Cloward & Piven

The Revolutionary Playbook in Practice: Theory to Street-Level Chaos

Lincoln warned America could only die by suicide. Today, revolutionary frameworks taught in universities—Alinsky, Cloward-Piven, The Coming Insurrection—are being applied as official policy by governors and DAs. This isn't governance failing. It's revolution succeeding.

Kody Fairfield

Kody Fairfield

— 38 min read
The Revolutionary Playbook in Practice: Theory to Street-Level Chaos
"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." Abraham Lincoln - Lyceum Address, January 27, 1838

The Warning We Didn't Heed

Lincoln spoke these words in Springfield, Illinois, when he was just 28 years old—a young lawyer warning his generation about the greatest threat to the American experiment. He had watched mob violence spread across the nation: the lynching of gamblers in Vicksburg, the burning of Francis McIntosh in St. Louis, the murder of abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy in nearby Alton. The Union wouldn't tear itself apart for another 23 years, but Lincoln already saw the danger.

America cannot be conquered from outside. It can only be destroyed from within.

But what Lincoln witnessed was chaotic, uncoordinated internal collapse—mob rule born of passion and lawlessness. What we face today is something far more sophisticated: deliberate, theoretically-grounded, strategically-executed internal subversion.

This isn't conspiracy theory. It's documented revolutionary frameworks being applied in real-time by political elites who openly study and celebrate these very tactics. The texts exist. They're taught in universities. They're discussed approvingly in activist circles. And the patterns they prescribe match exactly what we're witnessing in American cities and states.

The question isn't whether America will "die by suicide," as Lincoln warned.

The question is whether we'll recognize the root of the poison.

The Frameworks That Aren't Taught in Civics Class

Most Americans assume political movements arise organically—communities organize around shared grievances, advocate for change, and work within the system. But there's a different tradition, one taught in activist circles and radical reading lists, that views democracy itself as the obstacle to be overcome.

Three texts form a revolutionary blueprint that explains much of what we're witnessing:

Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" (1971)

The foundational text of modern community organizing makes its goals explicit from the opening:

"What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away." - Saul Alinsky

The core principles:

Alinsky is remarkably honest about the cynicism involved: "It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles."

The issues don't matter. The grievances are manufactured. Power is the only real objective.

Cloward-Piven Strategy (1966)

Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, professors at Columbia University School of Social Work, published "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty" in The Nation magazine on May 2, 1966. But the goal wasn't to end poverty—it was to use poverty to force systemic collapse.

The strategy:

  • Massively expand welfare enrollment to overload the system
  • Force fiscal crisis that breaks existing structures beyond repair
  • Use the resulting chaos to demand fundamental restructuring
  • Create dependency that makes reform politically impossible

As they wrote: "A massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls...would produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments."

The ultimate aim: "If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income."

This isn't reform. It's deliberate sabotage disguised as compassion. Overload the system, watch it collapse, then rebuild according to revolutionary principles.

"The Coming Insurrection" by The Invisible Committee (2007)

The most explicit framework. The anonymous French collective diagnosed modern capitalist society as "clinically dead"—a civilization sustained only through surveillance and crisis management, alienated across seven "circles":

  1. From self (manufactured identities)
  2. From others (atomized social bonds)
  3. From work (meaningless labor)
  4. From urban space (hostile architecture)
  5. From economy (perpetual precarity)
  6. From environment (ecological collapse)
  7. From the state (illegitimate authority)

The prescription isn't reform. It's immediate insurrection:

Form anonymous "communes" (affinity groups) for mutual aid and action (Militant Trans Activist, CHAZ, BLM, Antifa, etc)

Sabotage flows: "Information and energy circulate via wire networks, fibers and channels, and these can be attacked. How can a TGV line or an electrical network be rendered useless? How does one find the weak points in computer networks?"

Block economies: Disrupt commerce, prevent normal economic function. Also see: Protest on major highways, ICE raids, etf.

Evade visibility: Operate without organizations, avoid detection. "Anonymity is to be held onto for as long as possible"

Seize local power during crises: "Riots, disasters, emergencies become opportunities" (BLM, No Kings Protests, Occupy Wall Street)

Reject elections, assemblies, traditional organizing: "Organizations are obstacles to organizing ourselves"

Make police irrelevant through overwhelming disorder and strategic withdrawals

The explicit goal: "Total reconfiguration beyond states."

Not reform. Not improvement. Not working within the system.

Destruction and replacement.

The Coming Insurrection was labeled a "manual for terrorism" by the French government. Nine people were arrested in connection with railway sabotage, with this book cited as evidence. The anonymous authors formulated what they call "an ethics that takes as its starting point theft, sabotage, the refusal to work, and the elaboration of collective, self-organized life forms."

The Community Organizer Pipeline to Power

Here's what should alarm every American: these aren't just theoretical texts studied in isolation. They're operational manuals for a specific pathway to political power—a pathway that's producing leaders across the United States and mirroring patterns seen in authoritarian regimes worldwide.

The Rise of the "Community Organizer" Class

Traditional American political leadership followed recognizable paths: military service, business success, legal practice, legislative experience. Leaders built something, managed something, or defended something before seeking to govern.

The community organizer path is fundamentally different. It's training in agitation, disruption, and power acquisition—not governance, not administration, not building institutions.

And it's working.

The pipeline from organizing to power now includes large names like:

Barack Obama served as a community organizer in Chicago's South Side from 1985-1988 with the Developing Communities Project, organizing churches around jobs, schools, and housing before becoming Illinois state senator, U.S. senator, and president.

Karen Bass founded Community Coalition in South LA in 1990 as executive director, tackling drugs, liquor stores, and schools until 2003, then elected to California State Assembly (2004), Speaker (2008), U.S. Congress (2011), and LA mayor (2022).

Brandon Johnson organized for Chicago Teachers Union before becoming Chicago mayor (2023).

Pramila Jayapal started in community organizing before U.S. Congress (WA-07).

Greg Casar community organized before Austin City Council (2015-2022) and U.S. Congress (TX-35).

Zohran Mamdani community organized before New York State Assembly (2021) and now Mayor of New York City.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez worked as an organizer and activist before U.S. Congress (NY-14).

This isn't a random collection of individual career paths. It's a deliberate pipeline from activism to governance—and it's accelerating. Notice the pattern: the organizing credentials don't just help them get elected; they're presented as the primary qualification for holding power.

This isn't coincidence. It's the deliberate application of a framework that views political office as the continuation of organizing by other means.

Why Organizers Win—And Why That Matters

The skills of community organizing are perfectly suited to acquiring power but potentially disastrous for wielding it:

What organizers excel at:

  • Creating and inflaming grievances
  • Polarizing populations into us vs. them
  • Mobilizing supporters through emotional appeals
  • Generating crisis and urgency
  • Personalizing and demonizing opponents
  • Building parallel power structures
  • Using disruption as leverage
  • Maintaining permanent campaign mode

What governance requires:

  • Solving problems (not creating them)
  • Building consensus
  • Managing complex systems
  • Achieving measurable outcomes
  • Taking responsibility for failure
  • Working within constraints
  • Balancing competing interests
  • Delivering stability

See the problem?

