to expect, I expect we'll predominately see articles about all the things Mamdani doesn't accomplish as well as any concessions he makes operating in a system HEAVILY skewed against his policy goals, and very little about what he actually does accomplish. These articles will come from virtually every source, serve to divide any base that exists left of right, and both discredit and dissuade future candidates.

I hope otherwise, but the pattern has historical precedent.