Using alinskys tactics against the far left

[Theinquisition]

Here's some sound advice for fellow conservatives.

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnh...ainst_liberals

Saul Alinsky was a brilliant man. Evil, but brilliant. Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, everyone on the Left from the President on down is playing by his rules in the political arena. Not all liberals have read his book or know his name, but his tactics have become universal. Sadly for conservatives, when two evenly matched forces go head-to-head outside of a fairy tale, the side that tries to play nice usually ends up with its head in a box. So, don't lie or become an evil person like Alinsky, but learn from what he wrote and give the Left a taste of its own medicine.

1) Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. Boycotts have fallen out of favor on the Right because the Left has used that tactic to target conservative radio. This is a mistake. That's because there are a lot more conservatives than there are liberals and we're much more capable of using the tactic effectively. There are roughly 120 million people who identify with conservatism in this country and almost twice as many Christians. When there are threats that Christians and conservatives will refuse to go see movies, stop buying products, or cancel subscriptions, it will scare some people straight. That threat should be used and carried out much more often.

2) Never go outside the experience of your people. Want to know why Republicans are so terrible at reaching out to minorities? Because identity politics works really, really well and conservatives tend to oppose it on principle. So, white Republicans are constantly trying to go outside of their experience and reach out to minorities who are generally disinclined to listen to them because they have the wrong skin color. When the GOP accepts reality, adopts the tactics of the Democratic Party, and starts paying off our own Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons to reach out to minority groups and call Democrats racists, we'll start making inroads with minorities for the first time in decades.

3) Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. The GOP often foolishly retreats from social issues. This is a huge mistake in an era when 76% of the country is Christian and most liberals find sincere Christian beliefs to be repellent. We don't have to preach at anyone, wag our fingers, or turn into legions of Ned Flanders, but we shouldn't be afraid to talk about our Christian beliefs, stick up for Christians who are under attack, and hammer the Left for its anti-Christian bigotry. Conservatism is a pro-Christian ideology and liberalism is an anti-Christian ideology. We should never be afraid to drive that point home.


4) Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. This is something conservatives have gotten much better at in the last few years, but we seldom take it far enough. If we did, a tax cheat who advocates higher taxes could certainly never be our Treasury Secretary, Barack Obama would be afraid to associate with race hustlers like Al Sharpton or one percenters like Warren Buffet, and Al Gore would have either given up his mansion or his status as the leader of the cult of global warming.

4A) Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. Conservatives have a tendency to try to win every debate with logic and recitations of facts which, all too often, fail to get the job done because emotions and mockery are often just as effective as reason. The good news is that liberals almost never have logic on their side; so they're incapable of rationally making the case for their policies while conservatives can become considerably more effective debaters by simply adding some emotion-based arguments and sheer scorn to their discourse. This has certainly worked on Twitter, where conservatives keep making the Obama campaign look like buffoons by taking over its hashtags.

6) A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. Sometimes Republicans get too serious about politics. Why not hold a fund raiser at the gun range? What's wrong with having Kid Rock or a bunch of popular country musicians play at a massive voter registration drive? How about building some giant puppet heads of our own, featuring Nancy Pelosi injecting botox into her face or Barack Obama punching the Pope in the stomach? A little controversy and fun draw in the eyeballs and gets people excited.

7) A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. This one seems self-explanatory, but in practice, it can be tough to keep things on a timeline. This is what happened to the Occupy Movement, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Republican race for the presidency, too. If it goes on too long, people sour on it whether it’s a war, an election, or a tactic.

8) Keep the pressure on. Conservatives fall down on this one all the time. Just when Obama's SuperPac was starting to feel real pressure over taking a million dollar donation from Bill Maher, conservatives eased up. This is also why liberal film stars feel so comfortable trashing conservatives, Christians, and Americans -- even right before their film comes out. It's because we get offended, shrug our shoulders, and then almost immediately let it go. Sometimes, an apology doesn't fix everything. How often do liberals accept an apology at face value and let an issue go?

9) The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. How about we treat the Left to some of its own medicine? Libs throw a pie at a conservative author on campus; then we promise to shower every liberal speaker on the same campus with garbage. They post a conservative address online; we post two liberal addresses online. They hold a protest at someone's house; then we hold a protest at someone's house. They hit one of our politicians with glitter; we hit one of their politicians with coal dust. Liberals have a mentality that says, "Everything we do is harmless, but everything conservatives do is potentially dangerous." Yet, we're usually too well behaved to copy their tactics. Mimic those tactics once or twice and the Libs will freak out so hard that they'll start declaring it to be off limits for everyone, including their own activists.

