On polarization and power: Clinton's Alinsky strategy
Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 11:15:35 PM PDT
I have been baffled and often distressed these past few months over the escalating and apparently deliberate offensiveness of Senator Clinton's campaign. It's has been clear to me that this is part and parcel of their strategy, not just a series of unfortunate blunders, but none of the theories about why they would pursue such a divisive - and in my opinion inexcusably destructive and self-destructive - campaign made sense to me. Until now, that is.
I have been reading Senator Clinton's senior thesis: "There Is Only The Fight...": An Analysis of the Alinsky Model (pdf)
Saul Alinsky was an early, radical community organizer, whose work has, with strikingly different results, influenced both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Alinsky's Rules for Radicals
Saul Alinsky's rules of power tactics, excerpted from his 1971 book "Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals"
1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. Whenever possible go outside the experience of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. Maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
We have witnessed many of these rules being played out by the Clinton campaign. One quote from the thesis really jumped out at me, and helped explain why she is so determined that this must be "her time":
When one moves beyond the city and local issues, the idea of independent national organizing seems impossible. The Depression demonstrated the feasibility of federally controlled planning, and a massive war effort convinced us of its necessity.
From the Clinton-tinged-with-Alinsky perspective, where polarization and strife translate to power, what better time to take office than one in which we are at war, both at home and abroad, when polarization is rampant in our society, when we are sliding into a recession, and when technology has made fanning of flames both instantaneous and global. And from that same perspective, not only do ends justify means, but further agitation and polarization are actually seen as both necessary and desirable.
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