“Rules for Radicals” was authored by Marxist community organizer Saul Alinsky. In 1971 he offered radicals 10 lessons explaining how they could “win” as Left-wing activists. Barack Obama wrote in his autobiography Rules was his guidebook when he was a community organizer.
However, in light of the 2016 election and the reaction of today’s radicals, perhaps it might be a time for reflection and take a fresh look at 11 new “rules.”
Hence, the “New Rules for Radicals” for the Trump Presidential Era.
Rule No. 1 – It’s not wise to insult and ridicule voters who you hope will vote for you in the future. Right now, this might serve as feel good therapy to call Trump voters bigots, homophobes or stupid hillbillies. But it’s possible your rants might not entice them to vote for your side. Unless you change your view of white, working class Americans, it’s possible they will walk away from Democrats and progressives for a long time.
Rule No. 2 – Those idiotic, no-nothing whites without a college degree who you humiliate and ridicule used to be the very foundation of your Democratic Party. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson’s Democratic Party was a party of the unwashed, the uneducated, the poor working class. That was your daddy’s Democratic Party. If you don’t stop your stream of insults, they may leave your party forever.
Rule No. 3 – No Democratic Presidential candidate has won a majority of white voters since 1964. It’s true that the exodus of white voters is not all Hillary’s fault. The loss of white voters was triggered by an ongoing cultural war launched against whites and cheered on by progressive activists for at least 40 years. We saw and heard it on public display on such broadcast outlets as PBS, National Public Radio, on TV sitcoms in SNL skits and in Hollywood movies, and on John Stewart’s TV histrionics. For decades ordinary Americans have had to put up with a written press corps filled with haughty, condescending, patronizing and imperious articles from liberal publications. To date, your high-handed ridicule has never been defined as “hate speech” by federal or state authorities. But your endless ridicule has hurt many people. And they remember.
Rule No. 4: The whites who you condemn as racists twice voted for Obama. How could white people who voted in very blue states for our first black President — many of them twice — fit the definition of racist?
Rule No. 5: Don’t mock white working class women and at-home women who raise children. Overall, white female voters went for Trump over Hillary 53% to 43%, according to CNN exit polls. You celebrated smashing “glass ceilings” for professional women and the tough life of minorities. That’s OK. But for the most part Hillary and progressives rarely celebrated the poor, hard-working blue collar women and at-home moms. And sometimes they were the same people.
Rule No. 6: Don’t assume all women who grew up during the women’s movement agree with you. Among middle aged women — who would have grown up in the heyday of the feminist movement — broke largely in favor of Trump by 20% over Hillary, according to NBC News exit polls. This is not a criticism of feminist women. But it’s to say that many American women who grew up during the days of Gloria Steinem don’t really identify with her.
Rule No. 7: Don’t believe your support for amnesty for illegal immigrants and open borders can always attract Latinos. Despite Trump’s call for building a wall and deporting some illegal immigrants, more Latino voters went for Trump in 2016 than for Mitt Romney in 2012. A full third of Latino men — 33% — voted for Trump in this election, according to CNN exit polls. And a quarter of all Latino women voted for him as well. If Trump rids Latino community of gangs led by illegals, is it possible they might vote for him in even greater numbers?
Rule No. 8: Pro-Tranny bathroom politics seems like a godsend to progressives, but it didn’t play so well in places like critical North Carolina. Two thirds of North Carolina voters said they opposed the so-called “bathroom bill,” according to the Associated Press exit poll in the Tar Heel state. Yes, it won votes in liberal Raleigh-Durham. But Trump won six out of ten voters in the suburbs as well as those in the Western rural parts of the state. The evidence suggests the Obama administration’s heavy handed Justice Department intervention may have cost Hillary the state.
Rule No. 11: It may be a little early to cement Barack Obama’s legacy. Legacies are born out well after a president leaves office. But it’s not encouraging that in the November election, an overwhelming 62% said the country was on the wrong track, according to the CNN exit poll. Among those who felt that way, Trump won by more than a 2 to 1 margin.
Rule No. 10: Maybe in the future you should play down the “bigger government as a solution” idea too. Only five percent of all voters were “enthusiastic” about more government, according to the CNN exit poll. “Dissatisfied?” 46%. But another 23% weren’t just dissatisfied, they were “angry,” according to CNN. The days of big government solutions may be in our past, not in our future.
Rule No. 11. Hillary won a majority of the popular vote. Not true. She won 48% of the popular vote and Trump won 47% That’s not a majority, but a plurality. And her husband, Bill Clinton, won the Presidency with only 43% of the vote in a three-way race. His supporters didn’t suggest he could not legitimately govern without a majority. The same goes for Trump.
Richard is the senior investigative reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Richard on Twitter