10) The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. When you launch an attack, tie it in as part of a theme and never stop hammering the theme as long as it's true and it works. John Kerry is a flip-flopper, Bill Clinton is a liar, Barack Obama is bankrupting the country and wrecking the economy -- tie your attacks into themes that can be picked up on social media, talk radio, cable TV, and in the blogosphere over the long haul. Why does McDonald's keep running ads? Because it may be that 50th ad or 100th ad you see that gets you to go buy a Big Mac, just as it may be the 50th or 100th time someone hears that Obama is bankrupting the country and wrecking the economy before it sticks.

11) If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside. The winner in politics is almost always whoever is on offense. Liberals understand this in an intuitive way that most conservatives don't. We think because we have this wonderful, honest, logical response to a charge that we're scoring major points -- but, except in rare cases, it's not true. If you're spending all of your time refuting the charges that you're extreme, racist, hate women, and despise the poor -- you're losing. That's because some people will assume where there's smoke, there's fire, and disbelieve you no matter how good your explanation may be. Additionally, if you're busy defending yourself, you can't go after the other side. Defend when you absolutely have to, but make sure most of your time is spent attacking relentlessly attacking.

12) The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Honestly, this is more of a liberal problem than a conservative one, since liberals always seem to be clamoring to rip out some functional necessity of American society so they can replace it with an ill-defined hodgepodge of ideas that they think will shift power their way or be less "mean." Our ideas work; so coming up with a constructive alternative is seldom a problem.

13) Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Conservatives tend to do well with this one until they get to the last part. Polarization is at the core of the Left's strategy. According to liberals, if you're conservative, you hate blacks, Hispanics, gays, Jews, Muslims, women, the poor, the middle class, the environment, and probably a half dozen other groups I've forgotten. Even when something is in front of our face, conservatives shy away from polarization. What's wrong with pointing out how hostile the Democratic Party has become to Christianity? Why not point out the truth: that most white liberals are racists who think black Americas are too stupid and incompetent to compete with white Americans, which is why they push Affirmative Action and racial set asides? Why not note that liberals want poor Americans to stay poor and dependent, because as long as they do, they'll keep voting for the Democrat Party? There's a reason Barack Obama bows to foreign leaders, is constantly apologizing for America, attended an anti-white, anti-American church for 20 years, and it's why his wife was proud of the country for the FIRST TIME because she thought it was going to elect her husband. The sad truth is that these are people who hate and despise this country. Why do you think "hope and change" appealed so much to Obama that he made it his theme? When you look at America as an evil, racist, unfair, horrible place to live inhabited by ignorant trash and "bitter clingers," what else would you do other than hope for change? If you love this country and the values it represents, the people in the White House not only don't share your values, they hold people like you in utter contempt.

[Pangean]

Where did you get this from?

[Medusa Cascade]

American politics is rather odd

[Spectral]

Conservatives have a tendency to try to win every debate with logic and recitations of facts...

This does not match my experience.

Why not point out the truth: that most white liberals are racists who think black Americas are too stupid and incompetent to compete with white Americans, which is why they push Affirmative Action and racial set asides?

I am very confident that a "you're the real racists" will not work as a strategic matter. This move concedes the frame that racism is the worst thing ever and that whoever's "racist" loses. Good luck with that.

[Wells]

This does not match my experience.

Glad to see someone else got a chuckle out of that.

[Acidbaron]

American politics is rather odd

This seems rather juvenile, guess when you can't debate about facts or things that matter you're next best move is creating falsehoods, telling half-truths and throwing pies.

Glad politics here haven't been lowered to the level you might as well let monkies throw their feces at each other and determine which is more civil that or the politics over there.

[Ravenblade]

Where did you get this from?

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnh...ainst_liberals

I like how "liberals" end up "far left".

I usually associate Maoists, neo-Stalinists and old guard ML-followers (not-yet-died Marxists-Leninists) with far left. Liberal in European sense usually sees "liberal" as purely economical.

[Wells]

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnh...ainst_liberals

I like how "liberals" end up "far left".

I usually associate Maoists, neo-Stalinists and old guard ML-followers (not-yet-died Marxists-Leninists) with far left. Liberal in European sense usually sees "liberal" as purely economical.

Alinsky and the "far left" and all that shit is basically something no one gives a shit about outside of that weird brand of American conservatism that sees shit in every shadow.

[PC2]

I think the best strategy is to be fiercely pro-free expression and anti-authoritarian. The left is powerless without authoritarian and silencing tactics.

[mvaliz]

According to liberals, if you're conservative, you hate blacks, Hispanics, gays, Jews, Muslims, women, the poor, the middle class, the environment, and probably a half dozen other groups I've forgotten. Even when something is in front of our face, conservatives shy away from polarization. What's wrong with pointing out how hostile the Democratic Party has become to Christianity?

