Differences between activists, politicians, and iconoclasts
And why understanding that they are not the same is very important to maintain your sanity
Hello, welcome to my new publication, Reimagining Statecraft. This is in part my attempt at reviving an old, pre-pandemic project of mine, to write an “update” to John Locke’s classic, the First and Second Treatises of Government for the 21st century. Here, I will discuss various aspects of modern civil government and politics, how they have worked so far, and what is not working as intended.
In addition, from time to time, I will also discuss some of the hot-button issues of the day that divide people.
Before I get into this, I thought it would be pertinent to talk about the differences between activists, politicians, and iconoclasts. It is crucial for people to understand that these are distinct categories of people who have different roles to play in the civic sphere. Understanding this will maintain your sanity.
As of this writing (Oct. 14, 2024), it is roughly three weeks from the presidential election. Since late July when President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign, Kamala Harris has built a very broad coalition and momentum, uniting progressives with moderates and even many prominent Republicans. Some on the left are understandably uneasy about this, and they falsely mischaracterize her campaign as a “Clintonesque parody.” From Harris’ bragging about her gun ownership to her hawkish talk on the borders to her silence on trans issues, some progressives appear quite disappointed and abandoned by a candidate who seems more eager to appear on stage with Liz Cheney than with a prominent transgender public figure.
On Oct. 14, 2011 — a mere 13 years ago but feels like a lifetime ago — I was among one of the Occupy demonstrators, living in a tent within a sea of tents covering two downtown Portland parks. The weather was beginning to turn into something more autumn-like, and during a night that is increasingly colder, I would fall asleep to faint sounds of drums and random shouts.
The Occupy movement was a protest against then-President Barack Obama, as well as against the Wall Street funds and the banksters. I remember the energy and excitement of the 2008 Obama campaign. He was a young community organizer from Chicago who, only after a short stint in the U.S. Senate, ran for the White House touting Change and Hope. I was at the Oregon Convention Center on that election day, celebrating the first Black president in the history of the United States.
The excitement, however, did not last very long for the progressives who eagerly voted for Obama. Banks were bailed out, but little seemed to have been done to help the working-class people. Despite some lip service for racial justice, mass incarceration of BIPOC people continued. While Candidate Barack Obama promised comprehensive immigration reform with the legalization of undocumented immigrants, President Barack Obama continued with the Bush-era “Secure Communities” dragnet program and ultimately, broke the historic record on deportations (which was not broken even by Donald Trump). Obama could have passed immigration reform during the first two years of his presidency when he had a Democratic majority in Congress, but he chose not to push the issue, likely fearing a massive Republican counterattack. He was also against same-sex marriage equality, a position he did not change until 2015 when the Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell.
By 2010, the Obama presidency was under attack by both conservatives and progressives. The Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement emerged around the same time in response. The Tea Party succeeded in translating its activism into electoral politics by successfully winning congressional seats (and ultimately, laying the foundation for the future Trumpism), while Occupy failed to do so.
Both progressives and conservatives often decry the politicians they have voted for when they “sell out” by working across the aisle and negotiating compromises.
I am writing this as a kind of caution for those who put misguided expectations on the future President Kamala Harris, and to help readers understand how the world of politics works, versus how the activist spaces work.
From day one, President Harris will face challenges and difficult spaces to navigate. The honeymoon period after winning the presidency through an unprecedented coalition will be very brief. Many Republicans who endorse her today will quickly distance themselves from her and go back to their normal Republican selves. The progressives may quickly find themselves dismayed by “Copmala Harris” militarizing the southern border and rapidly increasing the deportation capacity. She will have an unenviable job of keeping the nation together, governing the nation working with hostile, obstructionist Republicans (who may gain a majority in at least one of the chambers of Congress) so that they won’t hold the government and country hostage over petty culture-war issues such as DEI and LGBTQ rights.
Predictably, many progressives, today eager Kamala supporters, will call her a “sell-out” and “traitor” who cowardly panders to the right.
But their complaint is based on a profound misunderstanding: elected leaders — politicians — are not activists, even if they once were activists.
The art of being a politician is vastly different from the art of being an activist, just as the art of being an auto mechanic is not remotely similar to the art of being a surgeon.
