4 Talking Points Used to Smear DNC Protesters—And Why They’re Bogus

1. ​“Why didn’t pro-Gaza activists protest the Republican National Convention?”

This is a popular (and lazy) way to belittle protestors of Democratic politicians that has a very attractive superficial appeal. Setting aside the fact that pro-Palestine protesters, including members of the Coalition to March on the DNC, did protest the RNC in Milwaukee in July and protested Donald Trump’s recent visit to Chicago, this feigned whataboutism fundamentally misunderstands how protesting and pressure work.

Let us illustrate a basic point about Activism 101, because it can be a bit confusing: Imagine there’s a city council with five members, and a plan to remove cars from the street is up for debate. Two members are funded by the car industry and reject the plan out of hand, two already support getting rid of cars, and the fifth and final member is undecided but claims to support safe street measures. If I’m an activist –  – and I occupy a universe of limited resources –  – which council person am I going to spend my capital lobbying for the proposal? Whose office should anti-car activists protest outside of? The answer is common sense.

Activism is about intervening in the most efficient manner possible for your cause — it is not an expression of abstract moral preferences.

But in the context of Gaza protests, many observers play stupid as to why the nominally liberal, pro-human-rights party would be the subject of the most pressure from those seeking to end the genocide in Gaza. And this is even setting aside the fact that it is the Biden-Harris administration funding and arming this particular genocide at the moment, not Republicans. For these two fairly compelling and obvious reasons, the pressure point to actually change U.S. policy would be targeting the party that both nominally shares their liberal values, and is also the one arming the current mass killing and displacement in Gaza. 

2. ​“Vice President Harris already supports a cease-fire, so all the outrage is pointless.”

This is totally false and by far the most pernicious myth in the current discourse. Harris, as far as we can glean from public comments, supports the Biden policy of appealing to now non-existent, bad-faith ​“cease-fire talks” that are, by Israel’s own admission, only meant to secure a temporary pause for hostage exchanges. This reality is made even more clear after Israel blew up the lead Hamas negotiator two weeks ago.

Those seeking an end to the violence in Gaza, including seven major unions — the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), American Postal Workers Union (APWU), International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Auto Workers (UAW), United Electrical Workers (UE) and National Education Association (NEA) — are now demanding an arms embargo on Israel, rather than just a ​“cease-fire.” This is because the White House has warped the definition of a ​“supporting a ceasefire” to mean supporting open-ended, performative, bad-faith talks for hostage exchanges (while still reaffirming Israel’s plan to keep bombing and sieging Gaza for months if not years longer after said hostage exchanges) while continuing to arm and fund Israel’s open-ended destruction of Gaza. 

This is not a policy that, so far, Harris has broken from whatsoever. And until there is some meaningful indication she has, beyond pointless ​“tone” tea leaf-reading, the protests won’t stop. It’s a simple syllogism: (1) Israel won’t agree to a lasting cease-fire unless compelled by the United States. (2) This agreement is only achievable by cutting off arms to Israel or endorsing the credible threat thereof. (3) Therefore, one cannot ​“back a cease-fire” without backing cutting off arms to Israel or credibly threatening to do so. 

Harris cannot continue to support arming Israel without conditions while also supporting a cease-fire. As a result, she must be compelled to clarify whether she backs endlessly arming Israel, or an actual cease-fire. She cannot support both.

3. ​“The protestors are chaos agents and disruptors just trying to help Trump.”

This is a common argument against protests targeting Democrats in the run up to the DNC, and has even been made by Harris herself. Thousands of the protestors marching on the DNC are Palestinians, a great number of whom have lost loved ones in Gaza, have family who have been displaced, or have close friends who do. 

The Chicago area — including suburban areas known as ​“Little Palestine” — is home to the largest Palestinian diaspora in the country. The idea that these communities crying out to demand Harris follow international law and stop arming a genocide is tentamount to being ​“pro-Trump” is not just deeply insensitive, it’s partisan pea brain stuff. Harris is vying to be the most powerful person in the world, and genocide is the crime of all crimes. If she supports the policy of arming an active genocide, certainly voters have a right to know and protest this fact without being disparaged by a George W. Bush-like ​“You’re Either With Us or Against” binary. 

Since there was no meaningful Democratic primary this cycle, and Harris did not become the nominee through such a process, the Gaza issue wasn’t allowed to be litigated by earning votes. All that’s left is protesting.

4. ​“Harris can’t support the activists’ demands even if she wanted to. She’s the vice president and must maintain President Biden’s policies.”

Conveniently enough, we find ourselves in a position where the current Democratic nominee can both not be held accountable for the current administration’s policies, nor can she be held accountable for any other theoretical policies. Put simply: She is Quantum Kamala, representing all potential political states at once and unable to be measured in any meaningful way. Under this way of thinking, she is, effectively, uncriticizable. 

A faux savvy line has emerged to this effect, popular among the MSNBC set, whose job is to handwave away criticism of Harris over Gaza by avoiding the issue altogether and insisting that, due to the supposedly hard-and-fast norms, a vice president cannot disagree with their boss. She simply can’t break from the White House.

There’s only one problem with this position: It’s just made up. It’s just a norm, it’s not a real limitation — constitutional, legal or otherwise. What’s Biden going to do, take away Harris’ birthdays? She can say whatever she wants to. And certainly if there’s a cause for which breaking this alleged norm is justified, it’s on the issue of committing to end an ongoing genocide. Certainly the mass death, displacement, and disease in Gaza, killing thousands of people every month and torturing and traumatizing tens of thousands of more, is more important than some arbitrarily important rule of Washington decorum.

This is simply not a morally credible position. The genocide — assuming at this point most good, rational people accept the premise that what Israel is carrying out in Gaza is one — is far more important than any of these pat, half-baked excuses. 

What gets lost in all the Walz-pilling and coconut memes and good vibes is the fact that the genocide in Gaza is still very much ongoing. And just because Biden has been replaced at the top of the ticket, this doesn’t mean the basic facts and support for Israel’s actions among Democratic leadership has changed. The millions of starving, displaced, terrified and hopeless people in Gaza can’t eat vibes, they can’t live in ​“tone,” and partisan expediency and convenience won’t protect them from American bombs that are still very much killing them.

Only a meaningful change in policy from the nominally liberal party — and new favorite to take the White House—will. And so far, Vice President Harris has refused to commit to use the only leverage that will compel Israel to end its killing and maiming. In the interest of ​“party unity,” she should do so sooner than later, and protesters in Chicago are out in the streets to demand she take just such action.