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The media's pattern of utilizing Alinsky tactics has done it and the left a lot of good, and they've had quite a bit of success with it, even in recent times. The issue is that the law of undulation is absolute. Alinsky's tactics have a shelf-life and the more they're utilized, the more people are going to figure out what you're doing and then find ways to fight it.
Where Alinsky was once the Red Bull that gave the left wings, it's now the weight that drags them down. The sugar high is wearing off. They attacked too much, ridiculed too often; when you target, freeze, personalize, and polarize anyone too often, the fear of being targeted wears off. This especially applies when you attack the same target over and over again.
In this case, the target has been Trump. They wanted to make Trump look like a massive villain, and they succeeded in many ways, but now it's becoming clear that a lot of the Democrats' theatrical hyperventilating about the man was all just that: theatrics. //
In fact, we Americans, with our traditional values, seem to be more enthused to vote for Trump than ever before. I would argue that this is because of a massive miscalculation by the left. It doesn't understand American culture. Yes, it's largely Judeo-Christian, but our entire culture and the blood that flows through our veins is based in rebellion. We don't like the establishment by nature. //
Moreover, it shows that the left doesn't just misunderstand America, it misunderstands conservatives. Alinsky wrote the rules to apply in a land where conservatives were largely passive and happy to ask forgiveness out of pure politeness. It was easy to shame people into compliance back then, not because they were better people, but because they thought we were all playing by the same rules.
That brand of conservatism is pretty much gone at this point. We've learned that these rules only apply to one side, and if that's the case, then we aren't going to play this stupid game.
Atrox
3 hours ago
I'm sure there are differing views on this but I always say, EVERYTHING is a win for the left. Vigilantism is a byproduct of their soft on crime policies and it's something they want. The more it happens, they can complain about how "something needs to be done"!!! ....
mopani Atrox
a few minutes ago
This is the desired result. The progressive left response to vigilante justice will be the suspension of civil rights, because violence. Two guesses when civil rights as we know them will be reinstated, and the first guess doesn't count. //
Random US Citizen
4 hours ago
Indeed. This is exactly what happened on the frontier in the early days of America. If there was no sheriff to be found, citizens might take it upon themselves to hang a horse thief. Because they were--like these folks in NYC--a mob, sometimes the wrong person wound up at the end of a rope. The arrival of civilization, in the form of law enforcement, courts, and jails was--for most--a welcome thing.
Here we see the opposite effect. The decline and fall, as it were. The courts are no longer working to decide the guilt of accused, they are now firmly on the side of the criminals. Law enforcement, whether willingly or no, is no longer able to enforce the law. Bereft of the protection of the society that they are a part of, citizens are resorting to vigilantism again.
You can expect this to get significantly worse unless these places reverse direction.
My advice: invest in lead. //
Douglas Proudfoot
4 hours ago
As every Montana 8th grade graduate knows, the absence of law and order gives rise to vigilantes. In Fall, 1863, a gang of Road Agents murdered perhaps 100 people in the gold fields of Montana. In January, 1864, vigilantes hung 25 of them. The outlaw leader, Henry Plummer, was the elected sheriff of Bannack, MT. Vigilantes hung him too.
Because there is a difference //
Ask the contemporary leftists who target virtually every protection we have against mob rule in the name of “democracy” — attacking the Supreme Court, the Electoral College, federalism, the filibuster, the Senate, and even the existence of states. They understand the difference, even if just intuitively.
Ask leftists who treat the “popular vote,” not as a wishcasting cope, but as means of legitimizing presidential elections. Those who want a few big states ruling the nation via a direct federal democracy are not interested in an American “republic.”
Blunting the federal government’s power over states and the state’s power over individuals is an indispensable way to ensure a diverse people in a huge nation can govern themselves and live freely. The “save democracy” types who refer to these long-standing federalist institutions as “minority rule” do not view “democracy” and a constitutional republic as interchangeable concepts.
Neither do smaller blue-state governors who sign a national vote compact that not only dilutes their state’s power but circumvents the Constitution. They love a direct democracy. A constitutional republic? Not so much. //
There is, “of course,” zero “legitimate debate discussion” to be had over whether we are a “direct democracy.” Not today, nor ever. “Democracy” isn’t even mentioned anywhere in any founding document, much less a direct one. None of the framers entertained any notions about majoritarianism or federal power that would even loosely comport the ones now embraced by the left.
People will often tell me that, sure, we might be a republic, but we also have “democratic institutions.” Of course we do. We also have numerous nondemocratic institutions. The Bill of Rights, for instance, is largely concerned with protecting individuals from state and the mob. The insistence that we only use “democracy” is meant to corrode the importance and acceptance of those countermajoritarian rules and traditions. //
These days, though, a bunch of illiberal progressives (and others) have taken universal notions that once fell under the umbrella of “democracy” and cynically distorted them to champion a hypermajoritarian outlook. It’s no accident the people who demand you call us a “democracy” also champion the idea that 50.1 percent of the country should be empowered to lord over the economic, religious, cultural, and political decisions of 49.9 percent.
It’s the point.
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