I mean, he hasn’t used those exact words, yet he is part of empowering a movement that embraces that term
Replies
Right, you have to resort to guilt-by-association handwaving because he did not, in fact, "g[e]t into this game"; he was, in fact, "ask[ed] about something he ha[d]n't waded into". Allegedly the slogan's the cause for concern, but when it's pointed out that Mamdani didn't bring up the slogan...
jun 24, 2025, 11:41 pm • 1 0 • view
...the goalposts get shifted to nebulous Oh OK Sure He Doesn't Actually Use The Slogan But Someone At A Rally For The Movement He's Part Of Used The Slogan smoke-blowing.
jun 24, 2025, 11:43 pm • 3 0 • view
It’s not a one off at a rally it’s a prominent expression of a movement that he has made a part of his political brand. It’s an expression used to justify violence. It would be one thing if he hasn’t been involved since college, but he has, and it’s a loud part of a movement he is part of.
jun 25, 2025, 12:03 am • 0 0 • view
I'm sure someone somewhere has used the expression to justify violence, but you present no evidence that that's its dominant meaning, and I've marched & rallied ~ 10 times for Palestine alongside hundreds of thousands of people and don't recall ever hearing the expression during any of that.
jun 25, 2025, 12:09 am • 1 0 • view
We're not talking about something like "from the river to the sea", which I _have_ heard many many times with my own ears during rallies & marches, and which has _also_ been pointed to as a supposed endorsement of violence and even genocide. A genuinely common slogan like that might feasibly be...
jun 25, 2025, 12:11 am • 1 0 • view
...connected to a politician who speaks at a rally. But pointing to an expression that's clearly far more obscure? I'm afraid that really is guilt-by-straw-clutching.
jun 25, 2025, 12:12 am • 1 0 • view
I’ve heard it many times. The 2 prior intifadas were extremely violent. So I think my experience is different than yours which may shadow some of this. He himself said the word was used by the holocaust museum to describe the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Also he isn’t making the argument it’s obscure.
jun 25, 2025, 12:17 am • 0 0 • view
I've heard it many times, now, from people trying to use it to paint Mamdani as a threat. Which is a different thing. And I'm not claiming _he_ is making the argument it's obscure; _I_ am making the argument that it _was_ obscure (before podcasters & pundits lifted it out of obscurity)...
jun 25, 2025, 12:19 am • 0 0 • view
...because a load-bearing part of your argument is that it's "a prominent expression of a movement". If you're going to walk that back now, OK.
jun 25, 2025, 12:20 am • 0 0 • view
A very quick google search has articles about the phrase, before the last few weeks. I’m willing to take your word you haven’t heard it, you aren’t willing to take mine that I have
jun 25, 2025, 1:10 am • 0 0 • view
Also: Mamdani made his point about the USHMM using the word "intifada" only a week ago _when it was brought up to him_ on that Bulwark podcast, and the first intifada was not "extremely violent" unless you're counting Israel using it as a pretext to kill over a thousand people.
jun 25, 2025, 12:27 am • 0 0 • view