The organizer is trained to create and perpetuate crisis. The governor is supposed to resolve it.

When organizers become governors, they bring their training with them. And suddenly, the patterns make sense:

  • Why problems never get solved despite massive spending
  • Why crisis seems to intensify under "reform" policies
  • Why rhetoric escalates while outcomes deteriorate
  • Why the mobilization never stops, even from positions of power

They're not failing at governance. They're succeeding at organizing.

The goal was never to fix things. The goal was always power—and maintaining the conditions that justify holding it.

The Historical Pattern: From Agitator to Autocrat

This pathway isn't new. It's how authoritarians have historically risen to power—by organizing discontent, creating crisis, and then positioning themselves as the solution.

Vladimir Lenin: Professional revolutionary and organizer. Spent years building Bolshevik party apparatus and fomenting unrest before seizing power in 1917. Excelled at agitation and disruption. Led to Soviet totalitarianism.

Benito Mussolini: Organized socialist movements and strikes before founding Fascist movement. Used organized violence (Blackshirts) and crisis (threatened march on Rome) to gain power. Agitation skills don't translate to governance—it ends in dictatorship.

Mao Zedong: Community organizer extraordinaire. Organized peasants, created parallel power structures, fomented revolution. The organizing never stopped—Cultural Revolution was permanent mobilization as governance. Result: tens of millions dead.

Hugo Chávez (Venezuela): Career military officer who positioned himself as voice of the poor. Used Bolivarian Circles (community organizations) to build power. Organized supporters to maintain permanent crisis mode. "Democratic" election led to authoritarian control and economic collapse.

Nicolás Maduro (Venezuela): Former bus driver and union organizer who rose through socialist organizing ranks. Succeeded Chávez in 2013 and continued the organizing model as governance. Result: hyperinflation, mass starvation, millions fleeing the country. Venezuela transformed from South America's wealthiest nation to a failed state—all under leaders who began as "community organizers."

The pattern:

  1. Position as voice of the oppressed against elite
  2. Organize resentment and mobilize supporters
  3. Create or exploit crisis
  4. Gain power through democratic or revolutionary means
  5. Maintain crisis mode to justify expanded authority
  6. Governance becomes permanent organizing
  7. Outcomes deteriorate while power consolidates

Why It's Happening Now

Several factors explain the current rise of organizer-politicians in democracies:

The Superpower Paradox:

America's unique position creates the perfect conditions for revolutionary organizing to flourish:

Absence of existential threat: No nation can credibly threaten American survival. There's no imminent invasion, no Soviet tanks at the border, no constant air raid sirens. Outside of isolated, low-scale terrorist events, Americans live without the acute physical danger that historically united populations and clarified priorities.

Generalized prosperity: Even America's "poor" are wealthy by global and historical standards. Most have shelter, food, smartphones, and access to services. Real material deprivation—the kind that drove revolutions in Russia, China, or Cuba—barely exists. The desperate poverty that revolutionary organizing traditionally required simply isn't there.

The vacuum demands filling: When people aren't worried about survival, invasion, or starvation, they need something to fight for. Human nature demands purpose, struggle, meaning. In the absence of real existential threats, emotional and social problems become the only battlefield available.

Perception becomes reality: Without genuine life-or-death stakes to calibrate against, perception is easy to manipulate. A microaggression can be framed as violence. Discomfort becomes trauma. Disagreement becomes hate. Policy differences become existential threats to survival.

The organizer's genius is recognizing that in a safe, prosperous society, manufactured crisis works better than real crisis. Real poverty is finite—it can be measured, addressed, potentially solved. But perceived oppression? Emotional harm? Systemic injustice?

Those are infinite resources. They can never be fully resolved. They can always be discovered in new forms. They provide permanent justification for organizing, for mobilization, for power.

This is why revolutionary organizing thrives specifically in prosperous Western democracies rather than in actually oppressive regimes. The Chinese peasant under Mao had real grievances—starvation, landlord violence, actual oppression. The American college student has manufactured ones—microaggressions, hurt feelings, "structural" injustices that require extensive theory to even perceive.

But here's the dark brilliance: the manufactured grievances generate just as much political power as the real ones. Perhaps more, because they can never be satisfied.

A starving peasant stops organizing once fed. An emotionally aggrieved activist in a prosperous society? There's always another injustice to discover, another trauma to process, another system to dismantle.

Institutional capture of the training pipeline:

  • Universities teach Alinsky methods as legitimate political science
  • Community organizing is presented as civic virtue, not power tactics
  • Graduate schools in social work, public policy, education spread these frameworks
  • Nonprofit industrial complex provides funding and infrastructure

Changing primary electorates:

  • Low-turnout primaries reward intense mobilization
  • Organized activists have outsized influence
  • Traditional coalition-building matters less than energizing the base
  • Social media amplifies emotional appeals and polarization

Crisis as currency:

  • Media rewards conflict and disruption
  • Controversy generates attention and fundraising
  • Solving problems ends the news cycle; perpetuating them sustains it
  • "Activist" politicians get more coverage than effective ones

The appearance of moral authority:

  • "Community organizer" sounds noble and grassroots
  • Obscures training in manipulation and power acquisition
  • Provides cover for lack of traditional qualifications
  • Framing opposition as defending "the system" against "the people"

The Result: Organized Decline

When organizers gain governing power but continue organizing instead of governing, you get:

Cities that spend billions on homelessness while homeless populations explode (organizing maintains the crisis; solving it eliminates the cause)

Education systems that prioritize activism over achievement (organizing students is more valuable than educating them)

Criminal justice "reforms" that increase crime (chaos is useful; order is not)

Immigration policies that maximize disorder (crisis justifies intervention; solutions eliminate leverage)

Economic policies that create dependency (mobilized dependents are reliable supporters)

This isn't incompetence.

It's organizing principles applied to governance.

The question Americans need to ask: Do we want leaders trained to solve problems, or leaders trained to exploit them?

Do we want governance, or permanent revolution?

Because the community organizer model, taken to its logical conclusion, doesn't end in better government.

It ends in Venezuela.

The Sharpton Template: Theory Meets Practice

Al Sharpton didn't write revolutionary theory. He didn't need to. He demonstrated how to operationalize it.

For nearly four decades, Sharpton has refined a specific model that perfectly illustrates Alinsky's principles in action: identify or create crisis, position as spokesman, mobilize the base, harvest political capital and financial benefit regardless of outcome, move to the next crisis. Never resolve. Never be held accountable. Always profit.

What makes Sharpton significant isn't just his individual career—it's that he pioneered a template that today's progressive elite have industrialized and scaled to gubernatorial and mayoral levels.

The Pattern Refined Across Decades

Tawana Brawley (1987): Manufacturing Crisis

In November 1987, 15-year-old Tawana Brawley was found in Wappingers Falls, New York, with "KKK" and racial slurs written on her body, claiming she'd been abducted and raped by white men including law enforcement officials. Sharpton immediately positioned himself as her spokesman and advocate.

A grand jury investigation found in 1988 that Brawley had fabricated the entire story. The evidence was overwhelming. Sharpton had spent months on national television accusing specific individuals—particularly assistant district attorney Steven Pagones—of heinous crimes, with zero evidence.

