Trump the Alinskyite

The New Neo Posted on by

I thought of this the other day when contemplating Trump’s “play fair,” “don’t rig the process to deny me” tactic. I realized this was a case of Trump following Alinsky Rule 4 through and through: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”

And then it occurred to me that there are a lot of Alinsky’s rules that Trump follows. In fact, when you refresh your memory on those rules, it’s hard to escape the conviction that Trump’s an advanced practitioner of Alinskyite methods. Let’s take a look:

1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources ”“ money and people…
2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.
7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.
8. “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.” It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.
11. “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

The only rules Trump doesn’t seem to care much for are numbers 2, 9, and 12. But he makes up for that with his devotion to the others. Every single one of the remaining rules has been hammered home by Trump to a degree that’s as great or even greater than they’ve been by Obama, who once taught courses in Alinsky’s methods. I’m not sure whether Trump is a natural at this or whether he’s done a study of it, but it’s dramatic how often and how effectively he follows the rules.

People argue about whether Trump is more of the left or of the right. He’s an unusual mix of the two. But whatever your opinion on that question, he certainly is using Alinskyite methods in the service of what it is he’s selling.

Apple stickers

The New Neo Posted on by

You know those little stickers on the apples? I love them. Whoever invented them was a genius, and I thank him/her profusely.

I like sampling different kinds of apples: one from column A, one from column B, and on and on. I used to get them home and, despite my best efforts to keep them straight, they’d get mixed up. If I liked a particular type, or disliked a particularly type, I would often get confused as to which was which, and that led to more and more sampling next time.

No more—due to the handy dandy apple sticker. But until now, I never noticed the stickers had so much extra information on them:

applesticker

And here are answers to all the questions about fruit stickers that I never thought to ask.

By the way, the jazz apple is the winner and still champion. It’s been over for years now and we’re still as much in love as ever.

The Congressional GOP and the Obamacare repeal: failing to get the word out

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: Yeah, it’s long.

So long that I cued it up to continue on another page rather than the home page. But I hope you’ll find your patience rewarded; some of the things I uncovered here surprised me.]

Yesterday we got into a discussion of the fact that a lot of people—even people who follow politics closely—seem unaware that in January of 2016 the Republican Congress repealed Obamacare, sent the repeal bill to Obama’s desk, and Obama vetoed it. So the question becomes: how did this piece of news get ignored, leaving so many people to claim that the GOP never did anything to keep its promise to repeal it?

Some people would point out that the repeal was no biggee because the only real deal would have been withholding funding and an ensuing shutdown and anything less was meaningless. That ignores the political realities of shutdowns (described previously here, for example, and in this comment. I particularly suggest you read the comment, which is a nice summary of the situation).

People also may forget that for a while there was a lot of hope that Obamacare would be undone without the need of a risky and contentious shutdown, because there were several very serious legal challenges before SCOTUS that were playing out. Those challenges ultimately failed, but I can recall a time when hopes were very high on the right—including the public—that the lawsuits themselves would be the death of Obamacare.

But whatever the alternatives, my point is about ignorance of the fact that Congress ever repealed Obamacare, not mere disagreement with whether that repeal was effective. Of course the bill that Congress finally passed in 2016 (using the mechanism of reconciliation in order to accomplish it) was going to be vetoed by Obama. But Congress passed it anyway to show that they were serious, and in response to demands from conservative voters that they keep the pressure on Obama and force him to veto it. So why did the word that this occurred never quite get out to very many people—why do we so often hear callers on conservative talk shows, and see commenters on blogs on the right and even conservative pundits assert that the GOP Congress never repealed Obamacare?

In yesterday’s thread commenter “J.J.” advanced some reasons:

Why didn’t Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell go on all the Sunday talk shows and make sure everyone who watches those shows knew that the repeal had passed both houses and sent to Obama who vetoed it immediately? Why didn’t Republican or conservative pundits write editorials in newspapers and on blogs talking about the repeal bill, why it was passed and what the Rs proposed to replace it with? IMO, it’s because the GOP doesn’t recognize the value of seizing the narrative and keeping it in front of their supporters. Also, because many of the beltway pundits pooh pooh’d the effort as being a waste of time. The Congress Critters don’t want to look like fools to the beltway elite. It would also have been good if Limbaugh and other conservative pundits had not advanced the narrative that the Republicans, with majorities in both houses of Congress, could easily block Obama’s agenda. I heard that from Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin and others. I knew it was not going to happen because we still didn’t have enough Senators to override vetoes. The problem has been one of simple math and a determined Harry Reid.

