The Saul Alinsky Disease

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Oh so first you call conservatives racist, homophobic, bigots, and now that your race/sex orientation card no longer works you call us conartists? Just keep it up, it really speaks a lot about your credibility.

Let me make it clear - a large subset of people who identify as "very conservative" in America are racists, bigots, homophobes, and outright conspiratorial lunatics who really ought to put down their loaded firearms.

As I said, this is why the American people threw the Democrats out and that's only the first wave more are going to be kicked out in 2012.

People see through the Allinsky style attacks, they won't work for you Liberals anymore.

Last edited by Inuyasha on 07 Dec 2010, 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So you're basically saying even less people will show up to the polls next tme round?

As for the electoral crushing, predictions in human affairs are pretty imprecise, but there's more than a half-decent chance that sum of the Republican buffons in the House lead by Speaker Joe Camel will try shutting down the government or impeaching Obama and that'll produce quite a bit of backlash.

All I'm saying is your tactics won't work anymore.

You know, it's almost hilarious that Inuyasha associates me with the DLCocrat establishment or fails to remember (in spite of a really good memory) the antagonism between Tom Daley (the first) and Saul Alinsky. If the (incompetent, weak, capitulating, compromising) DLC establishment actually conducted campaigns in a manner 75% in line with what I think is best, I'd be happier than a pig in shi...

Not to get in the middle of this but can't let an opportunity to talk about election prospects go by. As for 2012, I think the GOP will almost assuredly take control of the senate. 23 democrat seats to the GOP's 10. The Dems will likely take back Massachusetts seat that Scott Brown currently holds(especially if they can get a Kennedy to run) but other than that pretty much everyone else is safe.

Nevada and Maine are probably the next two most vulnerable GOP seats. Olympia Snowe may retire or will likely be facing a tough conservative Tea Party backed primary challenger so who knows how Maine will react to that. Ensign has had some scandals and may have a tough primary challenger as well.(hopefully Danny Tarkanian and not Sue Lowden) Gotta remember tho that the incumbents in this GOP class survived the democrat wave year of 2006 and 2012 will likely be a much kinder year to the GOP. The Dems will be much more focused on holding seats than picking any up I think.

I think Obama is in pretty big trouble in 2012. People keep bringing up how Clinton survived in 1996 but Obama is certainly no Clinton and this isn't 1996. There's an unpopular war, unemployment will still be high, I don't see the economy recovering much by then. I see way more parallels between 2012 and 1968 or 1980 than I do 1996. I think there is a chance Obama could face a primary challenge from either side of his party. Besides Hillary I don't think anybody else would have a chance at beating him as of right now but a primary challenge would certainly could weaken him. It'll be interesting to see who the GOP nominee is.

I don't see the democrats making much progress in the house either. I don't see big gains either way but the election this year pretty much wiped out all the "moderate" and "conservative" democrats and I don't see the democrats reaching out to moderates like they should of after this election. I think the anti-incumbent, anti-establishment feeling of 2010 will likely carry over into 2012.

@Jacoby

The GOP was down when it came to registered voters. The main reason they won was due to the disenchantment of Democratic voters and while this may continue into 2012, I think there's a half-decent chance that Speaker Joe Camel will initiate some genuinely stupid moves (like a gov't shutdown or impeachment).

What made Alinsky especially dangerous was that:

He was a left-wing radical AND a pragmatist. A purely ideological left wing nutter can be easily dismissed since such an extremist is living in cloud-coocoo-land. But a left wing pragmatist can actually do some damage.

Given any ideology, the pragmatists are potentially dangerous.

ruveyn

That is true. But Obama has become the junction point for Daley politics and Alinksky's hate America ideology. He has inherited the worst of both worlds. I would like to see Obama push Michelle under the bus. That would be interesting.

ruveyn

That's odd, from the passages (probably a good 70% of the book) out of Rules for Radicals that I read, Alinsky seems to admire the Founding Fathers of the United States quite a bit, mainly for "creating a reformation before creating a revolution" so that the revolution didn't "end in tyranny".

And if criticize social problems in America counts as hate, then being a patriotic American is equivalent to being a prickly national narcissist. Obama's real mentor is John Kerry.

[quote="Master_Pedant"

And if criticize social problems in America counts as hate, then being a patriotic American is equivalent to being a prickly national narcissist. Obama's real mentor is John Kerry.[/quote]

The ultimate purpose of populism is that the Proles should seize the goods of their betters.

There is plenty to criticize in this country. For example, we have a sh*tty system of tax-loot-funded public education which pretty will has eliminated its private alternative. Now we educate the mass of youngsters badly. It is soooo democratic. In the mean time the people who have inflicted this abomination upon us send their kids to private schools.

ruveyn

I wonder what true anti-elitist man of the people Inuyasha will have to say about this!

I don't understand the demonizing of Alinsky personally, but then again I don't care much about the source of an idea so long as it works. The whole focus on him strikes me as a red herring and lazy, especially in such a target rich environment as modern American politics where there are so many legitimate criticisms to make.

The GOP has always had less registered voters than the Democrats so I don't think that means much. I think an interesting poll was the Gallup one they did one ideological identification. Off the top of my head I believe only 20% of American identified as liberal while 40% identified as conservative with the rest being "moderates". I reject what you're saying about the voter turnout being so low, it was about the same as 2006. It'll be higher in 2012 since it it's a presidential election but Obama's grand coalition isn't coming back. I think you'd be better served saying the democrats lost because of the high unemployment rather than low turnout.

Most of the democrats that lost this cycle were the conservative and moderate democrats that won office in the in democrat wave years. I don't see the democrats making many overtures to get those voters back like Clinton's triangulation did in 96. I think voters will likely be looking to stick it the establishment once again and I don't see the democrats offering much of an alternative in that regard.

Now there could be a ton of game changers but there is pretty much 0 chance the Democrats retain the senate or to recapture the house. I think the GOP would have to essentially beat themselves to lose to Obama in 2012.(nominating Sarah Palin or a third party revolt against an establishment candidate.) As for impeachment, I don't really think that would necessarily backfire if it was merited by Obama doing something really illegal and not just lying about banging some intern.

Hannity likely didn't make mention of Alinsky's influence on the Tea Partisans.