The State of Political Discourse

Civility.

I keep hearing that word uttered by those who decry the sorry state of negative politics these days.  "Why can't there be more civility?" 

One cannot understand politics today without understanding a little bit about one Saul David Alinsky.  And in particular, his rule number five:

"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage."

Now I know that political satire and name calling and dirty tricks are nothing new.  They've been with us from the beginning.  But what has changed is the way Alinsky weaponized amoral tactics. (Read More)

Alinsky's method involved moving in on a particular disenfranchised group, winning their trust by "listening" to their grievances and then fanning those grievances into a flame that would spur radical action.  Wrote Alinsky, "One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other." For this reason, ridicule and character assassination have become an effective, intentional and strategic method of winning political battles.  

Alinsky never joined the communist party, but his motives, though seemingly cynical and nihilistic, seem to have a connection to quasi-Marxist thought.  The purpose of his "tactics" was in part for the "have-nots" to seize power from the "haves".   His tome was dedicated to Lucifer, and the amoral drift is evident in phrases like "in war the end can justify almost any means" and "...you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments."

Using the motive of grievance, "rubbing raw the sores of discontent", a skilled organizer can motivate a group of people to do all sorts of things they might not if given an opportunity to think rationally.  The emotion of grievance is vital to the plan.  "Community Organizing" is generally a euphemism for stirring the emotions of particular groups to motivate them to political action.  And the political left has used the methods for many years.

Alinsky's son David praised the Democratic party of 2008 and Barack Obama in particular for effective use of the rules in a letter to the Boston Globe. "Barack Obama's training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness....I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday." 

 
The fact that 90% of blacks vote democratic and black conservatives are demonized as Uncle Toms can at least in part be attributed to the strategic use of grievance by the left.  Thomas Sowell, the eclectic and brilliant African American economist tied the tactics to the use of race in political gamesmanship:

“For ‘community organizers’ … racial resentments are a stock in trade…. What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a community, directing those feelings against other communities, from whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.”

 

And the most brutal rhetorical tactic of all is the personal attack, rule number 13. 

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.  In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.'...any target can always say, 'Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?' When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments.... Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the 'others' come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target...'

So the attack serves two purposes.  One, it demoralizes a visible leader on the opposing side and two, it flushes out and identifies his allies so that they can become targets as well.

On the first point Alinsky cooly recalls a battle with a school superintendent who had been portrayed as racist.  Some of the superintendent's opponents felt this was over the top and noted he was a good, churchgoing family man.  Alinsky retorted, "Can you imagine in the arena of conflict charging that so-and-so is a racist bastard and then diluting the impact of the attack with qualifying remarks such as "He is a good churchgoing man, generous to charity, and a good husband"? This becomes political idiocy."

If you think it a mere oddity that Paul Ryan's plan for rescuing Medicare from insolvency has been portrayed as pushing grandma off a cliff, think again.  It is a tactic to mobilize senior citizens to vote a certain way and hopefully get conservatives to overreact.

So the attack on the target must be without mercy.  And there must always be a strategic second attack.  "The real action is in the enemy's reaction...The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength."  In other words, one can predict the reaction of the bewildered and unsuspecting victim and his or her allies and use the reaction against them.  

One would be wrong to think that all this is just an end justifies the means approach where bad tactics are found acceptable in the service of noble causes.  For Alinsky, "the issue is never the issue".   Whatever grievances a community might have, the satisfaction of those grievances is not the end, but a means.   

David Horowitz notes a particular chilling anecdote:  "... when Alinsky would ask new students why they wanted to organize, they would invariably respond with selfless bromides about wanting to help others. Alinsky would then scream back at them that there was a one-word answer: 'You want to organize for power!'" 

Alinsky's tactics are standard fare for the left, are commonly used in leadership training by major labor unions.  We have become desensitized to the tactic and have come to expect it from politicians.   I personally am convinced all the charges of racism in the "tea party" and demonization of Conservative Christians as wanting to impose a theocracy at best and as terrorists at worst are also strategic tactics to neutralize influence and provoke a poorly thought out response.

Unfortunately some on the right have decided fighting fire with fire is acceptable and have adopted some Alinskyite strategies. That only worsens a bad situation and lowers the debate further.  Far better to simply be aware of the strategy, try to remain calm, to expose the strategy and shed bright, bright sunlight on every false and absurd charge - to use not a club, but a mirror that reflects back on the tactics of smear.  

The one thing that must happen to restore any sense of decency to the public debate is to simply expose the tactics for what they are:  tactics to win by intimidation.  If most ordinary citizens are simply made aware that public smears are an intentional strategy, they will be more likely to calmly ignore the nonsense and look a little deeper for the truth.  

That's fighting fire with water.  Like the wicked witch of the west, the transparent and cool effect of water tends to dissolve evil.  Get to know Alinsky.  Then move on.