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Obamalinsky's First 100 Days
The President's Radical Playbook
By Colin A. Hanna, For The Bulletin
Barack Obama and his team are engaged in a long-running campaign with important milestones. What is his end goal? What should we look for in the meantime? The evidence to date suggests that President Obama is not simply formulating his own goals, but has rooted it in the tactical prescriptions of leftist godfather Saul Alinsky.
Alinsky: “… taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people,” — according to Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, 1971, Random House
Many observers praised Mr. Obama’s “change we can believe in” slogan as clever marketing, but might it be more than merely clever? His “change” mantra, combined with an almost Reaganesque appeal to “hope,” were designed to calm the fears many people have concerning radical social change so that they would more readily embrace the full range of the agenda that Mr. Obama and his allies have in mind for America.
The great majority of Americans is fond of their way of life. This is coupled with a deep suspicion of radical change, especially change peddled by politicians. A realistic view of human nature understands that human plans are subject to the same frailties and misfires that humans themselves are. The innately conservative respect for tradition also informs this view. Our current standard of living was arrived at through a countless series of trial and error — our forefathers made many mistakes before coming up with the elements that make up society today, including the rule of law, participatory democracy and free market economics. The free market, in fact, is designed to respect this trial and error process — to allow millions of individuals to fan out over the landscape try their hand at a new small business or an innovation in an established method of doing things.
However, the vast majority of these innovations will fail, which is necessary in itself — we can discover much from failure. Many successful innovations result from accidents or when the inventor was looking for something else — like penicillin.
The average person is skeptical of large, radical change, and rightly so, and therefore a radical liberal seeking to change American society needs to soften up this resistance. Mr. Obama’s “change” and “hope” slogans are not unlike placing a dolly under a couch or a refrigerator: it makes it much easier to move in the desired direction.
Is Mr. Obama a radical? Here are some of his stated objectives:
• He wants to dramatically expand government control over our health care system.
• He wants to enact a broad set of environmental controls and environmental taxes on the economy, with little apparent concern for the effect on business profitability and thus sustainability.
• He wants to abolish the right to a secret ballot in union organizing.
• He wants to subordinate American sovereignty to the United Nations by committing us to treaties and agreements on a wide variety of issues.
• He appears to be working to undermine popular support for the Second Amendment by repeating false statistics about gun violence. His few positive comments about ownership of firearms typically related to hunting and target-shooting, neither of which was the basis for the Second Amendment.
• He is appointing radical advocates of abortion to positions within his administration, including advocates of taxpayer-funded abortion and partial-birth abortion, and he moved within days of his inauguration to send taxpayer money to international organizations that perform abortions.
• He is moving to cut the budget of the Defense Department specifically to limit research into future combat systems that could more effectively protect America at a lower cost.
Note that all of these policy items were less urgent than the “stimulus” bill. The stimulus was an ingenious way to seize the opportunity presented by the recession. In fact, the purpose of the stimulus itself would have made Alinsky proud:
• Much of the stimulus money went toward “feeding and watering” of radical constituency groups such as ACORN and Planned Parenthood, as well as unions and government bureaucrats.
• Much of the stimulus money is in the form of “down payments” on questionable energy programs desired by liberal environmentalists or transportation programs designed to make it harder for individuals to own cars and easier for the government to force them into mass transit systems.
• Much of the stimulus money relies on the discredited notion that simply pushing money through the system — taking $10 out of one pocket and putting it into another — creates economic growth. In fact, it is entrepreneurship that creates growth, because it creates value.
• Some of the stimulus spending is designed with time bombs in the form of expansions of government health care initiatives that expire in a few years, “forcing” Congress to continue them. This was done on the front end to hold the official cost of the stimulus under a trillion dollars.
What is interesting about Mr. Obama’s tactical maneuvering is that he has constructed his entire means of advancing these proposals by following the playbook of Saul Alinsky, the Machiavelli of the 1960s radical left.
Alinsky was dangerous not just because he shared the belief system of left-wing terrorists like William Ayers, but rather because he explained to young, impressionable college students and aspiring activists why Mr. Ayers was ineffective, and how to be a more effective agent for liberal change. Mr. Ayers and his gang were successful in bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, but they failed to create the national movement they were seeking.
