Fighting Back:
How to fight the radicals who play by the “Rules for Radicals”
Here is the complete list from Alinsky.
* RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood. (These are two things of which there is a plentiful supply. Government and corporations always have a difficult time appealing to people, and usually do so almost exclusively with economic arguments.)
Rule 1: Radicals are your enemy. They think you have power over them, whether you do or not. Radicals are in an never-ending attempt to “Build Power” by recruiting the miscreants of society, conditioning youth, and using any and all agents to do so.
* RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone. (Organizations under attack wonder why radicals don’t address the “real” issues. This is why. They avoid things with which they have no knowledge.)
Rule 2: Find the areas of lack of expertise of the enemy and those they have recruited. You cannot attack what you do not understand. Find their weakness to expose the ignorance of the enemy.
* RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
Rule 3: Attack the Attackers. Whenever the enemy attacks an organization, objectify the ones making the attack immediately and return the attack. Know that the enemy has scouted you for perceived weakness and you must undermine by any means necessary those who are attacking and financing the attack
* RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)
Rule 4: Modify your rules to waste the time, energy and money of the enemy. If you have promised to “give a reply to every letter”, do not respond to the letters of the enemy at all. You will not die and they will spin their wheels uselessly. The enemy depends on this rule to “kill you”, but the “besieged entity” will lose nothing by ignoring the obvious ploy of the enemy. Be prepared to respond to the attackers’ with lawsuits, public humiliation, and the spotlight of media they are unprepared for.
* RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
Rule 5: Return ridicule with even more ridicule. “They believe there is no defense, and they will act irrationally themselves. The enemy’s pressure will evaporate to avoid the return of their “most potent weapon” on themselves.
* RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones. (Radical activists, in this sense, are no different that any other human being. We all avoid “un-fun” activities, and but we revel at and enjoy the ones that work and bring results.)
Rule 6: Make their own tactics no fun. Make their tactics harder, more boring, and even painful. If ignorant “activists” are feeling pain, like other human beings will avoid the pain.
* RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news. (Even radical activists get bored. So to keep them excited and involved, organizers are constantly coming up with new tactics.)
Rule 7: Make sure their tactics take a very long time. Work to make their activities look repetitive and tired. Excitement will dwindle when nothing is happening and everyone sees the tactics the enemy employs are from a playbook being used over and over again.
* RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new. (Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.)
Rule 8: Always make the enemy pay. The enemy never stops. They will always come back with something else. They will say whatever comes to mind. If the enemy finds you have thwarted their attack, be sure that another one is coming. You must be vigilant and you must make them pay dearly for every attempt. They must pay a price. It must be painful.
* RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist. (Perception is reality. Large organizations always prepare a worst-case scenario, something that may be furthest from the activists’ minds. The upshot is that the organization will expend enormous time and energy, creating in its own collective mind the direst of conclusions. The possibilities can easily poison the mind and result in demoralization.)
Rule 9: Answer all threats with threats of your own. Use the knowledge you have of your rights to make the enemy aware that you will make them all personally pay, even if you do not follow through. If your organization is under threat from activists, return the threat with threats on the enemy. Personalize the threats. Let them know you know who they are and you will make a threat of your own. They also have irrational fears. Use them.
* RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog. (Unions used this tactic. Peaceful [albeit loud] demonstrations during the heyday of unions in the early to mid-20th Century incurred management’s wrath, often in the form of violence that eventually brought public sympathy to their side.)
Rule 10: Defend yourself physically if required. The enemy will always resort to violence, defend yourself. The enemy has overplayed their own negative tactics. The public will respect someone who will not lay down and die. The enemy will also know that they will also pay a physical price if they resort to violence. Expect it violence and prepare for it. During the Los Angeles riots, those businesses that used armed security to respond to physical threats were largely untouched.
* RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem. (Old saw: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Activist organizations have an agenda, and their strategy is to hold a place at the table, to be given a forum to wield their power. So, they have to have a compromise solution.)
Rule 11: The Always identify the enemy as never having a constructive alternative. The enemy’s only alternative is communism or fascism. The enemy has no ideas of their own. Everything they have is borrowed from the extreme left or European socialism. Activist organizations are mostly fronts for communism. Do not ever compromise with a communist. They only will use it as a foothold to take more rights away from you.
* RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Rule 12: Get to the enemy first. When your enemy sets out in the morning to kill you, wake up earlier than your enemy and kill him first. You have been attacked. Do not wait to be a victim. Make the enemy pay in every way. Make them a pariah in society. Make them outcasts. Punish them personally.
