Saul Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals encourages the use of ridicule against one’s enemies. Rule five: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.
Alinksy’s fifth rule is a favorite tactic employed among the Left – one hardly has to look at all to find evidence of it in use today. The Left is ready and willing to mock just about anything to tear it down. This was perhaps nowhere more instant and vicious than the attacks on Sarah Palin and her family.
They mocked her experience, although she had more than Barack Obama. They mocked her attractiveness, calling her a MILF or saying she looked like a “slutty flight attendant.” Then they went after her family. They made comments about her daughter Bristol and also her special-needs son. They even posited that this son, Trig, wasn’t her own biological child! The Left loved mocking Palin’s intelligence, and it was a staple of Saturday Night Live during election season. It got to the point where people thought “I can see Russia from my house” was actually a Palin quote rather than something Tina Fey said while parodying Palin. All of this proves that Rule five was being expertly deployed.
Another example is the Tea Party. If taken seriously, their threat would be acknowledged. People might consider what Tea Party members were saying, which could lead to liberals defecting. So, what does the Left do? Mocks them. Whether in political cartoons or on television, it was everywhere- they were called “zombies” among other insults. It happened at newspapers, blogs, and on television. Some even added vulgar terminology to make it appear even more ridiculous.
With an implicit media, the Left has been able to permeate popular culture with the idea that the Right is full of people (like Sarah Palin) and movements (like the Tea Party) that are completely ridiculous. This means that they’ve been using Alinksy’s Fifth Rule expertly. We need to learn to do the same as it’s an easy and effective method to combat those on the Left.
