McCarthy on Obama as Alinskyite
As usual, Andrew C. McCarthy is clear and insightful. His is the best explanation of how Obama’s Alinskyite background works to direct his tactics:
…President Obama is an Alinskyite.
Alinskyites gauge the extent of their authority not by the limits of law but by the potential of raw power constrained only by political expediency. Once you grasp that, you have everything you need to know.
Alinsky’s theory of power involves co-opting the language and mores of the bourgeois society that community organizers seek to transform. The idea is that the radical in sheep’s clothing becomes politically viable. Upon acquiring power, he quietly but steadily ratchets the system in the direction of his goals. The key is never to get too far ahead of where the public is ready to go – at least while public opinion matters.
For the first six years between Obama’s assumption of office and the 2014 midterms, he was saddled with an immigration dilemma. His restive open-borders base wanted immediate, blanket amnesty, but the president knew that amnesty by executive fiat – particularly without assurances about border security – was (and remains) intensely unpopular. For all the Beltway chatter about the virtues of amnesty (under the guise of “comprehensive immigration reform”), the president knows that the House conservatives he derides for thwarting Washington’s schemes get elected because their opposition is popular with the voters back home.
For those six years, Obama played the Alinsky game of trying to appease his radical supporters while maintaining his mainstream credibility. He had three elections to worry about – his own reelection sandwiched between midterms. If, prior to 2012, he had taken the monarchical action he took Thursday night, he’d have been a one-term president. If he’d taken it before the election two weeks ago, a GOP landslide would have been assured, and even steeper than it turned out to be.
So Obama repeatedly told his base he could not simply declare an amnesty, not because he really believed he was hemmed in by law – after all, during that time he was rewriting Obamacare once a week. He did it because he needed to frame his politically expedient inaction in some story that his base might grudgingly accept, the public might find noble, and his opposition might be disarmed by.
The “rule of law” – that’s the ticket!
“I’m not a king,” said our notoriously modest king. But by Thursday night, Obama not only had no more elections to fret over; Mary Landrieu’s long-shot reelection bid – the chance to hold on to a Democratic seat in the Senate – had unofficially tanked. With no more reasons to delay or pretend, the president threw caution and the Constitution to the wind, proclaiming the amnesty he’d been insisting he was powerless to proclaim.
Indeed. And not just limited to immigration, of course. This is the way Obama operates in general. In a sense, America was not ready for it—not ready to understand it and head it off at the pass. But it another sense, America was ready for it—ready to be fooled by it.
Exactly.
These are not Alinskys theories, or ideas any more than a person summarizing the past and making a handbook for people of lesser intelligence can use like a rule book was the persn that invented the body of knowledge.
the first paragraph reads like george kennan talking about the soviets in the long telegram
this attribution to alinsky:
Alinsky’s theory of power involves co-opting the language and mores of the bourgeois society………….The idea is that the radical in sheep’s clothing becomes politically viable
gives alinsky credit he doesnt deserve… so far all he is doing is repeating the ideas of gramsci and the Fabians… INCLUDING their symbol the wolf in sheeps clothing. in fact the whole of it is to credit others for what fabians and such created, maintained, and inspired.
this is like the hack Kafka stealing from Zhuangzi who lived and wrote way before kafka (plagiarize)
kafka metamorphosis is just Zhuangzi:
or saying the comedy of benny hill is original, but only if you dont know charlie chaplain, buster keaton, laurel and hardy, etc.
the above is just what mccarthy is describing as a method.
“For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most patiently, when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his delays; but when the time comes you must strike hard, as Fabius did, or your waiting will be in vain, and fruitless.”
one only has to read Hayek to get it:
– hayek center 2010
The activist game is the only social political(/cultural) game there is.
This isn’t completely on topic to this post but I just stopped to get a bite to eat during a multistate drive for Thanksgiving and can’t help but comment on the Obama performance I heard a little while ago on the radio. The man is pathetic in an extemperaneous situation. He was talking about Ferguson, of course, but rambling and bumbling around rhetorically and sounding like it was the first time he’d ever spoken to an audience. Honestly, he displays very little ability to think on his feet and have whatever he says sound the least bit eloquent. Both George Bush and Bill Clinton could have given much better remarks, even though their styles are completely different. It was pathetic and subpar presidential specifying.
