#activist tactics

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Mar 13, 2025

The accusation of ‘dog whistling’ is one of the most common of activist tactics. The metaphor suggests that someone is disguising their objectionable views by sending signals that only the likeminded will register, much as human beings remain oblivious to the higher sound frequencies that dogs are able to hear. As an argumentative strategy, it must rank among the most infantile. It is the equivalent of saying: ‘I know you haven’t said the nasty thing, but I’m going to pretend that you secretly meant the nasty thing’. It is akin to when social justice activist Titania McGrath argued that J. K. Rowling’s chief tactic was ‘to not attack trans people in order to make it look as though she is not attacking trans people’.

Last September, Telegraph writer Oliver Brown referred to Blair Hamilton, a trans-identified goalkeeper for Sutton United Women, as a ‘biological male’. This happened to be a matter of fact, but that didn’t prevent Hamilton from making a complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) and claiming that the phrase ‘biological male’ was a ‘transphobic dog whistle’. Hamilton preferred the phrase ‘assigned male at birth’, even though his sex had been recorded at birth, not assigned. This was an attempt not only to compel speech, but to weaponise the regulations so that journalists would have to tell lies in deference to a belief-system they do not share. This week, IPSO thankfully ruled that news outlets are allowed to refer to men as men.

In any given month, one will find multiple opinion columns claiming that this or that politician is blowing whistles for their bigoted dogs. Consider an article from last Thursday’s New Republic entitled: ‘How to decode RFK Jr.’s dog whistle messages on the measles vaccine’. The writer could have simply provided evidence of Kennedy’s inconsistencies, or criticised the arguments that he had made and offer better ones. Instead, she insisted that RFK Jr. was not ‘changing his stance on vaccines so much as cloaking it in code words’.

This kind of amateur telepathy amounts to little more than calling someone a liar. While no-one is surprised when politicians twist the truth, it is always best to avoid any assumptions. Poor arguments will collapse under scrutiny irrespective of whether or not their proponents are sincere. In other words, you have nothing to lose in assuming that they are telling the truth, because if their ideas are weak they will soon be exposed, in spite of any bad intentions that might lie beneath the surface.

It is impossible not to notice that activists only ever seem to insist that their opponents are guilty of dog whistling. For instance, back when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London he had been accused of dog whistling to racists by mentioning Barack Obama’s part-Kenyan heritage. When the Guardian referred to Obama’s dual heritage in relation to an identical topic, there were no complaints whatsoever. Such selective outrage would suggest that – as the adage has it – if you can hear the whistle, you’re probably the dog.

Much of this can be ascribed to a desire to avoid debate at all costs, and it seems to be particularly common among those of a tribalistic nature. For example, while there are excellent liberal arguments against the DEI industry, many commentators are happy to dismiss them on the grounds that – as Slate magazine put it in January – opposition to DEI is ‘a dog whistle for unchecked racism and bias’. Similarly, while the defence of free speech is a cornerstone principle of liberalism, some left-wing commentators are determined to interpret it as the very opposite: a ‘dog whistle for the far right’.

Naturally, those called upon to defend indefensible positions will always resort to smears in lieu of actual arguments. When women make the case that their rights depend upon the recognition of the reality of biological sex, it’s no easy feat to explain why this is wrong and that men should be permitted access to their spaces. Similarly, most free speech sceptics are reluctant to accept the challenge of explaining why censorship is necessary. In both cases, it’s far easier simply dismiss the opposition’s arguments as mere smoke signals to their allies.

Like its close cousin ‘lived experience’, the phrase ‘dog whistle’ is a trick by which opposing views can be discredited without any need to present evidence or formulate a more persuasive case. Genuine bigots tend to be vocal about their views, and so the notion that they are all speaking in code makes little sense. Dog whistles don’t really exist, and we should stop taking seriously those hallucinating critics who are prone to hearing these voices in their heads.

==

"One oddity of the whole business of trying to hear dog-whistles is very basic: if you can hear the whistle, you must surely be the dog." -- Douglas Murray

[radfem-articles]

Submission by:

me (found it from @bilboyagathechickenfootedhobbit on this post)

Title:

Trans activists reconsidering their abrasive approach as public support slips: ‘We looked unreasonable’

Image:

Publishing date:

November 26th, 2024

Author:

Chris Nesi

Website published:

nypost.com

Allsides bias rating is center-right.

