Like the ACORN mobs who would barge into banks to demand that they not foreclose on homes, our country is being community organized by our “Alinsky-ite in Chief” Barack Obama. The “Rules for Radicals” disciple knows that it is more important to cause a ruckus with a loud and angry mob than it is to have the truth and the will of the people on your side. That’s why, in his nationally televised address to the nation, he called on Americans to call Congress on his behalf to intimidate and bully a capitulation from the GOP. All that was missing were the whistles and the screams for “justice”.
The stories in the Washington Post and other compliant media outlets were damning:
The Capitol switchboard was on the verge of being overloaded with calls from across the country Tuesday morning after President Obama called on Americans in an address to the nation Monday evening to contact their members of Congress about the high-stakes debt battle playing out in Washington.
Of course, as the stories unfolded, it turns out that a whole lot of those calls were from Americans warning their Congressmen not to cave-in to the President’s demands and to hold firm on the debt ceiling and the tax increases Obama desires. So much so that by the end of yesterday afternoon, the 80-strong freshman class (who were sent to Congress largely by the Tea Party voters intent on finally changing Washington and the establishment GOP) held strong and withheld support for Speaker Boehner’s debt plan. The President’s plan to intimidate a tax-laden compromise out of the House backfired.
Clearly, the wrong people got the message in the President’s speech and somehow those Tea Party extremists learned how to use a telephone.
This will never do. Don’t you people realize that when the President calls on Americans to contact members of Congress, he’s really just talking to his radical and dedicated base? Don’t you realize he really only means that the agitators and “No Justice, No Peace” radicals are the ones who are supposed to make noise and push the agenda?
In an attempt to rejuvenate their community organizing mojo, the President’s own “Organizing for America” apparatus (now the Democratic Party’s web site and mailing list) sent out a round of e-mails this morning to their loyal followers encouraging them to get on the line and call Speaker Boehner directly.
As Joel Pollak noted yesterday, this is Community Organizing 101. If you don’t have the people on your side (which according to the President’s plummeting approval ratings he clearly does not) get enough loud-mouths to stir up a shit storm so it appears like you DO have the people on your side. Or just make enough noise and annoy enough people so they will give you what you want just to shut you up. Either way, it’s a win-win for the Alinsky-ites.
Unfortunately for the President, he has been so ham-handed and clumsy with his class warfare demagoguery during this entire debt ceiling debate that he is telegraphing his moves like an amateur boxer. We can see the left hook coming from a mile away.
If the sad members of the OFA mailing list actually heed their command and call Speaker Boehner all day today, it will be interesting to see if the media report on the e-mail alert (that surely all of them got just like I did) or if they go along with the Kabuki dance the President is choreographing and merely report that “angry citizens are making their voices heard.”
Ultimately, these community organizing tactics only work if the target is weak and has no will (are you listening Speaker Boehner) and if the media go along with the lie. I fear that both may be true in this country.