It wasn't stupid, it was an exploration of motivation and fulfillment. I viewed it as such. If anything, I think you hurt yourself by insisting in right vs. wrong in discussions of motivation. It's like you're either a sell-out or a martyr in your cosmology and you either need to embrace the selling or smile while sacrificing yourself and anything less than 100% pure acceptance reflects spiritual weakness or some shit.

You also practice a peculiarly transparent form of relative morality: the purity test doesn't matter, it's whether the subject did better or worse than you. Not only that, but your standards are where you are now, how you feel now, not where you were nine months ago. Because nine-months-ago you totally slagged on anyone who had to "get a job" while yesterday you is totally slagging on anyone who hasn't.

Break this down to the facts: an activist went to a rally and posted the threatening interaction she had with multiple people. The knowledge of those threatening interactions cost a family their livelihood. The only thing this "journalist", to use your implied scare quotes, did was reflect on her place in the event.

There’s a path forward for me here — something a friend describes as “Kabuki politics.” I could keep this going forever. My face will increasingly provoke reaction at these events, whether I want it to or not. This could easily become the only thing I’m known for.

I could make a career of this.

Go check what Andy Ngo's Wikipedia page says and report back about "jobs". Keep in mind that Jadeed didn't even write his name.