When your own “Rules for Radicals” comes back to bite you

When I first heard that President Trump is considering releasing illegal aliens into sanctuary cities, I laughed. Out loud. There may have been giggling, too, as I pondered the implications and read the outraged outraging of the left.

My first thought was “perfect! This is Alinsky in action: make them live by their own rules.” My second thought was “this has a touch of Cloward-Piven, too, overwhelm the systems of the sanctuary cities, and voters there may decide they don’t like living in a sanctuary city after all.”

Saul Alinsky, go-to guru of the radical left, laid out his Rules for Radicals back in 1971. The right has since become savvy to these tactics, and, as we see in Trump’s sanctuary city proposal, more than willing to deploy them when situations merit.

In this case, Trump is expertly using Rule #4.

“The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

The absolute chaos the very idea has created on the left is hilarious and underscores the effective power of Alinsky, even against those who know the rules inside and out. They are by turns expressing outrage (is this even legal? He can’t do that!) and sputtering defiance (We’ll take all the illegals you can send our way. So there!).

Trump doubled down on his proposal late Friday, Fox News reports.

President Trump responded to reports Friday that his administration proposed releasing immigrant detainees in sanctuary cities by not only confirming the plan but saying it remains under “strong” consideration. Further, the president tweeted that relocating illegal immigrants to these districts should make the “Radical Left” happy. . . . . Trump repeated the remarks later at the White House: “We can give them an unlimited supply…let’s see if they have open arms.” The president doubled down as Democrats fumed over the relocation idea. “The extent of this Administration’s cynicism and cruelty cannot be overstated,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spokeswoman Ashley Etienne said in a statement Friday. “Using human beings—including little children—as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable, and in some cases, criminal.”

Perhaps responding to Pelosi and other Democrat outrage, the president tweeted:

If the Radical Left Democrats all of a sudden don’t want the Illegal Migrants in their Sanctuary Cities (no more open arms), why should others be expected to take them into their communities? Go home and come into our Country legally and through a system of Merit! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2019

The rollout of this is a master class in the perfect execution of Alinsky’s Rule #4. In three tweets, the president has Democrats scrambling to readjust their slipped masks. They are in chaos, unsure how to respond and becoming increasingly aware that their initial outrage at the very thought revealed to all that they are not in the least interested in having their cities and states flooded with hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens.

Further, no one is talking about much else, not tax returns, not the Attorney General or Mueller report, not health care. Nothing.

It’s also worth noting that little notice was taken when the Obama administration was transporting illegals all over the country—including to towns that turned them away and on “buses to nowhere”.

At least Trump wants to send them where they will be most welcome. So why all the outrage and defiant bluff-calling? What happens when Trump responds to their faux enthusiasm by suggesting they foot the bill to have the illegals bused to their progressive sanctuary utopias? And are they really so sure the president is bluffing?

I’m not, but I very much appreciate Trump’s élan when it comes to using the left’s tactics against them.