Mr. Obama pursues what is unquestionably the most radical agenda of an American President in decades, but he does it with a smile, and gentle words about the American dream and cutting taxes. As Alinsky said in Rules for Radicals, raving about “white racist[s]” and “fascist pig[s]” (or bombing the Pentagon) may feel good to a leftist organizer, but the responsible organizer blends into the community and avoids foolish risks that could get him shunned by regular members of the community.
Mr. Obama was trained directly by disciples who had been trained by Alinsky himself in Chicago, and Mr. Obama has been called a “master of Alinsky’s tactics” in David Freddoso’s book, The Case Against Barack Obama. Mr. Obama’s unguarded and revealing comment about bitter people who cling to guns and religion also reflects Alinsky’s worldview of pity, rather than hate, for the commoners who have not yet embraced radical change.
If Mr. Obama is truly following Alinsky’s path, what can be done to counter him? Alinsky warns aspiring radicals repeatedly about seeming out of touch or alien to the community, lest they lose credibility. In a sense, Mr. Obama’s ethnicity has been a great benefit to him on this score. Any attempt by Mr. Obama’s opponents to point out the essential extremism of his public policy positions has been beaten back with allegations of racism — that the critics are trying to subtly hint that what is alien and wrong about Mr. Obama is his race, not his left-wing positions.
Rather than retreat in the face of these allegations, Obama critics must be stout-hearted in criticizing his positions, while at the same time fighting back strongly against allegations of racism. In this regard, Alinsky himself provides further advice: subject the accusers to ridicule. Liberal media entities have spent years calling conservatives racist for advocating in favor of limited government and traditional values. Conservatives must find their own spokespersons with their version of Mr. Obama’s charm and ability to connect. It is possible that a cadre of non-white conservative presenters could permanently defuse the racism countercharge.
Ultimately, Mr. Obama is engaged in a time-tested strategy developed by generations of liberals to win support for policies far to the left of what most Americans identify as their core political values. But the strategy sets up a clear counter-strategy, and it’s up to conservatives to develop and deploy it.
Colin A. Hanna is president of Let Freedom Ring, a nonprofit, grassroots organization supporting a conservative agenda.
Alinsky: “… taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people,” — according to Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, by Saul Alinsky, 1971, Random House
Many observers praised Mr. Obama’s “change we can believe in” slogan as clever marketing, but might it be more than merely clever? His “change” mantra, combined with an almost Reaganesque appeal to “hope,” were designed to calm the fears many people have concerning radical social change so that they would more readily embrace the full range of the agenda that Mr. Obama and his allies have in mind for America.
The great majority of Americans is fond of their way of life. This is coupled with a deep suspicion of radical change, especially change peddled by politicians. A realistic view of human nature understands that human plans are subject to the same frailties and misfires that humans themselves are. The innately conservative respect for tradition also informs this view. Our current standard of living was arrived at through a countless series of trial and error — our forefathers made many mistakes before coming up with the elements that make up society today, including the rule of law, participatory democracy and free market economics. The free market, in fact, is designed to respect this trial and error process — to allow millions of individuals to fan out over the landscape try their hand at a new small business or an innovation in an established method of doing things.
However, the vast majority of these innovations will fail, which is necessary in itself — we can discover much from failure. Many successful innovations result from accidents or when the inventor was looking for something else — like penicillin.
The average person is skeptical of large, radical change, and rightly so, and therefore a radical liberal seeking to change American society needs to soften up this resistance. Mr. Obama’s “change” and “hope” slogans are not unlike placing a dolly under a couch or a refrigerator: it makes it much easier to move in the desired direction.
Is Mr. Obama a radical? Here are some of his stated objectives:
• He wants to dramatically expand government control over our health care system.
• He wants to enact a broad set of environmental controls and environmental taxes on the economy, with little apparent concern for the effect on business profitability and thus sustainability.
• He wants to abolish the right to a secret ballot in union organizing.
• He wants to subordinate American sovereignty to the United Nations by committing us to treaties and agreements on a wide variety of issues.