Pagones's life was destroyed. His career as a prosecutor ended. He and his family received death threats. His marriage collapsed under the stress. In 1998, he won a defamation suit against Sharpton, but Sharpton refused to pay the $65,000 judgment, claiming he didn't have the money.

The Outcome for Sharpton: National profile established. Media credibility gained. No consequences for the false accusations. The destroyed lives left in his wake were irrelevant to his rising career.

This is Alinsky 101: "In the beginning the organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems." When real injustice isn't available, manufacture it.

Crown Heights Riot (1991): Inflaming Existing Tensions

In August 1991, a car accident in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood killed seven-year-old Gavin Cato. The driver was part of a Hasidic rabbi's motorcade. What should have been a tragic accident became a three-day anti-Semitic riot.

At the boy's funeral, Sharpton delivered inflammatory remarks: "The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident... Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights."

The rhetoric worked as intended. Mobs chanting "Kill the Jews" rampaged through the neighborhood. More than 150 police officers and nearly 40 civilians were injured. Businesses were burned and looted.

Most tragically, 29-year-old Australian Jewish scholar Yankel Rosenbaum was stabbed to death by a gang of black teenagers.

The Outcome for Sharpton: Increased political prominence. National media platform. No accountability for the violence his rhetoric helped incite. Twenty-five years later, he wrote a mealy-mouthed non-apology.

This is Alinsky's "polarize, personalize, and attack" principle in action. Take a tragedy and transform it into tribal warfare.

Freddie's Fashion Mart (1995): When Organizing Turns Deadly

The most explicit example of the template's dangers.

A black Pentecostal church (United House of Prayer) owned retail property on Harlem's 125th Street. They raised rent on their tenant, Jewish-owned Freddie's Fashion Mart, which in turn had to raise rent on its subtenant, a black-owned record store. A straightforward landlord-tenant economic dispute.

Sharpton transformed it into racial warfare.

At protests outside the store, Sharpton told the crowd: "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business."

On his radio show, Sharpton allowed protest leader Morris Powell to use explicitly racial language. Audiotapes captured Powell saying: "We are going to see that this cracker suffers... We don't expect a lot out of them. They haven't seen how we feel about anything yet."

The Sharpton-led protests continued for months.

On December 8, 1995, Roland James Smith Jr., who had been part of Sharpton's protests, walked into Freddie's Fashion Mart armed with a gun. He ordered all black customers to leave. He then spilled paint thinner on clothing bins and set the store on fire.

Seven people burned to death:

  • Angelina Marrero
  • Cynthia Martinez
  • Luz Ramos
  • Mayra Rentas
  • Olga Garcia
  • Garnette Ramautar
  • Kareem Brunner (the store's 22-year-old black security guard)

Smith shot himself.

The Outcome for Sharpton: He claimed he wasn't involved, just "mediating." He later expressed regret for the term "white interloper" but denied responsibility for the violence. No criminal charges. No career consequences. Within years, he was hosting shows on MSNBC and advising presidents.

Seven people dead. Sharpton moved on to the next crisis.

The Financial Harvest

The genius of Sharpton's model isn't just political—it's economic. He built an empire on perpetual crisis.

National Action Network:

Sharpton founded the National Action Network (NAN) in 1991, ostensibly as a civil rights organization. In practice, it became a sophisticated shakedown operation.

The pattern: Sharpton would threaten boycotts or protests against major corporations. The corporations would then begin donating to NAN and hiring Sharpton as a consultant.

Examples documented by the New York Post:

  • In 1998, Sharpton attacked Pepsi and Macy's for not portraying African-Americans in advertising. Pepsi hired him as a consultant for $25,000 per year. Macy's began funding NAN's annual conference.
  • Between 2003 and 2006, Sharpton threatened boycotts against General Motors, Chrysler, and American Honda. Within a year of each threat, all three companies began donating to NAN.

Corporate donors eventually included AT&T, Viacom, Walmart, Comcast, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, the NBA, Verizon, NASCAR, and Best Buy.

The finances tell the story:

NAN's 2016 revenue was $5.817 million. Sharpton's compensation that year: $687,555—nearly 12% of the entire budget. This included a $324,000 salary plus a one-time "bonus" of $437,555.

In 2019, Sharpton received $1,046,948 from NAN—a $324,000 salary, $159,596 bonus, and $563,352 in "other compensation." NAN claimed this was back-pay for years he'd been "underpaid."

Meanwhile, the organization's financial practices were perpetually troubled:

Sharpton's personal taxes were equally troubled:

As of 2008, Sharpton owed:

  • $931,397 in federal income taxes
  • $365,558 in New York City income taxes
  • His company Rev. Al Communications owed $175,962 to New York State

A 2014 New York Times investigation found he had "regularly sidestepped the sorts of obligations most people see as inevitable," with more than $4.5 million in state and federal tax liens.

The ultimate irony: A man who claims to fight for workers' rights built his empire by not paying payroll taxes—literally stealing from his own employees' Social Security and Medicare contributions.

The Template in Full

Sharpton's career illustrates the complete revolutionary playbook:

1. Create or Identify Crisis (Alinsky: "the organizer's first job is to create the issues")

  • Tawana Brawley: Manufactured racial incident
  • Crown Heights: Transform accident into racial/religious warfare
  • Freddie's: Turn economic dispute into racial conflict

2. Position as Spokesman (Alinsky: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it")

  • Claim to represent aggrieved community
  • Media grants platform and legitimacy
  • Become indispensable "translator" between community and power

3. Mobilize the Base (Cloward-Piven: create crisis, overwhelm systems)

  • Protests, marches, boycotts
  • Community members face consequences—arrests, violence, destroyed businesses
  • Sharpton remains safe, visible, in control

4. Harvest Regardless of Outcome (The Coming Insurrection: "seize power during crisis")

  • Tawana Brawley case collapses: Sharpton gains national profile
  • Crown Heights violence: Political power increases
  • Freddie's deaths: No accountability, MSNBC show follows
  • Financial empire built on corporate shakedowns
  • Millions in compensation while owing millions in taxes

5. Never Resolve, Move to Next Crisis

  • Solutions would eliminate the business model
  • Perpetual emergency justifies perpetual funding
  • Each crisis builds platform for next one

6. Face No Consequences

  • False accusations: No penalty
  • Inflammatory rhetoric leading to deaths: No charges
  • Tax evasion: Eventually negotiated down
  • Financial mismanagement: Continues to receive corporate funding

Why the Template Matters Now

Sharpton's individual career would be concerning enough. But he demonstrated a replicable model.

What worked for one "community organizer" in New York now operates at scale across American cities and states:

Governors using sanctuary policies to create immigration crises while positioning as protectors

Mayors spending billions on homelessness while populations explode and claiming compassion

District Attorneys implementing "reforms" that spike crime while denouncing "systemic" injustice

All of them:

  • Creating or perpetuating crisis
  • Mobilizing vulnerable populations
  • Facing no accountability for worsening outcomes
  • Harvesting political power and often financial benefit
  • Moving to next crisis without resolving previous ones

Sharpton proved it works. The question is whether Americans will recognize the pattern when it scales from one activist in Harlem to governors, mayors, and members of Congress using the same playbook.

