Sorry I've been unclear. I was mainly talking about Dore and forgot I got into Tulsi - I've never been a fan of hers, but do think she should be viewed in context. (She apparently opposed the trans military ban, btw.)
Let me try to summarize my thoughts by way of analogy. Joe Biden supported segregation/wrote the Crime Bill/propagandized the Iraq War/eulogized Strom Thurmond/etc. By rights, he's a shit person - a war-mongering old-school racist. But in the field of electoral politics, at least in 2008, he had a pro-labor, populist image. You could see through it, but only if you researched deeply.
Would you completely write someone off just because they supported Biden's candidacy in 2008? /u/read_freire suggested as much. Question Dore's judgment, sure, but people shouldn't blame him for what Tulsi did after he supported her or imply he was a cryptofascist when lots of leftists made pro-Tulsi arguments at the time.
Tulsi had a sketchy history prior to the trans bill, that didn’t come out of nowhere. Stanning her was always weird [emphasis mine]
That's the same way Bernie or Corbyn or Ilhan get characterized by the establishment though. "They're bad, trust me, I got a gut feeling." I know you don't mean it that way, but the vagueness of the attacks is very common.
Tulsi did have very specific problems: she was anti-marriage-equality (before reversing position), supported Modi, expressed soft Islamophobia, and cloaked herself in the military. All bad things - but also true for half the establishment politicians! (Which explains why the attacks on her are often so vague.) Unlike them, she stood up for Bernie and leftist policies in 2016 and in 2019; she was one of the few to attack people like Kamala Harris - and she did so from the left. If Bernie had been as aggressive as Tulsi, he might have won.
Maybe she was insincerely riding Bernie's coattails all along. But why should the left reject such insincere allies when the center makes bedfellows out of much worse right-wingers all the time?
If a problematic ally is useful for a time (and we remember to be vigilant about them), why should we unilaterally disarm ourselves when our enemies won't?
Of course, some positions are too problematic to be forgiven. But is being anti-trans worse than being anti-Black or anti-Iraqi? Biden was also anti-gay marriage in 2008. Warren embraced genocidal Netanyahu.
In sum, problematic politicians are problematic, but problem-free politicians are rare and thus certain problematic politicians may be useful at certain times. I have no quarrel with someone saying that certain problems are too much to overlook. But I don't like extending the guilt over one degree - if a third-party observer thinks that the pros of a politician are greater than their cons, that shouldn't automatically tar them with all the cons of the politician they chose to tactically support in a given field.
Sorry I've been unclear. I was mainly talking about Dore and forgot I got into Tulsi - I've never been a fan of hers, but do think she should be viewed in context. (She apparently opposed the trans military ban, btw.)
Let me try to summarize my thoughts by way of analogy. Joe Biden supported segregation/wrote the Crime Bill/propagandized the Iraq War/eulogized Strom Thurmond/etc. By rights, he's a shit person - a war-mongering old-school racist. But in the field of electoral politics, at least in 2008, he had a pro-labor, populist image. You could see through it, but only if you researched deeply.
Would you completely write someone off just because they supported Biden's candidacy in 2008? /u/read_freire suggested as much. Question Dore's judgment, sure, but people shouldn't blame him for what Tulsi did after he supported her or imply he was a cryptofascist when lots of leftists made pro-Tulsi arguments at the time.
That's the same way Bernie or Corbyn or Ilhan get characterized by the establishment though. "They're bad, trust me, I got a gut feeling." I know you don't mean it that way, but the vagueness of the attacks is very common.
Tulsi did have very specific problems: she was anti-marriage-equality (before reversing position), supported Modi, expressed soft Islamophobia, and cloaked herself in the military. All bad things - but also true for half the establishment politicians! (Which explains why the attacks on her are often so vague.) Unlike them, she stood up for Bernie and leftist policies in 2016 and in 2019; she was one of the few to attack people like Kamala Harris - and she did so from the left. If Bernie had been as aggressive as Tulsi, he might have won.
Maybe she was insincerely riding Bernie's coattails all along. But why should the left reject such insincere allies when the center makes bedfellows out of much worse right-wingers all the time?
If a problematic ally is useful for a time (and we remember to be vigilant about them), why should we unilaterally disarm ourselves when our enemies won't?
Of course, some positions are too problematic to be forgiven. But is being anti-trans worse than being anti-Black or anti-Iraqi? Biden was also anti-gay marriage in 2008. Warren embraced genocidal Netanyahu.
In sum, problematic politicians are problematic, but problem-free politicians are rare and thus certain problematic politicians may be useful at certain times. I have no quarrel with someone saying that certain problems are too much to overlook. But I don't like extending the guilt over one degree - if a third-party observer thinks that the pros of a politician are greater than their cons, that shouldn't automatically tar them with all the cons of the politician they chose to tactically support in a given field.
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Thanks for listening! It's all just thinking out loud anyway. None of us are making the capital decisions.