Article length:

640 words

~ 2 minute read time

Rep. Nancy Mace interrupted by trans activist Evan Greer

Transgender advocates are pushing back on activists who resort to “unreasonable” tactics, with some admitting they “cannot vilify” critics — as support among Americans for their biggest issues plunges.

Transgender rights came in dead last in a Gallup poll that asked 2024 voters to rank the 22 issues that factored into their ballot decision, with 36% of survey respondents rating them “not important.”

Some trans activists are recalibrating their approach as support among Americans slips, according to a new Gallup poll. Getty Images

Drilling down into polling on specific issues — such as transgender bathroom policy, trans athletes competing in female sports and laws allowing gender-questioning youth to procure medical sex change treatment — reveals support from many Americans is waning.

Some LGBTQ activists recently told the New York Times they believe the worrying dip in support is attributable to the zealotry of the movement, which emphasizes shame and forced compliance while discouraging any critical debate.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Advocates for Transgender Equality, told the New York Times that activists “have to make it OK for someone to change their minds” about trans issues to attract more allies. Instagram/Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen

“We have to make it OK for someone to change their minds,” Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Advocates for Transgender Equality, told the outlet.

“We cannot vilify them for not being on our side. No one wants to join that team.”

Advocates cited tactics — such as stripping distinctions of “male” or “female” from abortion and childbirth topics, being fanatical about pronoun use and likening even unintentional misidentification of a trans person to an act of violence — has not helped grow their coalition of allies.

“No one wants to feel stupid or condescended to,” Heng-Lehtinen acknowledged.

Lia Thomas (left) dominated women’s swimming as the first openly trans athlete to win an NCAA Division I title in 2022. Her closest competitor, Riley Gaines (right), has become an outspoken advocate for banning trans athletes. USA TODAY Sports

Rethinking how the issue is advocated has also become a part of the Democrats’ ideological reckoning following their decisive loss in this year’s election.

The Trump campaign seized on Vice President Kamala Harris’ past support for taxpayer-funded sex change operations for prisoners, and turned her pushing of LGBTQ issues into one of the most effective campaign ad slogans of the election: “Kamala is for they/them. I am for you.”

Even a small group of Democratic members of Congress have started testing the waters in defiance of the trans lobby.

“Here we are calling Republicans weird, and we’re the party that makes people put pronouns in their email signature,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.).

His office was protested by trans activists after he suggested transgender athletes competing against biological females could have an advantage or even injure other competitors — which has happened and continues to happen.

Some activists engage in bullying or shaming those who don’t support their politics wholesale. AP

Tufts University’s science department chair purportedly claimed that the school would be cut off internships with Moulton’s office over his concerns, but the Boston institution quickly clarified that was not the case.

Mara Keisling, founder of the National Center for Transgender Equality, pointed the finger at activists for devoting so much energy to debating losing issues.

Among them, she told the Times, were the demonization of “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling for her stance against the encroachment of biological males into female spaces, and pretending that any objections to transgender women in sports are invalid and rooted in discrimination.

The issue of sports, in particular, Keisling noted, was an instance where Americans moved away from sympathizing with trans activists.

“We looked unreasonable,” she told the outlet. “We should be talking about the 7-year-old who just wants to play soccer with her friends.”

[definitlynotdwr]

The Organized Nature of the L.A. Riots

Reading long threads on X sucks, so I asked Grok to combine a great threat into an “essential read” essay on what is happening in California.   The recent riots in Los Angeles, as depicted in a post by Wokal Distance on X (dated June 9, 2025), reveal a level of organization that challenges the notion of spontaneous public unrest. The accompanying images show protesters strategically using…

[zomb13s]

"Cold as Ice: The 13-Year Odyssey of Alfons Scholing and the Global Dynamics of Power"

Introduction In the labyrinth of global power structures and societal hierarchies, there are stories that get lost, buried under the weight of larger narratives. Among these stories is that of Alfons Scholing, the CEO of Alfons Design and the mind behind the provocative artist platform Ik Zie Zombies. Scholing’s life underwent a seismic shift following his application for the Vice Presidency of…

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

This highly influential right-wing political/culture war activist died quietly last month. Few know of his contribution to Right-wing politics.

It was Horowitz who convince the Republicans to “demonize” their opponents. He also introduced the “culture wars” into American politics. Lastly, he began mentoring a young high school Nazi in Santa Monica by the name of Stephen Miller. The latter is the ghoul behind all of the cruelest aspects of Trump’s immigration abuses both in the first term and the second term.

“Well, we live in Horowitz’s world now.

