Performative vs Consequential

An Alarming Phenomena

Performative vs. Consequential

One of the most insidious problems facing our country today is that many people on the right and left do not understand the difference between performative actions and consequential ones. This allows them to get caught up in actions that are specifically designed to appeal to their emotions and not really change the status quo of whatever issue is being discussed.

The genocide in Gaza is the most devastating moral issue of our time. Our government is fully funding and arming the country of Israel in its campaign of mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and the most sickening part of that is that millions of Americans want to go about their daily lives as if this is not going on

As a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla trying to bring food and medical supplies into Gaza I saw this dynamic played out in real time. While I was overseas with the Flotilla, a local group of activists under the banner of Code Pink Philadelphia, took it upon themselves to lobby my congressional representative, Madeleine Dean, on my behalf, lobbying for her to protect me and my fellow members of the Flotilla. Due to their efforts, Representative Dean and a few other local Representatives agreed to sign onto H.R. 3565 colloquially known as the Ban the Bombs bill which would limit sending arms to Israel.

I left the flotilla when it was docked in Tunis and returned home. I was actually surprised that my Code Pink friends were able to get Representative Dean, who has a long pro-Israel history to even agree to this small measure. I even went to her local office and relayed my thanks to her through her local staff. I asked her local staff to relay my concern about the remaining flotilla members who were still on their way to Gaza. No one from Representative Dean’s office contacted me and no public statement was made in defense of the remaining flotilla members.

This was when I began to see the dynamic that gives this essay its name, performative vs consequential. Signing onto a bill that has absolutely no chance of passing is purely performative and is the kind of ploy that many American voters will eagerly fall for. To make such a gesture requires no political capital and incurs no risk. What I mean is the politician, in this case Representative Dean, can tell her anti-genocide constituents that she tried to do something and privately can tell her donors that we knew it wouldn’t pass and we only did it to quiet down the anti-Israel crowd. I have to admit that I too was fooled at first but the lack of follow-up has convinced me that she had no concern for the Flotilla members or the fact that the US is actively engaged in a genocide. She has spoken in public on numerous occasions and to my knowledge has not mentioned Palestine or the Palestinians once. Her campaign website still has a promise to protect Israel from financial harm which her staff clarified for me to mean specifically the BDS movement. You no longer fool me. You are pro-genocide. That may seem harsh but that is what you are if you still supporting Israel. This performative gesture was taken because Representative Dean has aspirations for higher office and this might help her because many US voters don’t know the difference between performative and consequential.

I don’t want to give the impression that Representative Dean is the only politician to use this cynical ploy. I just mentioned her first because I had a personal attachment to that example. Another local example is this weeks proclamation by the Philadelphia City Council that declares November 29, 2025 an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. It is always a good thing to keep the Palestinians in the public eye but this kind of action will do nothing to affect Israels actions on the ground. At the same time City Council has been resisting efforts to divest from Israel bonds and other economic ties to Israel. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement has been proven to have a dramatic affect on apartheid countries like South Africa and was instrumental in bringing that country to democratic rule. This would be a consequential move on their part

This next example goes out to those who may think I only criticize democrats. I will say that almost the entire trump regime is performative and does very little to help average Americans. It would take days to list all the examples of this phenomenon where trump is concerned so I’ll just give one of the most egregious examples. The current immigration sweep, terrifying and brutalizing immigrant communities all over the country does absolutely nothing to fix our broken immigration system. It wasn’t designed to. It was designed to spread fear among immigrants, documented or not and scapegoat immigrants to voters angry that their lives are not getting better. It does nothing to make our system more humane or address the root cause of our current immigration crisis. US imperialism has caused so many central Americans to flee their home countries because US interference has caused their home countries to become dangerously unsafe. This type of performative action plays to the MAGA base’s inherent dislike and mistrust of immigrants.

This phenomena is not limited to politicians. We as activists can get caught up in performative only actions if we are not careful. I recently attended the “No Kings” rally in Philadelphia. Rallies of this type are performative by definition and only mean something if followed up by substantive action and organizing. I have attended many of these types of rallies and can see that they can be useful to energize the people, but too often I have seen the energy fizzle out with no change affected. At this particular rally, I noticed many signs that claimed to be against fascism. I also noticed very small representation of pro-Palestinian protesters. This is puzzling as the genocide against the Palestinians is the biggest crime fascists in our country are currently committing, a crime that is ongoing, a crime that was started by a democratic administration and continued by a republican one. If you doubt that there are fascistic tendencies in both wings of the uni-party with regards to Israel, just look at the squashing of dissent at universities and statehouses all over the country in defense of a country actively involved in genocide. Both parties were involved in this curtailing of civil rights.

I did not go there to interrupt anyone’s speeches. I went there to represent the Palestinian people because someone reminded me that representation would be low. After hearing several speakers ignore the elephant in the room, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I made my way to the front of the crowd and interrupted the speaker who coincidentally was my congressional representative Madeleine Dean. I repeatedly asked her what she was doing to end the genocide in Gaza and she wouldn’t answer. I left in disgust. If you do not center the cause of the Palestinians in your activism then you are not really anti-fascist you are just anti-trump. Own it. It’s not a bad thing to be anti-trump but it is not a replacement for advocating change in both parties to curb their fascistic tendencies.

On 9 June 2020, US democrats knelt in the Capital Building for a moment of silence in honor of George Floyd, an unarmed man who was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin. They knelt wearing scarves made of Ghanaian kente cloth. The Congressional Black Caucus handed out the highly symbolic scarves to underscore the fact that almost a hundred and fifty years after slavery was abolished African Americans were still being oppressed. George Floyd’s murder led to months of protests and unrest. This display of respect for George Floyd after his death was an attempt to divert attention from the suffering caused to communities of color by the democrats. Starting with the Clinton Crime bill written by Senator Biden, that disproportionately affected people of color, sent a whole generation of African Americans to prison and destroyed millions af families, to the Clinton Welfare Reform Bill, to the lack of repealing the Hyde amendment, to the Obama and Biden’s administrations lack of Civil Rights investigations into police brutality and corruption. These all were contributing factors to the events that led up to the murder of George Floyd and could not be erased by the sad spectacle of old white democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling in the Capitol Building wearing Ghanaian Kente cloth scarves when their party did nothing to alter the events that led up to the death of George Floyd. That is performative not consequential.

Too often voters watch their political representatives engage in political theater and don’t realize that nothing consequential is being done. No problems are being solved and these actions are only done to fool voters into believing that whatever side they align with actually has their best interests at heart. It’s clear to anyone who is paying close attention that neither party has their interests at heart. So, please I implore you, when you review the prospective candidates in any given election please try to distinguish between performative and consequential. If we continue to give politicians high marks for actions that are purely performative and not followed up by substantive action our republic will continue to decline until there is nothing left.