Community Organizing for the Digital Age

Interesting article by Tony Lee at Breitbart analyzing How Obama Won.  The opening paragraph reads

"President Barack Obama sees America as a salad bowl, where multiculturalists are free to pick and choose identities and cultures instead of sharing a unifying one -- the classical melting pot concept. And Obama's successful 2012 campaign -- as sophisticated as it was when it came to micro-targeting voters -- reflected his broader view.

"Instead of running a campaign based on his record or a unifying and forward-looking vision for the next four years, Obama essentially ran multiple, micro-targeted campaigns aimed at specific racial groups, scaring them into believing Republicans would take away their rights and promising them legislation on pet issues in a second term. He used the same template with women voters. He essentially united his coalition by disuniting America, one racial and gender group at a time."  (More)

This is the postmodern ethos practiced with surgical precision in the political arena.   There is no unifying vision because there is no universal truth, only competing visions learned in diverse cultures - and Obama managed to "identify" with enough of them in the right strategic precincts in the battleground states to win the election.  Tony Lee goes on to describe how various cultural subgroups - blacks, Hispanics, women, gays, and youth - were targeted with specific issues and mobilized for turnout precisely where they were needed.  

The Alinskyite strategy of painting the opponent as 100% devil to fan the flames of grievance is by now well known to political operatives in the Republican party.  Paul Ryan for example fought back against the charge that his plan to reform entitlements amounted to throwing grandma off a cliff.  


What appears to be different here is that the strategy was carried out under the radar.  Groups were targeted specifically and individually while in the mass media Obama simply offered vague platitudes.  Tucker Carlson noted on FOX after the election that nobody in the mainstream media was talking about abortion, but with certain specific female voters, Obama had effectively energized women of a certain demographic.


Gays make up less than 5% of the population.  Yet as a strategic issue, gay marriage was used to sew up the vote of moral progressives and demonize as bigots those who opposed it. That one was perhaps not "under the radar" but none of Romney's softer approach to that issue mattered.  All Obama had to do was say he had "evolved" on the issue and he sewed up that demographic.

(One interesting tidbit - Obama did not win a single state that requires a photo ID to vote.  He also carried certain precincts with a suspiciously high turnout, but that's another issue).

What strikes me about this strategy is that it is a politics built on the grievances that divide us and not on the universal principles that once united us.  It wins elections but tramples unity for political power. 

Democracy built on universal and lasting principles unites various groups.  My heritage is Irish and there was a time when Irish immigrants faced significant animosity in certain parts of the country, but over time we have assimilated to the point where we are simply Americans.  Irish Catholics have long valued faith, family and freedom and in spite of ethnic squabbles of eras past, those values were largely allowed to flourish in this country.

Democracy built on interest group issues without the universal principles will divide bitterly.  Without universal ideals, there is no incentive for diverse groups to assimilate and come together for common goals - rather there is the incentive to compete with other interest groups.

Which is why I remain convinced that America will fall without the Judeo Christian assumptions that once under-girded it.  The foundational Christian principles of the founding fathers were these: 

• That men are created in God's image and that certain rights are inalienable. 
• That some laws are universal and apply to all regardless of place of origin and regardless of office or position
• That men are corruptible, (sinful) and therefore power must be limited, checks and        balances are necessary
• That virtue precedes good government, therefore self-government demands citizens   have a consensus about what public virtue entails

All of these principles have been shredded in the last half century by the left.

• Inalienable rights have succumbed to arbitrary definitions of "personhood" to the point where infants born alive cannot be protected
• Laws are applied differently, so that immigrants from some countries must wait in line while others are rewarded for skirting our immigration laws and reap government benefits while living here illegally.
• The balance of power has been subverted by executive fiat in some cases (czars), raw judicial power in the courts (Roe v Wade) in other cases and parliamentary shenanigans       in yet others (Obamacare passed in the night without opportunity to read the bill)
• Virtue is no longer seen as a consensus of universal principles  - rather "values" are determined at the level of ethnic and special interest groups, each competing to win a political advantage.  There no longer remains a priority of the "common good"

I disagreed with Mitt Romney about theology.  But I saw in Romney an affirmation of the virtues that are necessary for Democracy to work.  I saw, and still see in Barack Obama a string of cold political calculations robed in moral language.  A man who singlehandedly prevents the simple extension of a basic right to live to living infants born alive and left to die in a linen closet is not a moral man.

He campaigned four years ago on a promise to unite, but his campaign this election was a cynical exercise in division.