Because when you understand the Sharpton template, suddenly the behavior of today's progressive elite makes perfect sense.

They're not failing. They're doing exactly what they were trained to do.

Scaling the Template: From Activist to Governor

What Sharpton pioneered as an individual operation, today's progressive elite have industrialized as governing policy. The same pattern—create crisis, position as protector, harvest political capital while outcomes worsen, face no accountability—now operates at state and city levels.

The difference: When a community organizer does this, a few hundred people suffer. When governors and mayors do it, millions do.

Gavin Newsom: Institutionalized Crisis Management

California's governor exemplifies the organizing model applied to executive power. Every major policy follows the Sharpton template: create or perpetuate crisis, position as compassionate protector, harvest political capital, let outcomes deteriorate, move to next crisis.

Sanctuary State: Making Immigrants More Vulnerable While Claiming Protection

On October 5, 2017, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 54, making California a "sanctuary state." The law bars state and local police from investigating, interrogating, or arresting people for immigration enforcement purposes, and prohibits holding individuals in custody beyond their release date for ICE transfer.

The framing: Protecting immigrants from federal overreach.

The reality: Textbook Coming Insurrection tactics—"sabotage flows."

ICE Acting Director Tom Homan's statement the very next day (October 6, 2017) explained the predictable consequence:

"SB54 will negatively impact ICE operations in California by nearly eliminating all cooperation and communication with our law enforcement partners in the state... ICE will have no choice but to conduct at-large arrests in local neighborhoods and at worksites, which will inevitably result in additional collateral arrests, instead of focusing on arrests at jails and prisons where transfers are safer for ICE officers and the community."

Read that again. The "sanctuary" policy doesn't protect immigrants—it forces them into more dangerous, more traumatic enforcement scenarios.

Before SB 54: ICE could quietly take custody of individuals already in jail. Process happens out of public view. Minimal community disruption. Target-specific enforcement.

After SB 54: ICE must conduct visible street-level raids. Families separated in front of children. Neighbors arrested as "collateral" catches. Maximum trauma. Maximum media coverage. Maximum political utility.

The numbers:

In 2017, before the sanctuary law took effect, ICE arrested 20,201 people in California—about 14% of all ICE arrests nationwide.

In the first two months of 2018 after the sanctuary law, ICE arrested 8,588 people in California—still about 14% of the national total, meaning enforcement continued but in more disruptive ways.

The outcome:

For immigrants: More vulnerable to traumatic raids, not less. The policy that claims to protect them actually ensures more visible, more frightening enforcement.

For Newsom: Political capital from "resisting" Trump. National progressive profile elevated. Presidential ambitions fueled. Immigrant communities kept in perpetual fear and dependency.

For California voters: Treated to regular images of ICE raids that Newsom can denounce—raids that his own policies made necessary.

This is the Sharpton template at scale. The "protection" creates the trauma. The trauma justifies more "protection." The cycle never ends. And the supposed beneficiaries bear all the risk.

The Homelessness Industrial Complex: $37 Billion and Rising

California spends more on homelessness than any state in the nation. The homeless population keeps growing.

The numbers are staggering:

California has spent at least $37 billion on homelessness programs over recent years. Despite this massive investment, the state's homeless population has grown to approximately 187,000—and the California State Auditor found that "California spent $9.6 billion on programs to alleviate homelessness between 2018 and 2021, yet the homelessness crisis grew worse during that time."

Let that sink in: Nearly $10 billion in three years. The problem got worse.

Tim Walz: Minneapolis Burns—Then and Now

The most explicit example of The Coming Insurrection principle: "Seize local power during crises."

George Floyd Riots (May 2020):

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody on May 25, 2020, sparked protests that quickly escalated into riots. What happened next revealed whether leadership would manage crisis or exploit it.

Governor Tim Walz faced a clear decision: deploy the National Guard immediately to prevent destruction, or delay and allow maximum chaos.

He delayed.

The timeline is stark: Floyd died on Monday, May 25. By Tuesday evening, protests had begun. Wednesday saw escalating violence. Thursday night, May 28, Minneapolis burned—the Third Precinct was overrun and set ablaze, businesses looted, buildings torched across the city.

Walz finally activated the National Guard on May 28—three full days after Floyd's death, only after the city had already descended into chaos. Even then, the deployment was initially limited, with full mobilization not occurring until days later when the destruction was already widespread.

The BBC documented that Walz's hesitation allowed the situation to spiral out of control. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey's calls for help went initially unheeded. By the time the Guard arrived in force, entire neighborhoods had been devastated.

While Minneapolis burned, Walz hesitated. The Lake Street corridor—home to hundreds of minority-owned small businesses—was destroyed. Over 1,500 properties were damaged or destroyed across the Twin Cities. The damage exceeded $500 million.

The outcome:

For Minneapolis residents: Neighborhoods destroyed. Three years after the uprising, recovery remains incomplete. Entire blocks still sit vacant. Lake Street's recovery has been slow and uneven, with many businesses never returning. Jobs lost permanently. Community infrastructure gone.

The communities that suffered most were working-class and minority neighborhoods—the very people the "racial justice" rhetoric claimed to serve.

For Tim Walz: National profile as "racial justice" champion. Democratic VP nomination in 2024. Speaking fees. Book deals. Political ascendancy built on the ashes of Minneapolis neighborhoods.

The $9 Billion Fraud: Protecting the Base

But the 2020 riots only scratch the surface of Walz's exploitation of Minnesota's communities.

For years—long before Minneapolis burned—a massive fraud scheme operated in plain sight. Federal prosecutors estimate at least $9 billion was stolen from Minnesota's social programs since 2018—a timeline spanning Walz's entire tenure as governor.

The fraud involved child nutrition programs, daycare assistance, autism services, housing programs, and Medicaid. Over 92 people have been federally charged, with 62 convicted. The vast majority—over 90%—are of Somali descent.

Walz Knew—and Did Nothing:

Minnesota State Representative Kristin Robbins testified before the House Oversight Committee that credible reports of fraud surfaced as early as 2011-2013, with extensive documentation by 2017-2018 when Walz was running for governor.

"Tim Walz knew about fraud from the very beginning," Robbins testified. "He was running for governor in 2018, when there were prosecutions going on, when there was an old report, active cases in the news all the time."

CNN's investigation found that when confronted with audits detailing fraud and mismanagement, "state agencies working under the administration of Democratic Gov. Tim Walz repeatedly minimized or dismissed the allegations."

Whistleblowers reported that "the governor knew and scolded them for pointing out fraud." One testified that Walz's Department of Human Services "undermined the ability to strengthen internal controls."

The Political Calculation:

Why would a governor ignore billions in fraud?

House Oversight Chairman James Comer explained: "The Committee has serious concerns about how you as the Governor... were fully aware of this fraud and chose not to act for fear of political retaliation."

The Somali community in Minnesota numbers approximately 80,000-107,000—a reliable Democratic voting bloc concentrated in Minneapolis and Hennepin County. In close Minnesota elections, this represents decisive margin.

Republican Whip Tom Emmer stated explicitly: "They need that 60,000 to 80,000 Somali population. They need them to be voting for them. That's what this is all about."

