{"id":714,"date":"2012-06-11T01:32:55","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T01:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=714"},"modified":"2013-02-20T01:35:21","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T01:35:21","slug":"the-way-of-the-community-organizer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-way-of-the-community-organizer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Way of the Community Organizer"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n

NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n

As the campaign heats up, and the self-imposed restrictions of 2008 disappear, we will likely hear more about the once proud associations and friendships of Barack Obama that were all Trotskyized by the media ministries of truth during the unhinged summer of 2008.<\/p>\n

In that regard, when the Pew poll recently revealed that the US is more polarized than at any time in the last 25 years, it provided an answer to Rudy Giuliani\u2019s rhetorical question in 2008 about what exactly a\u00a0community organizer<\/a>\u00a0does. I think we now know the answer after four years of them\/us divisiveness: In lieu of trying to find common solutions to shared problems in a fashion that suppresses innate differences, the community organizer seeks to find potential seams of friction and animosity, and then mine and exploit them for political gain \u2014 the ultimate aim being to forge together a near majority by piling faction upon faction to obtain compensatory damages for perceived grievances.<\/p>\n

In 2008, Obama showed his hand with \u201ctypical white person,\u201d the clingers speech, the \u201cgun to the knife fight\u201d and \u201cget in their faces\u2019\u201d quips, the spread-the-wealth slip, and the suppression of his past radical associations and alliances. Since then we have seen everything from NFL football coaches appealing to voters on the basis of shared race; requests to Latinos to \u201cpunish our enemies\u201d; a phony \u201cwar on women\u201d;\u00a0class envy<\/a>\u00a0and anger (\u201cfat cat,\u201d \u201ccorporate-jet owner\u201d \u201cpay your fair share,\u201d now is not the time to profit, at some point you\u2019ve made enough money, and on and on); targeted messages for greens and gays \u2014 as each hyphenated group forms a particular Obama\u00a0action committee<\/a>\u00a0on the basis of its race, gender, or class, in hopes that in toto a bare majority emerges to extract concessions for the group.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s brand of community organizing and dissection assumes some constants:<\/p>\n

1) Each group must be defined as mostly a single-issue constituency (Latinos must focus on open borders rather than Hispanic unemployment rates; gay marriage is central to homosexuals, not worry over the deficit; African-Americans must remain gratified by Obama\u2019s landmark achievement and not depressed by soaring black unemployment and inner-city economic stagnation; greens must see all of the above agendas not in conflict with their cap-and-trade or shutting down Keystone; women must put first loyalty to their gender and not worry over their husband\u2019s current job or their sons\u2019 employment, etc.).<\/p>\n

2) There must always be a \u201cthem\u201d \u2014 some sort of caricatured enemy that prevents \u201caverage folks\u201d from getting what they deserve (e.g., George W. Bush, Big Oil, Wall Street, Republicans, etc.). We assume that the bogeyman is largely conservative, white, male, Christian, and heterosexual, but such precision is better left to the imagination.<\/p>\n

3) Whipping up ethnic and racial solidarity is legitimate for pro-Obama groups, but would of course be racist if others tried the same polarizing tactic against him (e.g., African-Americans against Obama, European-Americans for Romney, Latinos for Romney, etc.).<\/p>\n

4) Raising big Wall Street money, renouncing\u00a0public campaign financing<\/a>, setting records for presidential meet-and-greet fundraisers, etc. are all legitimate ways of using the system against itself, given the noble egalitarian ends that such tawdry means will further \u2014 and thus cannot be seen as either cynical selling out or abject hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

5) There will always be enough capitalist \u201cthems\u201d who, in their greed, unthinkingly keep making enough golden fleece to periodically shear for the far more deserving.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner As the campaign heats up, and the self-imposed restrictions of 2008 disappear, we will likely hear more about the once proud associations and friendships of Barack Obama that were all Trotskyized by the media ministries of truth during the unhinged summer of 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[96],"tags":[12,308,105,1036,310,1052],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-bw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8912,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/community-organizing-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":714,"position":0},"title":"Community Organizing America","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJMedia The modern art of a community organizer seems fairly simple. The proverbial agitator identifies a particular aggrieved racial, ethnic, gender, or class group that believes equality of opportunity must guarantee equality of result. Then he \u201corganizes\u201d the victims by claiming that their ostensible failure\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1969,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ten-lessons-from-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":714,"position":1},"title":"Ten Lessons from Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The election of Barack Obama brought all sorts of contradictions. A man with about the least prior executive experience in presidential history was suddenly acclaimed a \u201cgod\u201d and the smartest man ever to assume the office. 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I think we always knew the answer without even referencing the guidebook of Saul Alinsky. President Obama need not worry about budget deficits in the manner of Gov. Scott\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Identity Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Identity Politics","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/identity-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":777,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/presidential-narcissism\/","url_meta":{"origin":714,"position":4},"title":"Presidential Narcissism","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Former president Bill Clinton just appeared in a reelection television commercial for President Barack Obama. At one point, Clinton weighs in on the potential consequences of Obama\u2019s decision to go ahead with the planned assassination of Osama bin Laden. He smiles and then\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":687,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-they-did-it-campaign\/","url_meta":{"origin":714,"position":5},"title":"Obama’s ‘They’-Did-It Campaign","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The next five months should be interesting \u2014 given that Barack Obama is now experiencing something entirely unique in his heretofore stellar career: widespread criticism of his performance and increasing weariness with his boilerplate and his teleprompted eloquence. 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