Timing and potent, effectiveness is crucial. Congress must defeat B.O care, amnesty, secure our borders and impeach! Here are ten quotes from Rules for Radicals that appear to have materially influenced the Republican Congressional anti-Obamacare playbook: 1. “No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.” Many observers believed that the one-two punch of the 2012 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, followed by the President’s comfortable victory in last November’s election, meant that Obamacare would in fact become “settled law.” But the President seems not to have anticipated that legislative legitimacy might not translate into political pacifism by his opponents, and Republicans from the Tea Party Caucus have most certainly chosen to bring the heat on the healthcare debate. 2. “If by losing in a certain action he can get more members than by winning, then victory lies in losing and he will lose.” Conventional wisdom in Washington last week was that Ted Cruz’s overnight anti-Obamacare screed was a futile waste of time. But Cruz seems to have been burning the midnight oil more than on just the evening he gave the speech – perhaps reading Rules for Radicals. His performance garnered rave reviews from rank and file Republicans and appears to have plopped the Senator right at the front of the GOP presidential field. 3. “Great dangers always accompany great opportunities. The possibility of destruction is always implicit in the act of creation.” Nearly every pundit’s take on the government shutdown has been that the GOP is bringing enormous risks on itself by its determination not to blink in this confrontation with the Democrats. That analysis is always delivered in a tone of admonishment – “These ideologues…these radicals…are so blindly blah blah blah that they’re willing to risk blah blah blah…”. And apparently, they are — just as Alinsky said they must be. 4. “The ninth rule of the ethics of means and ends is that any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.” Alinsky took great pains to dissect the ethics of radical action, possessing a great deal of self-awareness as to how he was perceived by his opposition. Leaders of the anti-Obamacare rebellion seem to be well aware they’d be accused of the lowest perfidy and general amorality, and they seem quite unwilling to let it bother them. 5. “The job of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a ‘dangerous enemy.’ “ How better to build a movement than to be denounced as a dangerous enemy for embracing a gut-level truth for a large segment of the population? Alinsky often fought against the race prejudice that was just such a truth for most of the residents of the communities in which he worked. The Obamacare rebels, on the other hand, are being denounced as dangerous enemies for fighting against a program they see as causing gut-level fear for a large swath of downwardly-mobile middle class Americans. And the denunciations are clearly fueling further rebellion. 6. “If your function is to attack apathy and get people to participate it is necessary to attack the prevailing patterns of organized living in the community. The first step in community organization is community disorganization.” While many commentators have either gloated over or lamented a “civil war within the GOP,” Alinsky makes the point that to build a revolutionary machine, the routine, the status quo, must first be interrupted and then overturned. By any measure, that process seems to have begun within the Republican party. 7. “People hunger for drama and adventure, for a breath of life in a dreary, drab existence.” Alinsky knew that asymmetric warfare of the sort Have-Nots are compelled to wage against Haves requires capturing people’s attention. The Obamacare rebellion leaders have done an excellent job of creating breathless drama (at least judging by the multiple cable news networks telecasting live from Washington DC well into the wee hours of the morning of the shutdown). 8. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” Alinsky loved to ridicule his opponents, noting that “It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.” The oft-quoted line from Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-California) “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it,” is exactly the kind of fodder for ridicule that Alinsky would have loved, and the GOP has put it to great use. 9. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” Alinsky noted that “If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.” Rachel Maddow noted sourly on her show that the shutdown “is both fun and ideologically correct for Republicans.” Apparently so, and therefore good organizing. 10. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Perhaps Alinsky’s single most famous line of advice, by which he recommended putting a single face on the enemy and making the protest very much about that individual. The GOP has unquestionably used this tactic against the community organizer himself, making President Obama the target for their movement’s deep resentment of the Affordable Care Act. He, in turn, has played right into their hands, wrapping himself ever-tighter in the mantle of his “signature accomplishment,” as all pundits refer to it. The Real Action Alinsky gleefully noted that “The real action is in the enemy’s reaction.” Watching the grim-faced Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) proclaim that the members of the Republican House caucus have “lost their minds” must have the very liberal Alinsky simultaneously spinning and laughing in his grave as his playbook is used against his political heirs, thereby demonstrating its effectiveness. The radical sauce for the goose is radical sauce for the gander. One last note for Republican leaders, though – Alinsky also wrote that “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Turns out moderation in all things is good – even radicalism. Dave Maney appreciates the power of ridicule and makes his living as Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Deke Digital, a financial services content marketing firm. Follow him on Twitter or add him on Google+. Or both.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Oct 2013 04:03:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015