So, what about J.J.’s theories? Is that what happened? Continue reading →

Indiana polls are all over the map

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, they’re actually in Indiana. But you know what I mean.

Look at the three most recent ones: Trump +2, Trump +9, Trump +5, Cruz +16. Now, that’s a formidable spread. I throw up my hands at trying to make sense of it. The +2 is meaningless, within the margin of error, as is the +5 (the poll’s margin of error is not listed for the subsample of GOP voters, but for the entire sample it’s 4.6, and the smaller subsample should have an even higher margin of error). That last poll result—+16 for Cruz—is a huge outlier, but I’ve read some analyses that say it’s by a more reputable pollster than several of the others.

On the other hand, almost all of the recent polls have shown Trump ahead, and averages often matter. Although sometimes they don’t.

Clear as mud.

Indiana is an extremely important winner-take-all primary state that’s voting next Tuesday. I’d be a fool to make any predictions.

Anti-Trump riots

The New Neo Posted on by

This sort of behavior is contemptible, reprehensible, and expected:

Hundreds of demonstrators filled the street outside the Orange County amphitheater where Donald Trump held a rally Thursday night, stomping on cars, hurling rocks at motorists and forcefully declaring their opposition to the Republican presidential candidate.

Traffic came to a halt as a boisterous crowd walked in the roadway, some waving American and Mexican flags. Protesters smashed a window on at least one police cruiser, punctured the tires of a police sport utility vehicle, and at one point tried to flip a police car.

One Costa Mesa police officer was struck in the head by a rock thrown by a protestor, authorities said. The officer wasn’t injured because he was protected from by his riot helmet.

About five police cars were damaged in total, police said, adding that some will require thousands of dollars’ worth of repairs.

The “protestors” (many shouldn’t be called protestors; they’re really rioters) seem to include quite a few young Hispanic people waving Mexican flags. Fortunately no one was hurt, but seventeen people were arrested for “unlawful assembly.”

A lot of people say that this just fuels the Trump candidacy. It’s certainly possible—what doesn’t?—but I’m not sure. I do know that it’s a sign of the tremendous hostility that’s been increasing and shows no signs of letting up, and even if Trump were not the nominee something similar would probably be directed at whoever was.

[NOTE: Then of course there’s this.]

I ♥ Richard Thompson

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again—I love this guy. Been to about ten concerts, which is ten more than I’ve gone to for almost every other singer, even ones I like.

You can get a taste of both his talent and his humor in this video. Lyricist, musician, performer, and just the right age:

Richard Thompson videos are like potato chips for me, only much less fattening:

And here’s a song that’s purely humorous, but it gives me the sense I’ve got a chance with Thompson (who, alas for me, is married):

Love that sarcastic little smile.

The people are fed up

The New Neo Posted on by

Let me say at the outset that I am tired of articles that try to get people to “understand” Trump’s appeal. If anything, his appeal has been over-understood (and over-analyzed) rather than under.

And yet there’s always more to be said. Even by me.

Commenter Geoffrey Britain offered the following reason for voter anger at the GOP (anger that his been a big part of their motivation for backing Trump):

…[W]hen Obamacare passed, the Republicans were in a minority and because not one republican voted for it, the Democrats own it. However, I suspect that many republicans voted against it because too many of their big donors were happy with the current system. Rather than a vote on principle, it was a vote to maintain the status quo. And the support for that assertion is their behavior since they gained the majority.

I wrote about the passage of Obamacare on pretty much a daily basis for months when it was going on. There are loads of posts on it on this blog chronicling the entire lengthy episode, and I was convinced then and am convinced now that the vast majority of GOP members of Congress were very much against it and did their best to stop it. I’m not sure what those who voted against Obamacare could have done to have convinced people of their sincerity in not wanting Obamacare to pass because of principle, but they certainly convinced me.

That’s not to say that it was entirely principle and that it wasn’t also a vote to maintain the status quo; nothing wrong with that, if the “status quo” is about to be replaced by something far worse. I also think that asking politicians, of all people, to be motivated solely by principle is an unreasonable, unrealistic pipe dream that will never be satisfied.

I also keep reading over and over and hearing over and over—on talk shows and around the blogosphere—that Congress never acted to repeal Obamacare. But that is wrong. The House repealed it many times, and finally the Senate managed to join, too—using reconciliation, which was fitting because that was the process by which Obamacare had been passed in the first place. I wonder whether most people are even aware that it was repealed, because I keep hearing people saying they’re angry at the GOP Congress for not repealing it.

Of course, the repeal couldn’t get past Obama’s veto. That’s the problem when you have a president from the opposite party to the controlling party in Congress.

