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This @nytimes idiocy has inspired me to suggest a few rules for wonks and others on When It’s Cool to Criticize Activists. So...thread. 1
It’s fine when activists abuse facts. But I don’t think @GretaThunberg does. And the @nytimes guy seems ignorant of basic climate facts. 2
Also, activists shouldn’t draw a false equivalence between pols that hurt their cause and pols that in their opinion don’t help enough. 3
Of course activists can demand more of allies. That’s what activists do! But conflating allies and enemies is fair game for criticism. 4
Needless to say, activists shouldn’t be violent. Violence is bad. 5
Civil disobedience isn’t necessarily bad, but if activists hold up traffic it’s fair game for people to complain about the inconvenience. 6
BUT: A lot of criticism of activists is really silly. And most of that criticism falls into two categories. 7
It is mega-dumb to attack activists for making unrealistic demands. Activists who make realistic demands are probably doing it wrong. 8
Critics who whine about unrealistic demands just don’t like activists. I get it! Activists can be annoying. But this is what they do. 9
Finally, the most common bad critique of activists is that their messaging is misguided, alienating the public, hurting their own cause. 10
We all seem to think we’re messaging experts, but honestly I don’t think any of us really have much of a fucking clue. 11
A lot of smart people waste breath hectoring activists to stop scaring the public, be more hopeful, emphasize current impacts, whatever. 12
Who knows? Activists have tried all kinds of messages and we are where we are. Some progress, not nearly enough. 13
Face it: you’re not sure less grating messages would’ve been better or worse. So just let the activists do the activism, and you do you. END
@MikeGrunwald dammit I messed up the threading - oh well maybe somebody can unroll it