Politics is an art of compromise and consensus-building. In a functional representative or parliamentary democracy, things get done but nobody gets everything they want. There are a lot of behind-the-scene collaborations and negotiations that most people do not see in the news, even when in public Democrats and Republicans appear to be at an impasse and exchanging blame with each other. Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez works closely with her Republican colleagues whenever she can find common ground with them.
Just because your elected representative does not shout your favorite slogan does not mean they have thrown you under the bus.
Successful politicians see their work as a game of chess. Sometimes they have to move their pawns so that their opponent can seize them so that they can use another piece to capture a bigger reward and ultimately bring themselves to a win. This means that sometimes certain issues have to wait to be addressed at an opportune time. It also means that they might try to hide otherwise too-controversial items in a larger, less-controversial bill as a rider, away from the limelight. They may not publicly voice their support for the marginalized and oppressed — and when they do, they may even word their support in such a way that you would think they are equivocating or half-assed — lest Republicans and their PACs may take a soundbite, take it out of context and maliciously spread disinformation about them.
The role of a politician is to get things done. To pass the bills on a wide range of issues that help their constituents. To do the greatest good for the country within the limits of the constitution, existing laws, and what can be done in the current political climate and within the resources available to them — all while being constantly scrutinized by the press, social media, low-info voters, conspiracy theorists, the donor class, the party leadership, and political opponents alike. This is not an easy job and is not for everyone.
By contrast, the role of an activist is to inspire the public. To create narratives, bring wider public awareness, and initiate public discourses. To shed light on issues that people are not aware of, or don’t want to talk about. Activists organize to build power by amplifying the voices and advocating for a focused, narrow range of issues. Politicians will hear them, and hopefully meet with them, but at the end of the day, politicians will have to weigh whether pursuing this or that cause is doable, and if so, how to achieve it in such a way that can garner the support of the majority (which means bipartisan support).
Now, there are also iconoclasts. Iconoclasts also play an important role and that is to help people question what they have always taken for granted. Iconoclasts, while they can be part of an activist space or even a fringe electoral candidate, can be quite ineffective when it comes to either activism or politics since they typically cannot be team players. They are more of a culture-maker, perhaps an artist or an influencer.
An iconoclast may say, “Fuck the borders and abolish the United States!”
An activist would say, “Protect the refugees and DREAMers, amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and stop the deportations now!”
A sensible politician would say, “We need a sensible, humane immigration policy that preserves the dignity of all people while safeguarding the nation from organized criminals and narcotics. We will implement an orderly and safe refugee resettlement system, and reintroduce and pass the DREAM Act and AgJOBS Act to protect the hard-working and law-abiding undocumented immigrants, secure the borders, prioritize the removal of violent noncitizen felons, and then work on an earned pathway to legalize the status of long-term unauthorized noncitizens already on the American soil.”
They may share the same goal, but their paths toward that goal differ. During the Occupy protests, I have seen those differences play out. An iconoclast in the “Radical Caucus” saw a problem with the dysfunctional U.S. electoral system and called for a boycott of the 2012 election and an abolition of the government. The iconoclast cannot usually answer, in a concrete and practical manner, how to achieve that and what they would do after the elections and the government were abolished because it is not the iconoclast’s role to get into those details. An activist worked on protesting the money in politics, the Citizens United ruling, the Koch brothers, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). A few of my fellow Occupiers, such as Nick Caleb and Cameron Whitten, ran for elected office, with a platform calling for a campaign finance reform and publicly-funded elections, among others pertaining to issues voters care about (such as the $15 hourly minimum wage). While neither Caleb nor Whitten won the election, had they been elected, they would have quickly learned that the world of politics is very different from the world of activism, and if they acted like an activist they’d alienate so many people that they wouldn’t be very effective at governing (consider the cautionary tales of former Portland city commissioners Chloe Eudaly and JoAnn Hardesty, who, after one term, were voted out and replaced by more conservative, pro-business commissioners who undid much of their limited accomplishments).
Knowing the differences between these three types of players in the civic world is important if you want to become an effective change-maker. It also helps with your mental health, sparing you the rage and disillusionment whenever your favorite politicians appear to “sell out.”