His motto of “begin every confrontation by punching progressives in the mouth” is gospel in the Trump White House. And his most famous acolyte has the president’s ear: Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

The teenage Miller invited Horowitz to speak at Santa Monica High School in the early aughts, entranced by his bromides against multiculturalism. Horowitz returned the favor by publishing Miller’s essay “How I Changed My Left-Wing High School” in his FrontPage Magazine. Miller then started a chapter of Horowitz’s Students for Academic Freedom at Duke as an undergrad.

This ping-pong of flattery culminated with Horowitz connecting Miller to jobs on Capitol Hill before he joined Trump’s 2016 campaign — and here we are.”

[tanadrin]

i guess the reason i'm not an anarchist is that i don't think if you get enough people in your community doing mutual aid that one day white supremacy and colonialism are going to poof out of existence. there's a bunch of intermediate steps between those two things, and a lot of them involve large-scale organization, and when it comes to large-scale organization, at some point you're gonna have to do a thing that looks a lot like taking the reins of state power to influence policy.

that necessarily implies some degree of compromise and coalition building and dirty, dirty politics. but i would prefer that people actually do the work of building a better world instead of sitting around in their mutual aid groups going "if only we had a way to organize on a large scale and somehow exert influence government policy! guess this is an unsolvable problem."

[ganondorf]

sometimes i see people on here talk about anarchism and it's very clear their understanding of it is on par with people whose understanding of communism is "under communism we all use the same toothbrush"

[statementlou]

I feel like when people ask famous personalities to participate in activism, they may be influenced by the parasocial relationships they have formed with these celebrities and not that they really care about what is going on. They expect famous individuals to act as role models or representatives of their beliefs. That's why I think, it is crucial to maintain a critical perspective and not depend solely on celebrities for activism. This can result in a passive approach to social change and disregard the significance of collaborative action and personal engagement. The majority of celebrities don't care lol even who speak up about it publicly. Their reality is different from ours, like Gigi Hadid also drank Starbucks the other day, Bella Hadid worked with a lot of Zionist brands and did a photo shoot with them recently, etc etc. And let me not start on stans culture... the worst thing ever

Okay this is fascinating because yes! I agree with you so much! But then I was completely floored by the choice of the HADIDS (literal Palestinians who never shut up about the cause) as examples- but actually I love it because I think it opens up two really really important points that maybe get to the heart of the whole issue. Gigi and Bella Hadid are, as I said, literally Palestinian, and have throughout their public lives (not just recently) never been silent or backed down in defense of Palestine even when it has very publicly lost them (Bella primarily) jobs and opportunities, and they both continue to be outspoken even while literally targeted and threatened by zionists. Pretty much everything anyone has wanted or asked for from any celebrity, right?! But here we have, first of all, Gigi having all of that discounted because she bought Starbucks, a brand that is not even an official boycott! I feel like this is a perfect example of prioritizing performative and symbolic activism over actions with material impact, if someone who has been so consistent and stalwart can see all that dismissed because they spent $5 on a coffee (that, again, has no material financial relationship to Israel). I personally think that on a scale of good done vs harm, Gigi can afford a lot of problematic coffees, and this is not even getting into the Hadid families finances which involve huge amounts of money being used and moved around in ways that do more to help the cause than any image choice can unbalance. And then you say that Bella has worked with zionist brands- I don't know anything about this so I can't speak to it. Given that we are also apparently considering starbucks a zionist brand despite the company not operating in or having any ties to Israel, I would question what this means. But it doesn't matter- I think the point is that consumer/ individual purity isn't possible! No one is making pure consumer choices, no matter how many brands they boycott, and certainly no celebrity can continue to be one without having unsavory connections. I think that BY DEFINITION no celebrity is politically pure because if they cut all those ties, THEY WOULD NO LONGER BE A CELEBRITY. Whether the pursuit of purity is realistic or desirable is a much bigger issue, but the point is that as you say, looking to celebrities to be activists will end only in disappointment. Their job is to entertain in specific ways and they do that; if that's not working for you, then consume some other celebrity's product (persona). As I have said from the start, if you want to stan Louis because he is talented and hot and kind and smart and fun then you are in luck! But if you are looking for an activist spokesperson, he is not going to be that, and yelling at him (or people who don't consider that a deal breaker) isn't going to change that.

[papirouge]

[chaotic-tired-cat]

I promise it's not too late. I promise , I promise, I promise, so please don't stop trying. Big polluters (ExxonMobil is the easiest case study to use as a reaserch start point) actively benefit from when we give up.

