Episode 84: How Claims of "Sowing Discord" Are Used to Silence Criticism of Power

Citations Needed

News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2019

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez taking to Twitter to criticize House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we are told, "plays into the hands of Trump." Russians are using Black Lives Matter and anti-fracking activists to "sow discord," insists CNN. We must "be united" rather than "divided."

Everywhere we turn we are told by high-status pundits that we shouldn't air our criticisms of power at this particular moment with any reasonable degree of severity lest our mutual enemies exploit these divisions to empower themselves.

We are told again and again that progressives criticizing party leaders is helping Trump. That fighting Trump's racism is merely "playing into his hands," that we shouldn't attack other democrats in the primary too harshly lest it "give us four more years of Trump."

But there's a major problem with this: There's no evidence that intra-party fighting loses elections or assists the "other side." In many ways, it may actually help engage voters and make them feel heard, rather than viewed as box-checkers for the already anointed.

We are joined by Maximillian Alvarez of the podcast Working People.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Citations Needed with Nemeshirazi and Adam Johnson.
0:09.1	Welcome to Citations Needed, a podcast on the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit.
0:14.6	I am Nemeshirazi.
0:15.6	I'm Adam Johnson.
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0:27.9	Nemeshirazi and Adam Johnson.
0:29.9	This everyone is our final episode of season 2 of Citations Needed.
0:34.6	We, after this one, will be taking a wee break from the podcast grind for the rest of the summer.
0:40.2	In the meantime, we will have some news briefs for the Patreon subscribers, but we will
0:45.0	be back in September with fresh new episodes after we have our little summer recharge.
0:49.9	Yeah, it's been a really amazing two years.
0:52.3	We cannot thank our listeners enough.
0:54.4	Obviously, we do that at the end of each episode, but we just wanted to start this final episode
0:59.2	of the season.
1:00.2	By thanking you all, we obviously would not have a show without the people listening to it.
1:04.8	So we have managed to put together 85 full length episodes.
1:10.1	This is listed as 84.
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	...

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