Do you consider US culpability in the Palestinian Genocide a part of this 'deliberate propaganda'?
No
At what point does someone protesting against democratic involvement and complacency in Israeli war crimes become someone who is protesting against democrats generally?
When they stop either conditioning their lack of support on Democratic behavior, or advocating for voting reform or some other strategy which can lead to effective replacement of the Democrats with something better. Either one of those sounds fine and sensible to me, but when they reach the point of saying, functionally, "well if the Democrats aren't doing what I want then I will let the Republicans win even if they are 10 times worse at the things I hold as priorities in the world," that to me stops making sense.
I think if you're a Palestinian who is still alive right now, and a protestor "on your behalf" enables Trump to come to power, and then Trump supports someone who kills you, the idea that the protestor was mad that the Democrats weren't doing enough for you before Trump and Netanyahu cooperated to kill you would be cold comfort. I think this whole "harm reduction isn't worth doing" idea is a childish and entitled reaction from someone who is safely far away from that harm that is very real to very real people in the real world, who have the luxury of poo pooing the entire idea of predicting outcomes in the real world and strategizing how to get them.
Is there any grey area that you're willing to acknowledge between these two categorical binaries you've proposed?
Yes, quite a substantial one.
Can there be a legitimate protest against the democrats, that hurts their odds at winning, but doesn't directly result in a change of policy?
Yes. If it's only hurting their odds of winning, and not even trying to change their policy, then it's suspect to me, but as you said there's quite a substantial grey area and it's not easy to tell ahead of time what protest might result in what outcome. You have to just kind of do what you can and hope that you've worked it out what is going to help the Palestinians and what is going to hurt them, and do the first and not the second as best as you can figure it out.
If the democrats and the protestors both refuse to bend to the other, is it categorically the protestors' fault if and when trump wins?
Not categorically, no. The Democrats have a lot of responsibility, the Republicans and Netanyahu obviously have quite a bit more. The protestors might have some responsibility, but depending on how they were protesting, potentially not much at all.
Honestly, I'm less concerned with assigning "blame" after the fact than I am with strategizing what I could do, or what someone else could do, to get better outcomes. Like I say, I consider this whole thing of it being real important "whose fault it is" when something horrifying happens to be an entitled mentality from someone who's not directly in danger. Mostly when people's families' lives are threatened they're more focused on "how can I keep them safe" than they are on "whose fault will it be if someone comes to power who kills them, and how can I make sure it won't be this person's fault but instead this other person's fault."
Even if it isn't apparent that they've lost explicitly because of those protestors? Is it also the fault of the protestors if the democrats adopt a pro-palestinian policy in response to the protestors, AND THEN lose?
So this brings up a really good point. To me, it makes a lot more sense to help the Palestinians by educating the American people about what's going on in Palestine, so the Democrats won't have to decide (to any degree) between enabling war crimes and losing the election.
A lot of protests right now are serving a double purpose -- one, they're bringing awareness to the issue with the American people (and it's working), and two, they're threatening the Democrats electorally and forcing them to change their calculus of what types of Israel policy they should do if they don't want to lose the election from the other direction (and that's working, too). Both of those are good things. I keep saying that, and you keep insisting for some reason that I must have a problem with them. I guess because it makes the point that you're trying to say easier if I am just against all protestors. As I keep saying, I am not.
What i'm gathering from you is that it is ALWAYS the protestors fault for the loss, no matter what the democrats do in response.
I don't care whose "fault" it is. I am talking about what actions are good (in terms of creating better outcomes in the future), and what actions are bad (in terms of getting people killed). Like I said, this emphasis on "fault" having any significant importance is the mindset of someone who isn't watching their family getting killed.
Is this what you perceive to be the issue I'm raising? Try again. Talking about the Russia - Ukraine "issue" is not what I was highlighting there. Want to take another stab at what I was highlighting about it?
Same question. What was the issue I was raising? Being a journalist and speaking freely, I'm obviously in favor of. So what was I pointing out when I highlighted those segments and made the connection I made?