• He appears to be working to undermine popular support for the Second Amendment by repeating false statistics about gun violence. His few positive comments about ownership of firearms typically related to hunting and target-shooting, neither of which was the basis for the Second Amendment.
• He is appointing radical advocates of abortion to positions within his administration, including advocates of taxpayer-funded abortion and partial-birth abortion, and he moved within days of his inauguration to send taxpayer money to international organizations that perform abortions.
• He is moving to cut the budget of the Defense Department specifically to limit research into future combat systems that could more effectively protect America at a lower cost.
Note that all of these policy items were less urgent than the “stimulus” bill. The stimulus was an ingenious way to seize the opportunity presented by the recession. In fact, the purpose of the stimulus itself would have made Alinsky proud:
• Much of the stimulus money went toward “feeding and watering” of radical constituency groups such as ACORN and Planned Parenthood, as well as unions and government bureaucrats.
• Much of the stimulus money is in the form of “down payments” on questionable energy programs desired by liberal environmentalists or transportation programs designed to make it harder for individuals to own cars and easier for the government to force them into mass transit systems.
• Much of the stimulus money relies on the discredited notion that simply pushing money through the system — taking $10 out of one pocket and putting it into another — creates economic growth. In fact, it is entrepreneurship that creates growth, because it creates value.
• Some of the stimulus spending is designed with time bombs in the form of expansions of government health care initiatives that expire in a few years, “forcing” Congress to continue them. This was done on the front end to hold the official cost of the stimulus under a trillion dollars.
What is interesting about Mr. Obama’s tactical maneuvering is that he has constructed his entire means of advancing these proposals by following the playbook of Saul Alinsky, the Machiavelli of the 1960s radical left.
Alinsky was dangerous not just because he shared the belief system of left-wing terrorists like William Ayers, but rather because he explained to young, impressionable college students and aspiring activists why Mr. Ayers was ineffective, and how to be a more effective agent for liberal change. Mr. Ayers and his gang were successful in bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, but they failed to create the national movement they were seeking.
Mr. Obama pursues what is unquestionably the most radical agenda of an American President in decades, but he does it with a smile, and gentle words about the American dream and cutting taxes. As Alinsky said in Rules for Radicals, raving about “white racist[s]” and “fascist pig[s]” (or bombing the Pentagon) may feel good to a leftist organizer, but the responsible organizer blends into the community and avoids foolish risks that could get him shunned by regular members of the community.
Mr. Obama was trained directly by disciples who had been trained by Alinsky himself in Chicago, and Mr. Obama has been called a “master of Alinsky’s tactics” in David Freddoso’s book, The Case Against Barack Obama. Mr. Obama’s unguarded and revealing comment about bitter people who cling to guns and religion also reflects Alinsky’s worldview of pity, rather than hate, for the commoners who have not yet embraced radical change.
If Mr. Obama is truly following Alinsky’s path, what can be done to counter him? Alinsky warns aspiring radicals repeatedly about seeming out of touch or alien to the community, lest they lose credibility. In a sense, Mr. Obama’s ethnicity has been a great benefit to him on this score. Any attempt by Mr. Obama’s opponents to point out the essential extremism of his public policy positions has been beaten back with allegations of racism — that the critics are trying to subtly hint that what is alien and wrong about Mr. Obama is his race, not his left-wing positions.
Rather than retreat in the face of these allegations, Obama critics must be stout-hearted in criticizing his positions, while at the same time fighting back strongly against allegations of racism. In this regard, Alinsky himself provides further advice: subject the accusers to ridicule. Liberal media entities have spent years calling conservatives racist for advocating in favor of limited government and traditional values. Conservatives must find their own spokespersons with their version of Mr. Obama’s charm and ability to connect. It is possible that a cadre of non-white conservative presenters could permanently defuse the racism countercharge.
Ultimately, Mr. Obama is engaged in a time-tested strategy developed by generations of liberals to win support for policies far to the left of what most Americans identify as their core political values. But the strategy sets up a clear counter-strategy, and it’s up to conservatives to develop and deploy it.
Colin A. Hanna is president of Let Freedom Ring, a nonprofit, grassroots organization supporting a conservative agenda.
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