the shaun king thing where he goes after a senator who cosponsored the m4a bill shows the problem with targeting people *because they say stuff you agree with.*

if someone says, "trump has failed in this pandemic, we need to provide free testing and treatment for covid patients", it doesn't make a lot of sense to yell at them about not supporting m4a.

in the first place, if you agree on free health care for covid, this is a moment to build an alliance on that, rather than accentuating differences and alienating folks who specifically are telling you you can work together towards this goal.

in the second, if they want free health care for covid, they may well also agree with you on m4a! approaching everyone who agrees with you on x as if they disagree with you on y is counterproductive and preposterous.

the only reason you'd approach people this way is if you are (a) really confused or (b) more interested in twitter dunks than in forming coalitions to reach policy goals.

"take yes for an answer" is just about the first rule of politics.

more broadly, I don't really get the strategy in insisting that anyone who talks about specific remedies for problems in an emergency is a hypocrite because they're not talking about broader structural problems.

we do have to address the emergency and the structural problems, but putting in place measures to handle the emergency can build coalitions for tackling broader structural problems, it seems like, if you handle it right.

this seems like a case where the primary going on isn't helping. seeing this through the lens of "how can we get a Sanders win" is really unhelpful since sanders has lost, and inasmuch as it encourages people to try to draw distinctions rather than make alliances.