Minnesota State Representative Walter Hudson testified: "In my opinion, because it was politically beneficial to Democrats. The Somali community is a huge constituency group, and we've had some tight races in Minnesota, and it makes a difference for them."

State Representative Marion Rarick confirmed that whistleblowers told her "the governor knew and scolded them for pointing out fraud" to avoid political backlash.

Keith Ellison's Firewall:

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison—who represents the same Somali community politically—established a policy requiring his personal approval before any fraud investigations could proceed.

He never approved a single investigation.

CNN reported that many Feeding Our Future defendants "had been regular contributors to prominent Democrats—including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison."

State Representative Robbins testified that Walz's administration "actively interfered with criminal investigations looking into the fraud and refused to address the fraud for political gains through the support of Somali Americans in Minnesota."

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna referred both Walz and Ellison to the DOJ for criminal charges, stating: "Attorney General Ellison agreed on tape to fight Minnesota's own department of human and health services in exchange for Somali political and financial support."

The Scale of Exploitation:

The "Feeding Our Future" scandal alone: $250 million stolen from programs meant to feed hungry children during the pandemic. Fake distribution centers. Fraudulent invoices. No meals delivered. Money went to mansions, luxury cars, and international travel.

At least 78 people charged in that scheme alone. Nearly 40 pleaded guilty.

The daycare fraud: Facilities billing for care never provided. One prosecutor alleged that half or more of $18 billion in federal funds for 14 programs since 2018 could have been stolen.

The fraud became so brazen that it developed into "its own industry"—"not as a safety net, but as an industry" of perpetual profit from government programs.

The Consequences:

For Minnesota taxpayers: $9 billion stolen. Programs meant for vulnerable children, disabled Americans, low-income families—looted.

For the Somali community: Many now face federal charges, deportation, prison. Community members recruited to commit fraud by operators who insulated themselves. The pattern repeats: Elite rises from community, community bears consequences.

For Walz and Ellison: Political power maintained through an entire gubernatorial term. VP nomination for Walz. No accountability—until federal investigators, not state officials, finally acted.

The Pattern:

This is the template explicit: Protect fraud to maintain voting bloc. Silence whistleblowers by accusing them of racism. Allow billions to be stolen rather than risk losing political support. Let community members face federal charges while protecting elite political interests.

Walz didn't fail to stop the fraud. He succeeded at protecting his political base at the expense of billions in taxpayer dollars and the communities supposedly served.

The Template Repeats—January 2025:

And now, as this article goes to press, the pattern emerges again.

Following the fatal shooting of an ICE officer in Minneapolis, Walz has activated the National Guard—but this time, the deployment itself creates inflammatory conditions.

The timing. The rhetoric. The positioning as protector while communities face potential violence—identical to 2020.

As I write this, reports are emerging of riots beginning in Minneapolis, and disturbances are "randomly" appearing in other major metropolitan areas including Seattle, the home of ANTIFA,Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. In fact, in Seattle they are in the streets chanting "Death to ICE."

"Random."

The same cities. The same tactics. The same coordinated timing across jurisdictions. The same pattern of elite positioning while working-class neighborhoods prepare to burn again.

This is Coming Insurrection doctrine playing out in real-time: "Seize local power during crises." Walz learned in 2020 that crisis advances careers. He protected a $9 billion fraud for political advantage. He rose from governor to vice president on Minneapolis's ashes and billions in stolen taxpayer money.

Now watch whether he hesitates again. Watch whether the National Guard deployment is strategic or performative. Watch whether working-class neighborhoods—again, often minority-owned businesses—bear the consequences while Walz positions himself as responding to crisis he helped create.

Watch whether the "random" riots in multiple cities follow the same coordinated pattern as 2020.

The template doesn't change. Only the date does. And the body count grows.

Walz didn't fail to protect Minneapolis in 2020. He didn't fail to stop $9 billion in fraud. He succeeded at exploiting crisis and protecting fraud for political power.

The question now: Is he doing it again?

JB Pritzker: The Billionaire Revolutionary

The walking contradiction that proves the pattern.

Pritzker is literally a billionaire—heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune. His family's net worth runs into the billions.

Yet he positions as champion of the working class and advocate for progressive taxation.

The Property Tax Scandal:

The hypocrisy became explicit when Pritzker was forced to repay $331,000 for a property tax scheme. He had toilets removed from a Chicago mansion to have it declared "uninhabitable," drastically reducing his property tax burden.

Federal investigators dug deeper, examining whether the scheme constituted tax fraud. While Pritzker paid the money back, the message was clear: preach redistribution, practice avoidance.

This is Alinsky's principle made flesh: "Make them live up to their own rules." Preach higher taxes for the wealthy while exploiting every loophole to avoid them yourself.

Illinois Exodus:

Under Pritzker's governance, the results speak for themselves.

Illinois ranks 48th for people moving out, losing over 56,000 residents. The state is hemorrhaging population—particularly working and middle-class families who can no longer afford to stay.

Even more telling: Businesses moving out of Illinois have tripled since the pandemic. Jobs leave. Tax base erodes. Opportunities disappear.

But Pritzker's national progressive profile grows. He's positioned for higher office—built on managing Illinois's decline while personally profiting from the very tax avoidance he claims to oppose.

The Sanctuary State Model:

Like Newsom, Pritzker has championed sanctuary policies in Illinois—particularly protecting Chicago as a sanctuary city. The result: immigrants more vulnerable to traumatic enforcement while Pritzker claims moral high ground.

The Pattern:

A billionaire using working-class rhetoric to advance while working-class communities deteriorate. The contradiction isn't a bug—it's a feature. The revolutionary posture provides moral cover for elite self-interest.

The toilet scheme is the perfect metaphor: literally removing basic infrastructure to avoid taxes while claiming to care about the working poor.

Ilhan Omar: Perpetual Outsider from Inside

Representative of Minnesota's 5th District—which includes Minneapolis neighborhoods that burned in 2020.

Omar's political brand is the perpetual revolutionary even from a position of power. The organizing never stops. The mobilization continues. The rhetoric stays maximalist.

The District That Burned:

Omar represents the communities most impacted by the George Floyd riots. Her response combined maximalist rhetoric with little concrete help for destroyed neighborhoods.

In May 2020, Omar called for "dismantling" systems, stating that Minneapolis police department was "rotten to the root" and needed to be rebuilt from scratch. The rhetoric played well nationally while offering nothing to the small business owners watching their livelihoods burn.

Three years later, those neighborhoods remain partially destroyed. The revolutionary rhetoric provided no reconstruction. But it did provide Omar with a national platform.

The Minnesota Fraud Connection:

Minnesota experienced a massive fraud scheme that particularly exploited the Somali community—Omar's core constituency.

The case involved over $250 million in fraudulent childcare assistance claims. Federal authorities described it as one of the largest pandemic-related fraud schemes in the nation. Community members were recruited to file false claims through a fake nonprofit called Feeding Our Future. Many now face deportation or prison sentences.

The pattern: Operators of the scheme insulated themselves while recruiting community members to take the risks. When it collapsed, those at the bottom faced consequences while organizers proved harder to prosecute.

Whether directly connected or not, the pattern holds: Political elite rises from community. Community members face consequences. Elite faces none.