As an example of the persistence of the idea that Congress never repealed the bill, the other day I happened to hear a clip of a caller to Rush Limbaugh who discussed the topic. Here’s the transcript:

And then what happens? Obama gets elected, and he rams Obamacare down our throats. What were Reid and Pelosi doing? They were locking people out of committee meetings, remember that?

What was our response? Did we fight back? No. We didn’t fight back. So then what did we do? We have a landslide victory. We give them the House. Do they do it? Do they repeal Obamacare? No. They do nothing. They say, “Well, we can’t do anything ’cause we don’t have the Senate.” Okay, we give you the Senate. What do they do? “Oh, you know, we’re not gonna do anything ’cause we’re gonna take our only weapon off the table before we do battle with these people.”

Rush Limbaugh ought to know his political history, right? Did he correct this guy and say they did repeal it? Nope, he let the statement stand. Why? Is he ignorant himself of what actually happened? Or does he want to foster ignorance? And if so, why? Is anger at the GOP good for business, or is there some other reason? Of course, there are reasons to be angry at the GOP and at Congress, but it would be nice if those reasons were based on the facts.

There were actually TWO errors there by the Limbaugh caller. The first was, as I said, that the GOP in Congress never repealed Obamacare. The second was that business of “taking our only weapon off the table” (I’m assuming he’s talking the weapon of impeachment). That is a distortion of what was actually said and the context in which it was said, as I wrote here.

But these memes take off and they become a “truth” that everybody knows is true. So yes, ignorance and propaganda play a very big part of what has led us to this impasse today. And by “impasse,” I’m not just referring to Trump’s successful candidacy. I’m referring more to the civil war in the Republican Party—the war among politicians, the war among voters, and the war between voters and the politicians.

In his comment, Geoffrey Britain added the following on the topic of voter ignorance:

Nor can I agree that Trump’s popularity is simply due to an ignorant electorate. Rather, people are fed up and view nuanced, carefully crafted wording that can be defended against politically correct attacks”¦ as evasion, as just more lip service to get elected. What they want is for someone to ”˜tell it like it is’ without equivocation because they rightly sense that someone who gives even an inch to political correctness has already lost the fight for America’s survival.

I am in total agreement that Trump’s popularity is not “simply due to an ignorant electorate.” But I’m not aware that many anti-Trump pundits are alleging anything as simple or reductionist as that. And in response to the rest of the paragraph, I’ll add that Trump has most definitely given a great deal more than an inch to political correctness (just one example is his reaction to Pam Geller, or this). And as far as “equivocation” goes, Trump has equivocated and walked back at least half of the things he’s said.

Harris Wofford: the second time around

The New Neo Posted on by

Democratic bigwig and former US senator Harris Wofford, 90, is engaged to be married for the second time.

To a man.

A man who is 50 years younger than Wofford.

It’s that last part that’s probably the shock to most people:

Wofford is well aware that it is the age difference, more than his fiance’s gender that has caused jaws to plop and unleashed a fusillade of social media blasts.

“Everyone has a certain kind of amusement when there’s a big age difference,” he says, seated in a rattan chair in the apartment that the couple, who have been together for 15 years, have shared for the past six. “But that’s a part of the magic of love. It really can bring people across a bridge, or build a bridge that you can cross.”

Wofford’s wife of nearly 50 years died in 1996, and he met spouse-to-be Matthew Charlton on a Fort Lauderdale beach five years later, when Wofford was 75 and Charlton 25. They’ve been together for fifteen years now, so this relationship has stood the test of time.

Wofford refuses to characterize it sexually:

He dismisses the assigning of labels, or “pinning,” as he calls it.

“Did I ever consider myself gay? No. It’s what I think should not be asked of people,” he says. An Old World-style romantic, he discusses the relationship in terms of love rather than sexuality.

“I think this is an example of the most private matter. Most of us are intrigued with the sexuality of friends or others. Perhaps with some close friends you want to talk about this,” he says. “When people want to talk abut their sexuality, either go to confession or be happy about it. I don’t measure myself or my friends by their sexuality.”

I’m with him on that one.

[ADDENDUM: I put this in the comments section, but I thought I’d add it here as well.

The story of Wofford and Charlton reminds me somewhat of Death in Venice, albeit with a far happier ending [emphasis mine]:

Death in Venice is a novella written by the German author Thomas Mann, first published in 1912 as Der Tod in Venedig. The work presents a great writer suffering writer’s block who visits Venice and is liberated, uplifted, and then increasingly obsessed, by the sight of a stunningly beautiful youth. Though he never speaks to the boy, much less touches him, the writer finds himself drawn deep into ruinous inward passion; meanwhile, Venice, and finally, the writer himself, succumb to a cholera plague. The novella is powerfully intertextual, with the chief sources being first the connection of erotic love to philosophical wisdom traced in Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus, and second the Nietzschean contrast between the god of restraint and shaping form, Apollo, and the god of excess and passion, Dionysus.