This is called climate apathy. There is so much we can do, but the catch with hope is that you have to fight for it. Companies that gain money from the public's inaction will always try to enforce isolation and despair.

Anyway. Scientist here. We're not remotely done yet, and that is a threat :)

My latest cartoon for New Scientist

[jockoppressor]

If Harris loses, please try blaming real issues (Republican-driven voter suppression and intimidation tactics; billionaire-funded Trump-PAC’s and propaganda machines; a broken electoral system that hinges presidential elections on a dozen or so states instead of a simple popular vote; or the Democratic Party’s fumbled opportunities to respond to things like the corporate greed driven cost of living crisis, the housing shortage, the medical debt and healthcare accessibility crisis, the ongoing climate disaster, and the ongoing genocide in Palestine) instead of doing the Right’s job for them by blaming folks like climate protestors, Antizionist and pro-Palestine activists, Black and Brown people, jaded millennials living paycheck to paycheck, and tumblr users with an audience ⅛ the size of the average Christofascist MegaChurch Congregation.

[joy-haver]

Something I’ve noticed is that leftist movements tend to turn practical, thought out tactics that were part of a larger plan for liberation, and remove them from their context. Then we often use these tactics as symbolic ways to mark our distaste for empire and harken back to older movements. However, these tactics are often already accounted for by the system, and sometimes are actively encouraged as ways to harm our people and defang our processes.

Here is an example;

In the Civil Rights struggle, getting arrested en mass was seen as an important part of the process of freedom. The civil rights leaders realized that the areas they were in did not have large enough jails to confine them all, and that if they filled the jails up, the police simply could not confine everyone else in the movement. Getting arrested in coordinated ways was a noble and helpful sacrifice that kept your brothers and sisters from getting arrested. Due to less strict sentencing at the time, and the ability of the movement to scare the police into releasing people, getting arrested often wasn’t the utterly disabling and free-life ending process it is today. (That’s not to say getting arrested was easy on people; the police brutality of the time was incredibly intense.)

Those who spent time in jail were given almost a reverent status. That had gone through much suffering to keep others from the same fate. Often, their ability to taking confinement completely off the table for the rest of the activists is precisely what allowed for certain other actions to be successful. Paying for legal defense and moderate bail costs was something of a drain on the movements scant, resources but it could often be worth it due to the role arrests played.

However, the state responded to this, and turned it to their benefit. The next fifty years saw a prison boom. Now, economically deprived small towns were made to bid and beg for prisons to be built in there areas; not only to lock people up, but also because working at the prison was presented as one of the only jobs left in rural America. Additionally, thisdrove the labor minded population to be further in conflict with other movements in some areas.

As the capacity of the government to capture and confine increased, the capacity of the movement to fill up the jails and prevent further arrests did not. Now, the system was hungry for more and more bodies for its endless rooms. It further instilled and mechanized the capacity of prisons to force labor, undercutting labor movements. Sentences became longer, parole became stricter, fines and restitutions increased to exorbitant amounts. Those who went in for petty arrests often never came out.

But, the feeling that getting arrested was a noble and venerable goal did not leave the movement. Some transitioned tactics; instead of filling up the jails to allow others to act without recourse, they sought to get arrested in test cases, as they had seen work occasionally before. But this too became more and more difficult, as the legal system realized it did not have to play by its own rules. Slowly but surely, the legal mythology that because it is written and because it is fair, it will be ruled so, began to overtake the minds of activists; even as they failed time and time again to win this way, they still threw countless of their friends into the mouth of the enemy, and condemned them to life in prison.

Even this had become a shadow of itself by the 2000s and 2010s. Arrest became an aesthetic goal instead of a practical one. The most radical in the movements were culturally encouraged to throw their lives away for petty protests that none would see, and would have no material impact on the operations of the system of dominion. The reality that getting kettled at a non violent protest could land you with the same jail time as a political assassination did not dawn upon these activists until long after hey were already in jail, and already disconnected from the movement. Their friends would gather all their meager savings towards bail funds, oftentimes going into debt, or otherwise extracting money from the rest of the marginalized communities supportive of the activism. Those funds would then go to the government in the form of bail, and then right back towards operating the same policing systems that targeted them. In this way, the main economic output of the leftists movement of the time was to fund the very systems of policing that they sought to destroy; and to get themselves and each other locked in cages in the process. Instead of developing practical systems of change, radicals were taught to emulate key aspects of the tactics of prior generations that had specifically been recuperated into the goals of the state.