Campaign Finance Scrutiny:

Omar has faced renewed campaign finance scrutiny, particularly regarding payments to her husband's consulting firm. While FEC records show the payments, questions remain about whether the amounts and arrangements followed campaign finance law.

The emerging picture: Someone who rose through organizing, maintains revolutionary rhetoric, faces questions about personal financial benefit, while the community experiences ongoing crisis.

The Maximalist Strategy:

Omar's approach follows The Coming Insurrection model perfectly: Reject incrementalism. Maintain revolutionary rhetoric. Never compromise. Make police "irrelevant" through overwhelming criticism and defunding movements.

Her district experiences crime increases and business flight. She gains national platform and influence. The pattern repeats.

The BLM Blueprint: Organizing as Extraction

The 2020 protests and riots following George Floyd's death demonstrated the template at its largest scale—and revealed the extraction mechanism underneath the organizing rhetoric.

The Movement:

Black Lives Matter emerged as the face of the 2020 protests. The rhetoric was revolutionary: defund police, dismantle systems, reimagine public safety. Corporations rushed to express solidarity. Donations poured in.

But who actually benefited?

The Numbers:

The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation raised $90 million in 2020. The organization incurred $8.4 million in operating expenses and disbursed $21.7 million in grants, leaving an end-year balance of $60 million.

By 2021-2022, the foundation had blown through much of the money, reporting total net assets of $30 million—down from $60 million the previous year. Its revenues were down 88 percent.

The Property Empire:

In October 2020, BLMGNF purchased a $6 million mansion in Studio City—a 6,500-square-foot property with more than six bedrooms and bathrooms, a swimming pool, a soundstage, and office space.

The purchase was meant to be kept secret. When New York Magazine's investigative report exposed it, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors admitted she had hosted personal parties at the property—including her son's birthday party in March 2021 and a celebration for Biden and Harris' election victory, during which she stayed at the mansion for four days.

Cullors' brother Paul's security firm was paid $840,000 by BLM. Her mother was contracted for cleaning services at the house.

Beyond the organizational property, Cullors personally purchased approximately $3.2 million in homes, including a $1.4 million property in Topanga Canyon and a ranch in Georgia.

The Destruction:

While movement leaders accumulated property, the 2020 riots caused unprecedented damage.

The arson, vandalism, and looting resulted in $1 billion to $2 billion in insured losses—the most expensive civil disorder in U.S. insurance history, eclipsing the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

The protests affected 140 U.S. cities. In Minneapolis alone, Governor Tim Walz's administration estimated damage would exceed $500 million.

But insurance figures vastly understate true damage. About 75 percent of U.S. businesses are under-insured and about 40 percent of small businesses have no insurance at all. Their losses don't appear in the $2 billion figure.

Portland: 100 Nights of Chaos

Portland saw more than 100 consecutive nights of protests beginning May 26, 2020. Officers documented more than 6,000 uses of force during the protests.

The pattern: protests would turn violent, police would declare riots and use tear gas and crowd control weapons, protesters would return the next night. Federal officers deployed in July, further energizing the protest movement.

On the 100th night, September 5, 2020, police declared a riot after protesters threw "multiple fire bombs, mortars, rocks and other items". More than 50 people were arrested that night alone.

The destruction continued for months. Businesses fled. Insurance became unavailable or unaffordable. Neighborhoods deteriorated.

The Bail Fund Machine:

As thousands were arrested, bail funds presented themselves as helping protesters. The reality proved more complex.

The Minnesota Freedom Fund raised $35-40 million after Floyd's death—a staggering increase from the $231,000 it raised in all of 2019.

Vice President Kamala Harris promoted the fund on Twitter: "If you're able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota."

Celebrities including Seth Rogen, Steve Carell, and Justin Timberlake publicly donated and promoted the fund.

But where did the money go? Despite raising over $30 million in the first few weeks, the fund initially spent only $200,000 bailing out protesters. Most protesters arrested for curfew violations were quickly released without needing bail.

Before Floyd's death, MFF bailed out 563 people with an average bail of $342. After, the average bail skyrocketed to $13,195.

Who was being bailed out? CNN discovered at least 65 defendants bailed out by MFF after Floyd's killing while awaiting trial on felony charges involving violence, physical threats or sex crimes. All were convicted.

The fund paid $100,000 bail for a person accused of second-degree murder and $350,000 bail for a person accused of sexual assault and kidnapping.

George Howard was bailed out by MFF in August 2020 on domestic assault charges. Weeks later, he was charged with two counts of second-degree murder after allegedly shooting a man to death in a road rage incident.

The Pattern:

For protesters in the streets:

  • Arrest records
  • Injuries from confrontations
  • Trauma from violence
  • Neighborhoods still not rebuilt
  • Crime increases in their communities

For movement leaders and bail fund operators:

  • Millions in donations
  • Real estate acquisitions
  • National platforms
  • Minimal accountability when problems emerged

For the communities:

This is the Sharpton template industrialized and weaponized at scale.

District Attorneys: Decarceration as Governance

The organizing model reached the prosecutor's office. Progressive District Attorneys swept into power in major cities with promises of "criminal justice reform." The reality: policies that unleashed crime while insulating the elite.

Chesa Boudin—San Francisco:

Elected in 2019, Boudin—son of Weather Underground members imprisoned for murder—brought revolutionary theory to the DA's office.

The rhetoric: Ending mass incarceration, addressing "root causes" of crime, eliminating cash bail.

The reality: An analysis of prosecution rates found that under DA Brooke Jenkins (who replaced Boudin), prosecution rates were higher than under Boudin for nearly every crime category examined. Jenkins prosecuted 60% of felony cases compared to Boudin's approximately 46%.

Research using machine learning to analyze San Francisco crime data found that Boudin's policies were associated with increases in property crime, particularly theft and burglary, while his rhetoric blamed the police for not making arrests.

The outcome: Boudin was recalled in June 2022 after voters experienced the consequences firsthand. Luxury stores fled Union Square. Car break-ins became so common they were barely reported. Organized retail theft rings operated openly.

Critics documented the pattern: Boudin positioned crime increases as "copaganda" while data showed clear deterioration in public safety.

George Gascón—Los Angeles:

LA's DA brought similar policies to the nation's largest local prosecution system.

Violent crime and property crime both increased in 2023 in Los Angeles County, according to DOJ statistics. Gascon's challenger Nathan Hochman documented:

  • Violent crime up 3.5%
  • Property crime up 5.7%
  • While Gascon claimed credit for declining crime, actual FBI data showed increases

Gascon's policies included:

  • Eliminating cash bail for most offenses
  • Refusing to charge certain categories of crime
  • Declining to seek sentencing enhancements
  • Treating juveniles differently regardless of crime severity

The pattern: Crime victims suffer. Repeat offenders cycle through. DA claims success based on declining prosecution numbers—which reflect his refusal to charge, not declining crime.

Alvin Bragg—Manhattan:

New York's Manhattan DA campaigned on "transformative" prosecution.

A poll showed most New Yorkers are concerned about crime but don't blame Bragg—demonstrating how the organizing model can insulate even when outcomes deteriorate.

