your political allies are those whose actions support your goals and your political enemies are those whose actions hurt your goals.
! That’s not how other humans interpret “alliance,” and using language like that is a recipe for social disaster. This is a description of convenience. Allies are people that you will sacrifice for and they will sacrifice for you. The NAACP may benefit from the existence of Stormfront, but imagine the fallout from a fundraising letter that called them the NAACP’s allies!
Whether or not someone is an ally or an enemy depends on the context. As the saying goes, “I against my brother, and I and my brother against my cousins, I and my brother and my cousins against the world”—the person that has the same preferences as you, and thus competes with you for the same resources, is potentially an enemy in the local scope but is an ally in broader scopes.
! That’s not how other humans interpret “alliance,” and using language like that is a recipe for social disaster. This is a description of convenience. Allies are people that you will sacrifice for and they will sacrifice for you. The NAACP may benefit from the existence of Stormfront, but imagine the fallout from a fundraising letter that called them the NAACP’s allies!
Whether or not someone is an ally or an enemy depends on the context. As the saying goes, “I against my brother, and I and my brother against my cousins, I and my brother and my cousins against the world”—the person that has the same preferences as you, and thus competes with you for the same resources, is potentially an enemy in the local scope but is an ally in broader scopes.