Some important reminders of history and the reality of our society’s power structures in this thread from @seachanger:
There’s also a reminder here, if we take a moment, about what it is to be a politician.
Bruce Schneier made a remark to me long ago that really stuck with me. I was rambling about the nonsensical structure of copyright law or somesuch, and said something along the lines of “can’t lawmakers see how factually •wrong• they are?”
He said, “Politicians don’t care about correctness. They care about consensus.”
What really struck me was his lack of malice. Not a dig, just a fact: it’s the job.
2/
Contrast the job of •activist• with the job of •politician•.
An activist’s job is to change people, to change society — starting with people’s worldview, with what they see and what they believe and how they inhabit their lives.
A politician’s job is also to change the world — but to use existing structures to reify worldviews that largely •already exist•. And yes, the bully pulpit matters! Oratory matters!…marginally. Fundamentally, the job is about achieving •concrete, near-term• gains.
3/
It thus follows that politicians and political parties are •lagging• indicators of change.
There’s an old saying that “politics is the art of the possible.” So is activism! But:
Activists look to the •hypothetically• possible. Politicians look to the •currently• possible.
These roles are complementary. Both are crucially necessary. And when they overlap, look out world! But they are fundamentally different jobs.
4/
It’s easy to make category errors about these different roles.
It’s a category error to expect activists to be politicians. Lecturing protestors about how, oh, say, “Black lives matter” is impolitic because it makes white people uncomfortable?? My dude, making white people uncomfortable is their •job•! (And yes, for those who’ve forgotten or were born yesterday, that exact lecture ran rampant when the slogan first appeared.)
5/
It’s a category error to expect politicians to be activists. Honestly expecting politicians to say out loud the idealistic and just and good and just fundamentally •true• thing, even if saying it plainly loses key voters? loses the election? loses the election and ushers a fascist into power and ends democracy? My dude, you are asking the politicians not to do their job!
6/
Those protestors outside the DNC making a stand for Palestine, making this crushing collective suffering heard where hearing it is uncomfortable? I see them as doing their job.
And the DNC organizers carefully calibrating who is on stage and what the message is, what lines and what framing and what elisions will win this election? I see them as doing their job too.
And the activists naming those elisions? And the politicians eliding anyway? All doing their jobs.
7/
Activists are looking at the map, watching the route. Politicians are looking at the ground, watching their step.
Without the former, we’re lost. Without the latter, we fall flat on our face in the mud.
8/
When it works — and it’s a big “when” — the two roles of activist and politician work in concert, a two-stroke engine of change.
Consider post 5 upthread: less than 10 years ago, the phrase “Black Lives Matter” was radioactive. Now we white people put it on lawn signs to show we’re the Good Ones. That shift has brought things into the realm of possibility for politicians that simply were not before — like, say, Keith Ellison getting convictions for the officers who murdered George Floyd.
9/
My request — of you, of myself, of activists, of politicians, of everyone who cares about the world getting better — is to recognize the existence of these different roles,
to recognize the necessity of both,
to recognize which situations call for one versus the other,
and to nurture both in the places where they’re doing good, however much they may vex and enrage us at times.
/end
@inthehands Great stuff! It quantitizes what's technically much more fuzzy--a politician can and will engage in activisim; the best activism takes political realities to some degree into account (and in fact the DNC protests do hit that somewhat given that many of the protestors are also deligates--a political role), so much of this is technically on a continuum.
But the heart of it is that wielding real democratic power constrains your actions and not doing so to an extent leaves you freer.
@mneme
Yes, a continuum. One thing that’s important to appreciate is that when somebody occupies both roles or slides between them, when a politician can also be an activist, that is •situational• and not solely a matter of personal integrity, e.g.: https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/113007433707353356