/sigh

Tony, you really need to open your eyes and see that your party has been hijacked. The problem is your party has been hijacked by the very people you don't believe exist in your party - the racists who hate blacks, hispanics, gays, jews muslims, women, the poor, the middle class and all that you list. You may not be racist or believe you're not one - but honestly, for every one of you, there's 10 of the others, and denying their existence is NOT helping you - that's why Donald Dump won the bid outstripping a sensible guy like Kasick. Because there's enough racists over rational thinkers. I have plenty of fiscally conservative friends and they're now just beginning to realize this fact that their party is going into the toilet BECAUSE your peers catered to the Southern Strategy and courted not just sensible fiscal conservatives - but psychotic paranoid nutjobs as well hoping to get an edge. This is why there's been a sudden interest to go "libertarian" in an effort to abandon the ship that's been overrun by rats.

And are you seriously suggesting that Obama, a Christian himself, is attacking Christianity? PLEASE don't tell me you are one of those doinks who think he's a secret Muslim terrorist. >_<

[alexw]

Is it a boycott or the fact that radio is for old people?

This list is pretty much made up of the same delusional persecution mentality that results in conservatives being totally out of touch with reality in the first place. You won't fix the problem by doubling down on the same flawed strategy.

+1000

FYI the reason non-conservatives don't listen to talk radio is because its a load of delusional gibberish. They most of their time bashing "liberuuls" and how those liberuuls are an evil which they must fight. The rest is spent discussing how they personally have the one true knowledge which their listeners should follow.

No sane person is going to listen to hour upon hour of such wingbat nonsense.

[Wells]

I think the best strategy is to be fiercely pro-free expression and anti-authoritarian. The left is powerless without authoritarian and silencing tactics.

Yeah, that's totally us. Right on the nose.

[Pangean]

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnh...ainst_liberals

I like how "liberals" end up "far left".

I usually associate Maoists, neo-Stalinists and old guard ML-followers (not-yet-died Marxists-Leninists) with far left. Liberal in European sense usually sees "liberal" as purely economical.

Well certainly definitions are different in different parts of the world. But to call those who might be labeled liberal here in America far left is ridiculous no matter where in the world you are.

[Elegiac]

"Hostile to Christianity."

No, just the evangelical Protestant versions of it which encourage discrimination greed and continually try to back socially regressive legislation.

[alexw]

This does not match my experience.

Earth calling Benghazi.........

[mvaliz]

I think the best strategy is to be fiercely pro-free expression and anti-authoritarian. The left is powerless without authoritarian and silencing tactics.

...this is comming from the guy who is supporting a candidate who is stating his desires to legally silence media criticism!? And don't say "but he means slander" - you know damn well he means "anything that's insulting to him, weither it's slanderous or not - and will turn facts into fiction via lawsuits".

[Prokne]

Case in point, framing AA as a suggestion that liberals think black people are inferior, when basically any left wing person in support of AA will tell you it's precisely because they're not but society holds them back, basically leaves people wondering where they ever got the idea that people think beneficiaries of AA are inferior.

IMO this comes from a racist point of view or one that is oblivious to social inequality like a lot of conservative views. They see society as equal as in everyone has the opportunity to pull themselves up and become rich or whatever (if only the government didn't have regulations that made it harder). So, the only reason someone would need help getting ahead is because they themselves are not able to do it because the are inferior.

[Theinquisition]

/sigh

Tony, you really need to open your eyes and see that your party has been hijacked. The problem is your party has been hijacked by the very people you don't believe exist in your party - the racists who hate blacks, hispanics, gays, jews muslims, women, the poor, the middle class and all that you list. You may not be racist or believe you're not one - but honestly, for every one of you, there's 10 of the others, and denying their existence is NOT helping you - that's why Donald Dump won the bid outstripping a sensible guy like Kasick. Because there's enough racists over rational thinkers. I have plenty of fiscally conservative friends and they're now just beginning to realize this fact that their party is going into the toilet BECAUSE your peers catered to the Southern Strategy and courted not just sensible fiscal conservatives - but psychotic paranoid nutjobs as well hoping to get an edge. This is why there's been a sudden interest to go "libertarian" in an effort to abandon the ship that's been overrun by rats.

And are you seriously suggesting that Obama, a Christian himself, is attacking Christianity? PLEASE don't tell me you are one of those doinks who think he's a secret Muslim terrorist. >_<

Calm down Mvallas, its a link to a story, I don't agree with all of it.

[PC2]

Yeah, that's totally us. Right on the nose.

The ideas are orthogonal to left-right, so it can apply to either, however it is currently a bigger problem on the left.

[alexw]

Yeah, that's totally us. Right on the nose.

Yup its those damn leftists wanting to build walls, monitor people, regulate social lives, etc.