I never denied this point, though. Instead, I said that it was important to understand what phase you were in when seeking rights.

You focus on the presence of a demand, but not on what is being demanded. If you stage a militant protest in favor of making the U.S. a white ethnostate complete with super-tight border security, people (rightfully) counter-protest, think you're vile, and ask the FBI to work harder to investigate white nationalist extremism. This does not help promote border security. Failing to denounce such groups also doesn't help promote border security. If you're interested in border security you need to denounce the white ethnostate crazies while making a compelling case that border security is the right thing to do. Not all publicity is good publicity.

However, if nobody had ever heard of the idea of border security before, though, the white ethnostate crazies and their militant protest actually could be a step on the path to border security. Even as people (rightfully) condemn them, they might also be thinking, "Huh, you know, what do we think about border security, anyway? Is our current policy fair and useful? Why are they so upset about it? Is it true that people just wander over, commit crimes, and then go back to their country where (our) law enforcement can't get them? That seems wrong, if it's true." But of course we have heard of border security before. We're not in the phase of raising the point that borders could be a thing and that there may be some value in checking who enters and leaves. We're in the phase where we understand the issues to an extent, and different people have different perspectives, and to implement a particular policy you need to assemble adequate support for that policy.

This is the case also with abortion rights. As I said, NAWSA, not NWP.

Being provocative is, in part, an attempt to demonstrate the extremism of the other side by forcing a clear display of their overreaction to make your side look more moral in contrast, and to illustrate that action really is needed right away. If you are the one who looks like the extremist, you'd better be quite sure that you're increasing the motivation of your own side or something, because there's going to be a cost in breadth of support.

Anyway, if I haven't convinced you yet with evidence, I'm even less likely to convince you with the above which is contains only reasoning, not additional evidence. I really only wanted to correct the "taking" thing, as it was exactly backwards with respect to the relationship between where power lies and what actions to pursue.