The boy in the story (Tadzio) is based on a boy (WÅ‚adzio or Tadzio, nicknames for the Polish name WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw or Tadeusz respectively) Mann had seen during a visit to Venice in 1911…

Aschenbach checks into his hotel, where at dinner he sees an aristocratic Polish family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy of about fourteen years in a sailor suit. Aschenbach, startled, realizes that the boy is supremely beautiful, like a Greek sculpture. His older sisters, by contrast, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns. Later, after spying the boy and his family at a beach, Aschenbach overhears the lad’s name, Tadzio, and conceives what he first interprets as an uplifting, artistic interest…

Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach’s interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession. He watches him constantly and secretly follows him around Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him, looking, Aschenbach thinks, like Narcissus smiling at his own reflection. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud, “I love you!”

Aschenbach ends up dying of cholera in Venice. The real “Tadzio” who inspired the character in the book was WÅ‚adysÅ‚aw Moes, who did not realize he was the source until many years later.]

Those baby ballerinas

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a piece of ballet history that isn’t all that well-known anymore—the so-called “baby ballerinas” of the 1930s.

I love these old clips. They’re blurry and short, but you get an idea of how much ballet has changed since then. Not all the changes are good, as demonstrated by the passages from “Les Sylphides,” the ballet that begins around 1:44 in this video.

I know “Les Sylphides,” having performed in it at an arts camp when I was 14. The choreography is relatively easy. It’s no technical tour de force, but it requires the utmost in style in order to recreate the delicate and gossamer atmosphere of the romantic era. This is the sort of thing that young dancers are usually especially poor at, but in this clip the three “babies” acquit themselves admirably in that respect:

I wrote another post once that featured former “baby ballerina” Toumanva in the 1950s, in the full glory of her mature sultriness, dancing with the great Gene Kelly. Enjoy:

Those establishment elites

The New Neo Posted on by

The attack on the GOP from within (that is, the civil war as opposed to the separate attack from the left) relies on words such as “elites” and “establishment.” But those are classic leftist words—as pejoratives anyway, with “establishment” being a leftist word that I recall being popular in the 60s, along with “the system” (which I don’t hear that much about nowadays, along with “the man”).

It’s all another example of how leftist activist techniques are used by the alt-right (some of whom are actual leftists), as well as by talk show hosts and by other pundits, to stir up the “masses” (another leftist word) against the GOP. Now the GOP has its deep flaws, but it’s been nowhere near as bad as people say, and not even remotely as bad as the Democrats have been.

Even Newt Gingrich, who has been an “elite” for many decades, has gotten into the “elites” act (the first three quotes are Gingrich’s tweets; the rest of it is from Allahpundit at Hot Air):

“Washington elites mock Trump for mispronouncing Tanzania. They don’t get it. He said the most important word correctly: America. He gets it.”

“This was a serious foreign policy speech by Trump. It is worth reading and thinking about. It will be ridiculed by Washington elites.”

“Elites have to attack Trump’s foreign policy speech because he is challenging their core values and failures.”

Newt farking Gingrich, lecturing other people about their elitism. He’s an academic by trade. He’s been a Beltway fixture for nearly 40 years, half that time as a congressman and Speaker and half as a regular in the conservative media complex. He’s a rich man thanks to his businesses and the lecture circuit. There’s not a political cocktail party in America that he couldn’t get into. He might as well have a recurring part on “House of Cards.” If Newt’s not “elite,” who is? I don’t mean that rhetorically; I’m asking sincerely. If Newt Gingrich no longer qualifies as elite, is there anyone so elite that the stain of elitism can’t be expunged even by slobbering regularly over Trump? I’ll spot you Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, but their elite status is partly a product of their positions…Similarly, is there such a thing as a populist in good standing who’s anti-Trump? Mike Lee, for instance, got elected to the Senate six years ago when grassroots tea partiers tossed out Bob Bennett on his ear at the state convention. He’s been a firm anti-establishment conservative ever since. He’s also a Cruz ally and a Trump opponent, as principled conservatives tend to be. Does Lee still qualify as populist or is he, if not an elitist himself, some sort of elite stooge? Like I say, we should all get straight on the rules.