Bragg's stated priorities: "Safety, Justice, and Rebuilding Trust." The actual policies: declining to prosecute shoplifting under $1,000, eliminating bail requests for most crimes, treating armed robbery as a misdemeanor if no one was injured.

Stores locked products behind plexiglass. Pharmacies fled the city. Organized theft rings grew bolder. But Bragg maintained he was pursuing "justice."

The Academic Pipeline:

This isn't accident—it's curriculum.

Community organizing is taught at major universities as a legitimate field of study. Rutgers offers entire courses on community organizing, teaching students to "identify targets," "build power," and "create campaigns for social change."

Princeton has taught courses on community organizing covering Alinsky's methods, power analysis, and campaign strategy.

The curriculum produces organizers who enter government and continue organizing—but now with prosecutorial power, using the state apparatus to advance movement goals while calling it "reform."

Progressive organizing training explicitly teaches building "resilient organizations" that can withstand opposition—which in practice means creating structures that are accountable to the movement, not to voters or victims.

The Result:

The people who can't afford private security, can't flee to safer neighborhoods, can't absorb the costs of repeated theft—they bear the full weight. Working-class communities of all races experience the violence and disorder.

The organizers-turned-prosecutors harvest political capital from "progressive" credentials, gain national profiles, face minimal accountability as crime rises. When recalled or voted out, they blame "right-wing" opposition or claim the system prevented their vision from working.

The template holds: Create crisis (through non-enforcement), position as solution (more "reform"), harvest benefit (career advancement, movement leadership), let community suffer, face no consequences.

The Multiplication Problem

Sharpton demonstrated the model worked for one operator. What happens when dozens deploy it simultaneously?

The template becomes visible.

When you have:

  • Governors (Newsom, Pritzker, Walz) using it
  • Congress members (Omar, AOC, Squad) using it
  • Mayors in every major progressive city using it
  • District Attorneys (Boudin, Gascon, Bragg) using it
  • Movement organizations (BLM, various nonprofits) using it
  • Coordinated messaging across jurisdictions
  • Simultaneous crises (sanctuary, homeless, crime, education)

The pattern becomes impossible to ignore.

What worked through plausible deniability for Sharpton breaks down when everyone's doing it at once:

The crises never resolve despite massive spending ($37 billion on homelessness and it gets worse)

The rhetoric is identical across different cities and states

The elite insulation is obvious (Newsom's French Laundry, Pritzker's toilet scheme, Walz's VP nomination after Minneapolis burned)

The working-class consequences are undeniable (neighborhoods destroyed, businesses closed, crime rising)

The wealth accumulation shows (activists becoming millionaires from "activism")

The academic pipeline is documented (universities teaching organizing as career path)

The Strategic Question: Proliferation Paradox

Has the left:

A) Overplayed the hand?

  • Too many visible practitioners
  • Pattern recognition unavoidable
  • Elite hypocrisy too obvious (billionaire removes toilets to dodge taxes while preaching redistribution)
  • Outcomes too disastrous to ignore ($37 billion spent, homelessness increases)
  • BLM property empire exposed
  • Bail funds bailing out murderers not protesters
  • DAs recalled in San Francisco, challenged everywhere

B) Reached critical mass?

  • Institutional control sufficient to not care about exposure
  • Media still provides cover despite obviousness
  • Voting coalitions locked through dependency
  • Accountability mechanisms captured
  • Academic legitimacy achieved (Princeton, Rutgers teaching organizing)
  • Bragg maintains support despite crime concerns

C) Facing an inflection point?

  • COVID exposed elite hypocrisy at unprecedented scale (French Laundry crystallized)
  • Crime/disorder becoming undeniable to median voters
  • Working-class revolt brewing (Trump 2024 support, population fleeing blue states)
  • Even Democratic voters leaving progressive cities (56,000 fled Illinois)
  • Boudin recalled
  • Newsom nearly recalled despite California's Democratic dominance
  • Pattern recognition spreading

The answer matters because it determines whether this model continues or collapses.

But one thing is certain: This is not governance. This is organized exploitation disguised as compassion.

Lincoln's Warning, Realized

We opened with Lincoln's 1838 Lyceum Address. His warning, like many that followed him, that the United States did not face risk from outside forces, rather from internal wounds and suicide.

The Revolutionary Arc: Theory to Practice

The progression is clear:

1971: Saul Alinsky publishes Rules for Radicals. The manual: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it." "In the beginning the organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems." Power is the goal. Issues are organizing vehicles.

1966: Cloward and Piven publish their strategy in The Nation. The method: Overload the system. Force collapse. Use crisis to restructure. "A political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income."

2007: The Coming Insurrection arrives from France. The tactics: Form communes. Sabotage flows. Block economies. Seize power during crises. Make institutions irrelevant.

2013-2025: The theory becomes practice.

Community organizers become Congress members. Activists become governors. Protesters become prosecutors. The organizing never stops—it just acquires state power.

And now we can map it:

Alinsky's Rules → Sharpton's template:

  • Create the crisis (Tawana Brawley, Crown Heights, Freddie's Fashion Mart)
  • Position as spokesman
  • Mobilize base (community bears consequences)
  • Harvest regardless of outcome (corporate shakedowns, $1M+ compensation)
  • Face no consequences (seven deaths at Freddie's, no charges)

Cloward-Piven → Newsom's California:

  • Overload the system ($37 billion spent, homelessness increases)
  • Create dependency (187,000 homeless trapped in "compassionate" bureaucracy)
  • Expand crisis management (thousands of nonprofit jobs depend on perpetual crisis)
  • Blame insufficient funding (never examine whether model itself creates problem)
  • Harvest political capital (presidential ambitions built on California's decline)

Coming Insurrection → Walz's Minnesota:

  • Let crisis burn (three-day delay deploying National Guard in 2020)
  • Seize power during chaos (VP nomination built on Minneapolis's ashes)
  • Sabotage enforcement flows (protect $9 billion fraud to maintain voting bloc)
  • Make institutions irrelevant (Ellison blocks all state fraud investigations)
  • Position as only solution (activate Guard in 2025 while cities burn again)

The Academic Pipeline → Progressive DAs:

The BLM Model → Industrial-scale extraction:

This isn't theory anymore. It's governance.

Or rather—it's what passes for governance when revolutionaries capture institutions but continue organizing instead of administering.

The Weapon Class and the Elite

In every instance, the pattern holds:

The weapon class—those mobilized to apply pressure:

  • Protesters in the streets (arrest records, injuries, trauma)
  • Small business owners (billions in uninsured losses)
  • Immigrant communities (more vulnerable after "sanctuary" policies)
  • Homeless individuals (trapped in perpetual dependency)
  • Working-class neighborhoods (destroyed, unrecovered)
  • Somali community members (recruited for fraud, facing deportation)
  • Crime victims (no prosecution, repeat offenders)

The Progressive elite—those who organize and harvest:

  • Sharpton ($1M+ annual, corporate shakedowns, no consequences)
  • Newsom (survived recall, presidential ambitions)
  • Walz (VP nomination after city burned and $9 billion stolen)
  • Pritzker (toilet scheme to avoid taxes while preaching redistribution)
  • BLM leaders ($6 million mansion, $3.2 million in personal properties)
  • Bail fund operators (millions collected, minimal spent on protesters)
  • Progressive DAs (career advancement on crime increases)
  • Academic institutions (teaching the model to next generation)

The elite face no consequences. They advance. They accumulate. They leverage crisis into power and wealth.