Good piece. I have never understood the reluctance of some people to believe the evidence of their own senses. In some cases, the object of concern even tells them what he has planned, and they still deny even when promise and evidence combine. The classic example 20th century example revolves around Mein Kampf and events like the remilitarization of the Rhineland.
Obama hasn’t been shy about his favored outcomes and the confirming events are all over. (Even today I read about emails linking the WH directly to misuse of the IRS.) So, my question is your question, neo, what in heaven’s name is wrong with this people?
I have to agree wholeheartedly with artfldgr on this. Please don’t give Alinsky more credit than is due. These tactics precede Alinsky.
Though obvious to many from the beginning, the general public is now seeing who and what Obama and the left really are.
Talk of Alinsky type tactics, the New York Times published officer Darren Wilson’s home address.
Remember his earlier statement, “My administration’s all that’s between you and the pitchforks.”
Remember when SEIU were bussed to the homes of bankers to terrorize, I mean protest.
Now, Obama wants to ignite the cities like the summer of ’68 riots. Obama is not only using Alinskyite tactics, he is following a Cloward-Piven strategy to over-stress our system bring this country down, or as he promised, to fundamentally transform our nation.
It divides people and also distracts people from the more serious issues like the impending sovereign defaults and economic collapse, a resurgent and unchecked Russia, total chaos in Libya and Syria. The collapse of Iraq and the rising of ISIS. The inundation of our social safety net by millions of illegal immigrants. The virtual dissolving of our southern border. The soon to be in an arsenal near you, Iranian bomb.
The list goes on and on.
It should be becoming obvious that this is not just incompetence and/or stupidity. It is also way beyond corruption.
Tim P and Artfldgr:
I wouldn’t really call it “credit” 🙂 .
Of course Alinsky didn’t make this up out of the whole cloth. He stood on the shoulders of giants, as it were (negative giants, if there is such a thing). He borrowed from his leftist predecessors, but he popularized and Americanized the tactics he was recommending for the American left. More to the point, since Obama was a student of Alinsky tactics and taught them, as well, Alinsky is especially relevant to Obama.
Which is not to say that Obama didn’t study other leftists, including Alinsky’s predecessors. I am relatively certain he did. But Alinsky was quite influential in his playbook.
Again, it is NOT either/or. It’s both/and.
Tim P:
And by the way, I’ve been saying for a long, long time that although Obama has his moments of incompetence, his overall strategy has been well-executed and he is very intelligent at what interests him—which is seeking and achieving power.
Here’s a video of the young law student holding forth for Marxist professor Derrick Bell.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/obama-at-harvard-law-school-diversity-protest-in-1991-video/2012/03/07/gIQADElIxR_blog.html
A supervisor at one of his first jobs;
“Eileen Hershenov, Supervisor
When 23-year-old Barack Obama, then a recent Columbia University graduate, walked into the office of the New York Public Interest Research Group in 1985 after answering an ad for a job, his supervisor had a warning for him. “I told him he would make less than $10,000 a year,” said Eileen Hershenov, who was the downstate campus coordinator for NYPIRG. “He laughed and told me that was a step up for him.”
“You needed somebody – and here was where Barack was a star – who could make the case to students across the political spectrum,” said [Hershenov]. The job required winning over students on the political left, who would normally disdain a group inspired by Ralph Nader as insufficiently radical, as well as students on the right and those who were not active at all.
When he told Hershenov he was leaving, she literally got down on her knees and begged him to stay, she said. “I wanted him to stay because he could appeal to so many different people,” Hershenov said. “People who were very interested in identity politics, people who were apolitical and people on the left and the right. He appealed to students across a political spectrum.”
A colleague:
“Alison Kelley, Colleague
He’d arrived at NYPIRG’s campus office–a cramped trailer parked on a patch of grass next to the science building–determined to change the world, but unclear about where to begin. “He didn’t seem unsure of himself, but he seemed unsure of where he belonged,” says Alison Kelley, who was a freshman at City College when Obama came to the campus. “You could tell he was driven, but he wasn’t sure what he was driven by.”
