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"We're all on the same team, but you're trying to bring us down so you're my enemy" is a hypnotically self-refuting claim.
Some people believe that kicking out Trump and putting Dems in will on its own be more or less sufficient to bring about the changes on climate that we need. That's not a belief that Sunrise shares, or that I share.
My view is that—in the most optimistic possible reading of current conditions—moving the Democratic Party dramatically left on climate change is an urgent, maybe existential, project.
If you're a Democrat who disagrees with that, you may not be my enemy, but you are my adversary. We are not, in any simple straightforward way, "on the same team." We may be able to work together, and we may be allied on all sorts of things, but we're not teammates.
Gonna say a little bit more here about adversaries and allies and enemies and teammates, and how I'm using these terms.
If you're my teammate, you and I are engaged in a common project, working together. You regard me as being on your team, I regard you as being on mine, and we've chosen to act in concert in support of common goals, supporting each others' work on an ongoing, open-ended basis.
If we're allied to each other—in the sense in which I'm using the term here—we're on different teams, but our teams are working together on a particular project. We may be on opposite sides of a different issue, or diverge on this issue tomorrow, but today we're working together.
If we're adversaries, then on a specific issue, today, we're diverging on goals or strategy or tactics or all three. I'm trying to move you off your current position, or you to move me off mine, or both. We may be friendly or not, work together on other projects or not.
If we're enemies, then our interests are fundamentally opposed. A win for me is a loss for you, and vice versa. For me to succeed, you have to fail. I'm not trying to convince you, or convert you. I'm trying to defeat you or immobilize you.
So you can see, given the above, why I said at the top of the thread that "We're all on the same team, but you're trying to bring us down so you're my enemy" is so discombobulating to me.
To go back to the situation at hand, Feinstein's supporters are mostly arguing that Feinstein is an ally of climate change activists, who are treating her as an enemy. The opposing view would be that on this issue they're adversaries, and acting like adversaries.
We can argue about whether this specific video was fair or unfair, productive or unproductive. But the view that Feinstein and the Sunrise Movement are adversaries—rather than teammates, allies, or enemies—strikes me as obviously reasonable and correct.
BTW, plenty of people I like and respect and regard as political allies disagree with me about yesterday's action and the video it produced. I don't like or respect them any less than I did yesterday.
We don't have to be teammates to work together, and we don't have to declare ourselves to be enemies every time we find each other on opposing sides.
Just a quick PS: We’ll get along better if you don’t start from the premise that I’m stupid or ignorant. I may well be, but leading with it doesn’t move us forward.