Those who saw the futility in this were readily pushed towards the defanged and self acknowledged pointless marches of the nonviolent liberal movement, which never had any goal other than to once again emulate the visual aesthetics and personal emotional fulfillment of past movements.

We see this pattern play out all the time. People insisting on the radical importance of a leftist print newspaper in a time when print journalism is dead. A fetishization of industrial unionism in a town where no factory has been for three generations. Arguments over whether to support long defunct governments and long dead leaders for some tactical benefit which will never arise from reality.

It is long past time for us to realize that the process of achieving human liberation does not come from symbolic actions, nor from following the playbook of past movements. We must learn our history, yes, but not to emulate it; instead we must learn it to understand its failures and its successes, and, most importantly, how our movement ancestors interacted with the material conditions of their time to create multifaceted plans that met the needs of their people and made successful guerrilla war upon dominion.

We need to imagine ways of making change that are suited to the times that we are living in, the problems we face, and the opportunities that we have. This utterly necessitates that we get deeply embedded into the places and communities around us, that we listen with open ears to the problems our people are facing, and that we fold those ever more towards opportunities of liberation and care for one another.

[theexodvs]

Terminology as a cultic marketing tactic

Oftentimes, cults and cultic movements will use flowery names for themselves in order to silence criticism. For example, the concept of neurodiversity, the existence of more than one distinct neurotypes among humans, is real. But a particular movement that promotes pseudoscience has taken the name "neurodiversity" for themselves. In this way, they can insist that any criticism of the movement is a denial of the concept. It is an offensive tactic, as a casual observer would likely not take the time to do the research and realize that the movement and concept are two entirely different things.

Other examples include:

Humanism: Since it has "human" in the name, humanists will paint their critics as misanthropic.

Men's rights: Since the movement has "men" and "rights" in the name, MRAs will paint their critics as haters of men (including male critics), or haters of rights. The same applies to men's liberation.

Transgenderism/trans rights: Since the movement has "transgender" in the name, transgenderists and TRAs will paint their critics as "hateful" towards trans people.

All Lives Matter: Since the movement has "all lives" in the name, its adherents will paint their critics as being misanthropic or apathetic towards people's lives, for much the same reason as humanists.

[shifa-ameen]

The US is participating directly in this genocide"

Palestinian activist Ahmed El-Madhoun films US-made shells used by Israel to strike Gaza's Khan Younis city.

The US is by far the largest supplier of weapons to Israel, with more than two thirds of military imports coming from Washington.

After temporarily suspending a shipment, the Biden administration has announced this week its plan to deliver a new $1 billion military package to Israel, consisting of tank ammunition, tactical vehicles and mortar rounds.

Credit -TRTWorld

[satanfemme]

wow! a group of trans people just staged a sit-in protest at the bathroom across from speaker johnson's office. there were also cis people present and "survivors of sexual assault who dispute anti-trans rhetoric".

notably, chelsea manning was there and she used the women's restroom.

they were all arrested for "sexual misconduct".

a powerful act of protest imo, though it's scary that this is getting classified as sexual misconduct. we obviously already knew that's how transphobes see us (and especially/primarily how they see trans women) but this feels especially transparent here.

I'm paraphrasing but here's some journalists talking about this event here:

[rawliverandgoronspice]

No but this post is an actual trainwreck. I am begging you to look up the "freegazafromhamas" at the *second* reblog telling you that anyone disagreeing with voting Biden in the slightest is a russian bot, and also there's no fucking way sharing your opinion about elections without pressuring anyone or lying about it counts as "elections interference", and if it does it's genuinely horrifying.

You can vote for Biden, and even campaign for Biden if you want, without dehumanizing people who refuse to do so because, among other things, a genocide is taking place. Why is any of this pseudo red scare behavior a priority over making sure that whichever strategy you promote ends up empowering, centering and freeing the most marginalized members of your communities, *especially* if you want to maybe have ANY chance of winning some of these people over --instead of calling them literal robots because that's an easier reality to handle emotionally than having to disagree with people you claim you want to protect on how to best protect them, while making sure they never trust you ever again in the process (and I cannot blame them)

Just a thought for the night, but remember in 2016 there were all these accounts that seemed really really telling you all the ways Hillary Clinton was some kind of demon woman, just the worst, and really Trump wouldn't be worse and maybe he'd even be better?

and then it turned out they got banned for being literally Russian agents and never came back because spoiler they were?

does it feel like that all over again? just a thought.