The Left's Latest Villain

Half a century ago, community agitator Saul Alinsky penned his now infamous book Rules For Radicals, a primer on grass-roots organizing and protest. His tactics, summarized in thirteen "rules," play to human nature rather than to rational minds. As such, those who see politics as an adversarial and zero-sum sport routinely resort to theme even when they don't realize it.

1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

2. Never go outside the experience of your people.

3. Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy.

4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.

5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.

6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.

7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

8. Keep the pressure on.

9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.

12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

As I ponder how Elon Musk rapidly morphed from a darling of the Left (and in particular the Green caucus) to a Bond villain in their eyes, it became obvious that several of Alinsky's aphorisms explained it all.

Start with Rule 1. Twitter, at the height of its political influence, was dominated by perhaps 2% of the American population. By the numbers, at that time about 10% of Americans had a Twitter accounts and 80% of political Tweets (or was it all Tweets?) came from 20% of users. Despite that population being a tiny fraction of the public, politicians, policy makers, and Corporate America cowered in fear of the Twitter mob's Eye of Sauron looking their way. Cancel culture scared the bejeezus out of the most powerful people in our society, no matter how small a minority the cancelers were. Thus, "power the enemy thinks you have."

This segues into Rule 5. Ridicule, especially when inflected with hate, was the Twitter mob's weapon of choice, and one that (Rule 6) was strongly validated in the left-wing echo chamber that was pre-Musk Twitter.

See, next, Rule 9. The mere threat of cancellation sufficed in most cases. Until, that is, Rule 7 proved out, as the likes of JK Rowling, Dave Chappelle, Joe Rogan, and other "uncancelables" decided to clap back at the mob. The cancel mob's power has been ebbing for a couple years now, and Trump's election may be the final nail in that coffin.

Which brings me to the bile being spewed at Elon Musk for the temerity of siding with Trump and speaking forcefully in favor of liberty and less government. My social media feed is littered with scorn for Musk, for those who applaud what he has said, and for the Department of Government Efficiency in which he and Vivek Ramaswamy are expected to act in an advisory capacity.

As well, many puff-chested reminders that Musk wasn't elected to any government position, so 'why should he have any say?' Suffice it to say that none of Joe Biden's handlers, including his wife, were elected either, yet we all know now that they've been not only in his ear for the past four years, but have often acted in his stead and in his name.

No matter. Can't swing a dead cat around the political sandbox without hitting hypocrites.

Musk's great transgression, the thing that moved him from hero to villain, was his inexcusable liberation of Twitter.

He broke the Left's favorite toy, and in doing so exposed some truly sinister shenanigans.

So, now, because they don't like liberty, the leftists turned to Rule 13.

And engage in a whole lot of ad hominem and genetic fallacies.

Musk is being portrayed as the face of Trump 2.0, with some of the usual suspects actually dubbing him President-Elect or calling him the ‘shadow President.’ The irony, after four years of Biden-the-Puppet, is clearly lost on them. Others are exhibiting what we can now call Musk Derangement Syndrome. He's an unelected billionaire, after all, and therefore is necessarily about self-enrichment and other forms of no-good. He's South African, therefore he's a Nazi. He likes Trump, therefore he's a Nazi. He won't censor “hate speech” - more accurately, speech the Left doesn't like - off X, so he's a Nazi.

Nothing more polarizing than calling someone a Nazi. Again, Rule 13.

Since he's a Nazi, anything he says or suggests is Nazish, and therefore bad. That's the "genetic fallacy," the act of deriding an idea or opinion based on who said it instead of on its merits.

The Left, motivated by emotion rather than logic, thrives on hating villains, and since they teach and have been taught to hate success, it's in character to spew hate at the most financially successful man in the world.

Even when he states the obvious and advocates for things that cannot rationally be rebutted, like reducing wasteful spending.

Fortunately, most people see through the bullshit. Musk is not a saint, but no one is, and we don't have to treat him like one if we agree with a particular idea or observation. And, as I've already noted, I'm guardedly optimistic that, with Musk buzzing in his ear, Trump might actually push the Republicans into making some real cuts in government spending.

The Musk-hate reminds me of the Iron Lady's aphorism on personal attacks.

Some have suggested that Musk's purchase of Twitter may turn out to be a seismic political event that pays benefits for years or even decades. Only time will tell, but I'm inclined to agree, and I also believe that the liberation of Twitter-now-X was a significant contributor to the Democrats' wipeout at the polls a few weeks ago. It unmasked SO much dirt, and opened SO many eyes.

Liberals of half a century ago, who were the iconoclasts and distrusters of government of their day, would be aghast at what has been done to their team by the big-government fanatics we call leftists.

Would Alinsky be on board with the pro-big-government leftists of 2024? Perhaps, given his supposedly Marxist proclivities, but it's hard to agitate against The Man when The Man is you.