The weapon class bears all consequences. Their neighborhoods burn. Their businesses close. Their communities fracture. Their futures dim.

But here's the key: The elite aren't betraying the movement—they're perfecting it.

Alinsky never said the organizer serves the community. He said the organizer uses the community to build power.

"The organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems."

Cloward-Piven never said help the poor. They said overload the system using the poor to force restructuring.

The Coming Insurrection never said improve communities. It said form communes, sabotage flows, seize power during crisis.

The model is working as designed.

The Constitution's Enemies: Domestic

The oath every elected official swears:

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

We've spent 70 years obsessing over foreign enemies. Soviet infiltration. Chinese espionage. Terrorist cells. Foreign interference.

We missed the domestic ones.

Not because they hid—because we refused to see.

They published their playbooks: Rules for Radicals (1971), "The Weight of the Poor" (1966), The Coming Insurrection (2007).

They taught courses at Princeton and Rutgers: community organizing, power analysis, campaign strategy.

They ran for office explicitly as "trained Marxists" (BLM founders) and children of Weather Underground members (Boudin).

They implemented policies that predictably worsened every crisis they claimed to address.

And when outcomes deteriorated—homelessness increasing despite $37 billion spent, crime rising under "reform" prosecutors, $9 billion stolen while governor watched—they blamed insufficient funding, Republican opposition, "systemic" forces.

Never the model itself.

Because the model is the point.

These aren't failed leaders. They're successful revolutionaries.

They aren't incompetent administrators. They're competent destroyers.

They aren't trying to fix America. They're following the playbook: "If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher."

The Multiplication Effect: When the Template Goes National

Sharpton proved the model works for one operator over decades.

But what happens when it multiplies?

When you have simultaneous deployment across:

  • Governors in multiple states
  • Mayors in major cities
  • Congress members forming caucuses
  • District Attorneys coordinating policies
  • Movement organizations sharing strategies
  • Academic institutions training new cohorts
  • Media providing cover
  • Corporations funding through guilt

The effect isn't additive—it's multiplicative.

Each instance of the template validates and protects the others.

When Newsom faces recall over French Laundry, he points to "right-wing extremism" and survives because the media treats his hypocrisy as an aberration, not a pattern.

When Walz's $9 billion fraud scandal emerges, he claims "we've spent years cracking down" and accusations of inaction become accusations of "racism" toward Somalis.

When progressive DAs see crime surge, they point to other cities with similar policies and claim "it's a national trend" beyond their control.

When BLM's financial improprieties surface, they call it "attacks on Black activists" and most media provides minimal coverage.

The multiplication creates mutual protection through saturation.

No single instance can be addressed without appearing to target the entire movement. Any accountability becomes "backlash" against "progress."

The pattern becomes too big to acknowledge without confronting its systemic nature.

And acknowledging its systemic nature requires admitting these aren't failures—they're successes at a different goal.

America's Suicide Note

Lincoln's prophecy wasn't metaphorical.

This is the suicide note:

$37 billion spent, homelessness increases—by design (Cloward-Piven: overload and restructure).

Sanctuary policies making immigrants more vulnerable—by design (Coming Insurrection: sabotage flows).

$9 billion fraud ignored to maintain voting bloc—by design (Alinsky: power is the goal, issues are vehicles).

Progressive prosecution causing crime surges—by design (delegitimize existing institutions).

$90 million donated, leaders buy mansions while cities burn—by design (organize to extract, not serve).

Riots coordinated across cities, "randomly" appearing—by design (The Coming Insurrection: "seize local power during crises").

Each crisis perpetuated. Each solution making problems worse. Each failure justifying expansion of the very policies causing failure. And who knows what hasnt surfaced yet.

This is not governance failing.

This is revolution succeeding.

The goal was never good administration. It was destabilization.

The goal was never solving problems. It was creating permanent crisis justifying permanent revolution.

The goal was never improving communities. It was organizing to extract power and wealth.

And it's working.

California hemorrhaging population—doesn't matter, Newsom positions for presidency.

Minneapolis burned—doesn't matter, Walz got VP nomination.

San Francisco uninhabitable—doesn't matter, Boudin's recall becomes martyrdom fueling more "reform" DAs.

Crime surging—doesn't matter, Bragg maintains support by framing opposition as persecution.

The worse it gets, the more it proves the system needs dismantling.

The more it's dismantled, the worse it gets.

The cycle accelerates.

This is America dying by suicide, exactly as Lincoln warned.

Not killed by foreign enemies—authored and finished by domestic ones.

Not through military conquest—through institutional capture and revolutionary governance.

Not despite being warned—while the warning signs were published, taught, and celebrated.

The Choice

We're at the inflection point.

The pattern is visible. The multiplication is undeniable. The outcomes are catastrophic.

The question isn't whether this is happening—it is.

The question is whether enough people recognize it in time.

Because the revolutionaries-turned-governors have one advantage Lincoln couldn't have foreseen:

They control the language of legitimacy.

Call it out, and you're "racist" (criticizing Walz's fraud protection).

Demand accountability, and you're "attacking" vulnerable communities (BLM financial scrutiny).

Point to outcomes, and you're accused of "copaganda" (Boudin's rising crime).

Notice the pattern, and you're "conspiracy theorizing" (coordinated timing of policies).

The revolutionary knows: Control the language, control the response.

Alinsky wrote it explicitly: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."

Anyone who identifies the pattern becomes the target. Gets frozen as "extremist." Gets personalized as "bigot." Gets polarized from reasonable discourse.

The defense mechanism is built into the model.

But multiplication creates vulnerability: The pattern becomes too obvious to hide.

When a billionaire removes toilets to dodge taxes while preaching redistribution—obvious.

When a governor lets a city burn, then gets promoted—obvious.

When $90 million goes to property empires while communities remain destroyed—obvious.

When $9 billion disappears while governor protects it for votes—obvious.

When every "reform" produces identical deterioration—obvious.

When organizers-turned-officials continue organizing instead of governing—obvious.

Lincoln's Unfinished Warning

Lincoln's Lyceum Address contains a question most forget:

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?"

The answer, 188 years later:

Now.

Not in some distant future. Not through some foreign invasion.

Now. Through domestic revolutionaries implementing published playbooks as official policy. When they tell you who they are, believe them.

Lincoln knew that America's death would be suicide—authored and finished by Americans themselves.

He didn't know the authors would come disguised as champions of the vulnerable.

He didn't know the finishers would frame destruction as "compassion."

He didn't know the suicide note would be written in academic course syllabi, nonprofit mission statements, and government policy papers.

But he knew the essential truth:

"As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

We're watching the attempted self-destruction in real-time.

And citizens who watch their neighborhoods burn, their businesses close, their communities fracture—and are told questioning it makes them the problem.

This is organized, intentional, theoretically-grounded revolutionary action disguised as compassionate policy.

It's Alinsky plus Cloward-Piven plus The Coming Insurrection, multiplied across institutions, accelerated through coordination, protected by language control.

The only question remaining:

Will it be stopped before the wound is fatal?

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