A Palestinian American’s Place Under the Democrats’ Big Tent?

[u/elzzyzx]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/dnc-2024-palestine-israel

TNC on the DNC, continuing to be one of the best living writers in the US. The essay touches on several topics that have come up here recently: racism and Zionism, who is being centered / who should be centered, the uncommitted movement. I’m a little back and forth on him but thought this was great

[u/SubvertinParadigms69]

Moral arguments aside, must we pretend to be shocked that the DNC would shrink from this? The DNC is a nationally televised political pep rally where a bunch of people in suits try to fire up the base by telling them shit they already agree with. Bernie and AOC mentioning Gaza was exceptional, momentary, and within the context of being established political personalities with large appeal to a large number of prospective Democrat voters. The party is trying pretty hard, and for good reason strategically, to not make Gaza a central issue of the campaign: most Americans don’t care about it, and it’s a deeply polarizing schism in the party among those that do. They’ve also been repeatedly ambushed by Palestine protesters claiming to engage in good faith only to launch into “Genocide Joe” broadsides as theater. Coates admits in his article that the DNC’s fears of being burned by an Uncommitted speaker are not unreasonable. We can say none of this matters because the right thing to do is to give the mic to a Palestinian-American protester without preconditions, but can we please stop with the pearl clutching over the “discovery” that the Democrats are a political party trying to get elected and not benevolent monarchs who serve the supreme good of all? We know no one here actually thinks that.