Lots of nuance coming down the pike — be prepared.
You have a candidate for the Primary Elections next year. You think they can go all the way, beat Trump, restore the country and our Democratic institutions, and then get legislation passed that will turn America into one, big happy family with unified determination to fix global warming, make good healthcare globally available, and make the Great Barrier Reef healthy again. Or something to that effect.
Perhaps your expectations are a bit less comprehensive than the above. Perhaps you understand that no candidate, no matter how good their intentions, is single-handedly capable of accomplishing such an agenda. You’re leaning toward one or more candidates, but it’s not set in stone.
Or perhaps you’re considering your choices, and gathering information with an eye to finding the best match for you among the current and likely field of candidates.
How do you want to proceed in your quest? What voices will you listen to more easily, and why? What do you want to hear before you make a choice, or would you rather people simply shut up and quit trying to change your mind, or make it up for you? Are you listening to yourself?
Getting back to the Title (yep, it’s there for a reason) …
In general, you advocate for a desired future, support the current status and direction, and defend the past. You critique, or criticize, in order to try to define any or all of those more usefully. You attack to attempt to destabilize in any or all of those timeframes.
Put another way; advocate to try to strengthen the position of a candidate, support to increase the perceived backing that a candidate has, critique to strengthen ambiguous areas, and defend against attacks on what are perceived as a candidate’s weaknesses. Which suggests that defense, including attacking the commenter, is the weakest option of them all against either a real or perceived attack.
Critiques and attacks
— there’s a difference, but you may have to look for it.
When more attention is expended in explaining why a statement should be regarded as an attack than a critique, it’s a critique — that somebody doesn’t want to have to think about.
When an attack on another position, or person, masquerading as a defense of a candidate, is substituted for advocacy for a candidate, it’s time to take a good hard look at what it’s trying to accomplish, and whether it’s responding to a critique rather than an attack.
A comment on a possible candidate weakness needs to be carefully considered before responding. The angrier the responses, in general, the more likely that it was a critique.
Trolling attacks: Real Trolls piss everybody off, not just defenders. If you really think it’s a troll who’s attacking, call in someone who supports another candidate to give a second opinion before you take the unrecoverable step of saying so. Otherwise, report it as a possible comment not-in-good-faith to the Help Desk and let them sort it out. It doesn’t give you the momentary satisfaction of scoring an immediate put-down, but neither does it leave you with egg on your face later.
Now, overall, none of the above inherently says much about the quality of an individual candidate. Any candidate can have people who advocate, support, defend, critique and attack other candidates, attack the people around another candidate, etc., etc. These can gather both because of and in spite of what a candidate may advocate for.
But it can change how a candidate is perceived, and not for the better, if enough angry defenders/attackers gather around one. Both Sanders and Clinton, I think, were hurt by this in the last election. Let’s not set up to undermine any of the current candidates by letting angry or petty responses go without pushback by others supporting the same candidates as the responders.
(Did that get too convoluted? Just because you advocate for or support a candidate doesn’t mean you can’t call out their defenders if they begin attacking someone. In fact, it’s your duty to your candidate, and to the greater polity, to try to do so.)