Remember the story about Maureen Dowd making fun of Obama’s ears early in the primary campaign where he supposedly took her to task over it? He quickly shut down that whole line of discussion.
He had to shut it down because he knew how potent a weapon ridicule is. In Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” in a chapter simply called “Tactics,” RIDICULE is Rule #5.
Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
Readers, you probably all knew this already, but this is so interesting to me because my brain functions in the realm of the rightness or wrongness of policies not in how to defeat the other side simply through tactics.
Of course, this is what they did to Sarah Palin. They tried to do it to John McCain first. Remember they started in about how McCain couldn’t use a computer, but it turned out that his physical disability from his prisoner of war days was responsible, so they dropped it. When Palin came along she became a perfect subject for ridicule because as elitist big city people (most of Obama’s people) they could ridicule her country ways.
Hint to our side: ridicule the elitist city types who predominate in the Obama administration.
Jon Stewert and his ilk have gained their popularity because of Rule #5. Conversely, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are hated by the left because they obviously love Rule#5 and know how to use it. Stick-in-the-mud so-called conservatives who criticize Limbaugh and Coulter are making a grave error. We need more ridicule, not less!
Days 1-18 of my Alinsky calendar can be found in our “community destabilization” category. By the way, my inspiration to put this in “calendar” form is because my kids once gave me one of those Bush calendars that made fun of things Bush had said. There was one ‘ridicule’ for each day of the year.