Trump The Alinskyite!

The MSM’s and Trump’s opponents’ reaction to Trump’s proposal to send illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities has featured mostly number five on the above list: Trump is a mean mean man. 

Just two examples should suffice; they are very typical of the genre [emphasis mine]: 

Mayors from across the country were quick to respond to Trump’s latest portrayal of immigrants and sanctuary cities as threats. 

In New York City, where nearly 40 percent of the population are immigrants, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Trump’s immigration policy was rooted in cruelty. “He uses people like pawns,” de Blasio said in a statement. “New York City will always be the ultimate city of immigrants – the President’s empty threats won’t change that.” 

In Philadelphia, known as the city of brotherly love, Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement that his city “would be prepared to welcome these immigrants just as we have embraced our immigrant communities for decades.” He said the White House was demonstrating “the utter contempt that the Trump Administration has for basic human dignity.” 

In turn, one can look at each of those statements, so similar to each other, and note how both mayors conflate “immigrants” with “illegal immigrants” as though the two types of arrivals are identical. 

This is entirely characteristic of the left as well; they want you to think the two groups are identical, too. But if a city failed to make a distinction between, for example, “shoppers” and “shoplifters,” its merchants might have a few objections after a while. 

In addition, there’s the obvious question one might ask: why would it be “cruel” or “contemptuous” of “basic human dignity” to take people from camps across the border to a supposedly flourishing city that welcomes them? 

Nor is anyone penning them up in those cities; they are free, apparently, to go anywhere they wish in this land of opportunity. 

And here I thought the word “sanctuary” meant “offering safety and refuge.” 

So, maybe not? 

What Trump is doing here is what he’s done many times before, following Alinsky’s Rule #4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” Actually, he’s following #5 and #6 as well, to a certain extent: “”Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon” and “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” He might need to worry about #7 at some point, “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag,” but that point has not yet been reached, and Trump is usually rather good at switching things up anyway. 

Trump is an Alinskyite, a term describing his tactics rather than anything about his political orientation. Whether Trump’s a natural at it or whether he’s purposely studied it I don’t know, but I think his use of Alinskyite methods is something that ties the left in knots, because although they are also practitioners of the Alinsky art, they have long considered that they own it and are rather unused to anyone on the right using it against them. It miffs them.

GO READ THE WHOLE THING.