If Gingrich had merely praised Trump’s speech, I’d have no problem with it. It’s that “elites” business that is so absurd, coming from Gingrich’s mouth.

Leaving Gingrich aside, I’ve often compared this rage at the “elites” and the “establishment” to getting angry at one parent when another has abused you—that is, getting even more angry at the parent you think has failed to protect you than against the abuser. To me it’s another indication of the triumph of emotion and demagoguery over reason. There’s an awful lot of that going around.

This campaign season has been sad but edifying. Fortunately for me, I never idealized the leaders of the right, nor the press, nor pundits, nor bloggers, nor the left. But still, they have all managed to exceed my negative expectations.

[NOTE: It’s not a new, post-Trump position of mine to feel that this war on the “establishment” is destructive to the right. I’ve felt this way for many years, and written about it many times, for example here, here, here, here, and here.]

[ADDENDUM: In wondering who Trump would choose as VP, I think it will be a political insider to counter the idea that Trump’s not serious and not experienced. It occurs to me it could be Newt, or perhaps Jeff Sessions. But there’s a fair amount of competition for that prize, including of course Chris Christie. But if Trump decided to go with a fellow outsider, Ben Carson would make sense, if Trump’s courting the black vote.]

Cruz as Lucifer: not that it matters…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but since everyone’s chattering about John Boehner’s description of Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump, I thought I’d opine.

First, the quotes:

When it comes to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, even a few months’ time out of Congress has done little to lessen former House Speaker John Boehner’s contempt for his former Capitol Hill colleague.

“Lucifer in the flesh,” Boehner told an audience at Stanford on Wednesday night, according to the Stanford Daily. “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”

In fact, Wednesday night was not the first occasion that Boehner has compared Cruz to “Lucifer,” using the epithet last month during a question-and-answer session with reporters at the Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton, Florida.

As far as Donald Trump goes, Boehner remarked that he had golfed with Trump for years and that the two are “texting buddies”…

Now, in a logical world, that would be the kiss of death for Trump among his GOPe-establishment-hating supporters. John Boehner, RINO extraordinaire, the man they love to hate and are very happy to have seen driven from his position in the House, hates Ted Cruz (no doubt in part because Ted Cruz called his fellow GOPe leader McConnell a liar on the Senate floor). And Boehner’s buddy-buddy with Trump.

But it won’t be the kiss of death. It will be spun as more evidence of Cruz’s perfidy and Trump’s collegiality.

For what it’s worth, Boehner has called Cruz “Lucifer” before. And the reason he has been saying this—at least according to Rep. Peter King and this article—was because of Cruz’s attempt at a government shutdown.

A government shutdown. The very thing so many of Trump’s supporters profess to have wanted, and are mad at the GOP establishment for not supporting.

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

By the way, Boehner’s choice of the term “Lucifer” is interesting. It’s a bit archaic and literary, and has some interesting connotations that are not altogether negative:

Lucifer is the King James Version rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל in Isaiah 14:12. This word, transliterated héªléªl or heylel, occurs once in the Hebrew Bible and according to the KJV-based Strong’s Concordance means “shining one, light-bearer”. The Septuagint renders הֵילֵל in Greek as ἑωσφόρος (heōsphoros), a name, literally “bringer of dawn”, for the morning star. The word Lucifer is taken from the Latin Vulgate, which translates הֵילֵל as lucifer, meaning “the morning star, the planet Venus”, or, as an adjective, “light-bringing”.

Later Christian tradition came to use the Latin word for “morning star”, lucifer, as a proper name (“Lucifer”) for the devil; as he was before his fall. As a result, “‘Lucifer’ has become a by-word for Satan/the Devil in the church and in popular literature”, as in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Joost van den Vondel’s Lucifer and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. However, the Latin word never came to be used almost exclusively, as in English, in this way, and was applied to others also, including Jesus. The image of a morning star fallen from the sky is generally believed among scholars to have a parallel in Canaanite mythology.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s a 2013 article about one of those games, complete with Trump quotes:

The golf outing took place at Trump’s course in Bedminster, N.J., according to several sources familiar with the pairing.

Trump, who funded what he dubbed an investigation into President Barack Obama’s citizenship, has had nice things to say about Boehner of late. He told the conservative National Review in June that he knows Boehner “very well” and said, “I like John Boehner a lot.”

“I think he’s got a very, very tough job, because he’s got factions within his own party that are pretty diametrically opposed to each other, but I think he’s got the right temperament, and I think he’s a terrific guy,” Trump told National Review. “He’s got to hold things together, and he’s been doing that.”

Trump has helped Boehner-aligned groups. He cut a $100,000 check to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC linked to Boehner.]