……………
Instead of focusing on environmental issues in isolation, Obama sought to join the dots, drawing students into energetic conversations about the way that air and water pollution was impacting on the health of the neighborhood’s low-income residents, or about the economic forces that underpinned the problems the students wanted to tackle. “I don’t think he’d have called himself an environmentalist per se,” says Kelley. “He used to say that it was too narrow to look at things that way, because if you do you can’t see the whole picture – and if you can’t see the whole picture, you can’t bring about real change.”
Read more here: http://www.thefogbow.com/special-reports/people-remember-president-obama/friends-3/
Much of what we know about Obama the President was visible when he was a college student. Why so little of this has been reported on by the media or even the conservative blogosphere is a mystery to me.
Just go here and start clicking:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=Obama%27s+activist+activities+at+Harvard&form=HPDMHP&pc=HPDTDF&mkt=en-us&refig=77d6bb3cc6154f1f8522bb681c90d489&pq=obama%27s+activist+activities+at+harvard&sc=0-16&sp=-1&qs=n&sk=&cvid=77d6bb3cc6154f1f8522bb681c90d489
The great mystery to me is, Why is Obama pursuing an immigration policy that is so obviously detrimental to the interests of the black underclass?
And…it’s gonna get worse. A whole lot worse, I believe. If his actions in the last few days have not convinced you, (let alone the past six years) then what’s coming might. His justifying the burning of city can only be the beginning.
My curiosities are along those of, bob sykes.
1.) If indeed Baraka were concerned about the “unique” black issues, why then would he be diluting their opportunities, their “plight” by ushering in millions of newly minted underclass? Black unemployment is far greater than what is reported in the media.
“For young people between the ages of 16 and 24, unemployment is more than twice the national rate, at 14.2 percent. For African-Americans, that rate jumps to 21.4 percent.
TWENTY ONE PERCENT…
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/07/21/329864863/the-youth-unemployment-crisis-hits-african-americans-hardest
2.) Yesterday—-Baraka was in Chicago giving his bluster about Ferguson and other not-so-subtle inferences of racial mores. Did Baraka mention the death-by-shooting of blacks in Chicago? NOPE. Nearly 400 people in Chicago shot and killed in 2014 alone. A freakin’ war zone, unacknowledged by Baraka. Nearly 150 young blacks are among those figures. Did Baraka mention these? NOPE. There is an explanation for that.
http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/shootings/
3.) Out-Of-Wedlock birthrates for blacks? Nearly 3 out of 4—–Nary a peep from this president.
Something much larger is occurring with the chosen narratives of Baraka Obama. His is a very selective outrage.
His are racially-motivated invectives (i.e. “Cambridge Police department ‘acted, ‘stupidly'”) and concentrations—–without focusing on very real problems with real solutions.
It seems as if his recent immigration decisions are based more upon political expediencies and posturing for power vis a vis passionate concern for challenges facing blacks in 2014.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Hillary Clinton also a student of Alinsky? (Or of his techniques, at any rate…)
Neo,
Regarding your comment above, “And by the way, I’ve been saying for a long, long time that although Obama has his moments of incompetence, his overall strategy has been well-executed and he is very intelligent at what interests him–which is seeking and achieving power.”
I realize that. You have been one of the few.
What is troubling is how easily he has been able to pull the wool over the eyes of so many for so long.
The MSM has been the ‘big hammer’ allowing him to perpetuate his lies. I have said before, and still maintain. When six corporations control 90% of the media, we do not have a free media. Breaking up this monopoly really needs to be a major effort. It is a necessary first step in reclaiming the republic.
Is everybody ready? Ready or not, eh?
http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2014/11/26/communist-palestinian-groups-join-ferguson-protesters-in-oregon/
Daniel in Brookline–Hillary wrote her senior thesis at Wellesly on Alinsky and his methods, (a thesis that was suppressed by Wellesly and is hard to get a hold of) of which she very much approved.
She practically worshiped Alinsky, corresponded with Alinsky, visited him to discuss his ideas, and she impressed Alinsky so much that he offered her a job working for him.