Fake Saul Alinsky Quotations Are Used to Smear Liberal Politicians

A recent social media exchange made me aware of a series of fake quotations that litter the Internet and are falsely attributed to the radical civil rights and labor organizer Saul Alinsky.

Why do people invent fake quotations? One reason, obviously, is that people invent fake quotations to give credibility to their stupid ideas, which otherwise would be completely unbelievable. After all, people who have good ideas don't need fake quotations. The fake Alinsky quotations serve a subtler purpose: by an indirect and devious route, these fake quotations are used to smear, of all people, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. How? Why? It is an interesting story.

Fake quotations have long been one of my pet peeves. I published an article a few years ago discussing fake Founding Fathers quotations about gun control; some conservatives use these fake quotations to support an extreme anti-government agenda. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation has a lengthy webpage listing various spurious Thomas Jefferson quotations and the Mount Vernon Society provides an almost equally intimidating list of fake George Washington quotations.

For example, one common fake Jefferson quotation says, "Nothing is more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people." This seems to support a conservative position, but Jefferson never said it. It is not even in Jefferson’s writing style. (Hint: although he was a wonderful writer, Jefferson never used 11 words if 22 words would do the same job.) Anna Berkes of the Thomas Jefferson  Foundation has done a great job of cataloguing spurious Jefferson quotations.

The fake Saul Alinsky quotations serve a different purpose. The fakers' idea is to picture socialism as a means of political and social tyranny (using Alinsky as the authority about socialism), and then to claim (very questionably) that Alinsky’s writings inspired Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The fake Alinsky quotation that seems to circulate most recently is: “Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people.” Since several leading Democrats are advocating universal healthcare systems, conservatives can use this (fake) quotation to support their otherwise bizarre claim that providing healthcare is a way to control and tyrannize the population.

The second fake quotation from Alinsky is: “Poverty – Increase the poverty level as high as possible; poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.” Since liberal Democrats suggest using social programs to reduce poverty, while prominent liberals like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (falsely) describe themselves as socialists, this quotation supports the conspiratorial idea that socialists are secretly trying to make people poor to make them easier to control.

The basic idea of socialism is public ownership of the means of production, and non-controversial programs like the Veterans Administration, electrical co-ops, and farmers co-ops are clearly socialist. To make socialism sound especially evil, the people who publish and circulate the fake Alinsky quotations – there are actually eight of these fake Alinsky quotations – depict socialism, not as a method of social justice, but of tyranny and power.

Of course, conservatives could easily make the same point by giving accurate quotations from Joseph Stalin or Vladimir Lenin. They do not. Nobody would ever believe that Obama and Clinton were inspired by Stalin (although, strangely enough, President Donald Trump’s first Chief of Staff, Steve Bannon, once described himself as a Leninist). In contrast, fake quotations from Saul Alinsky seem vaguely plausible. So, if you are going to invent fake quotations, invent fake quotations that will serve your sick, deceitful, and devious purposes.

How do I know that these quotations from Saul Alinsky are fakes? Simple. I have read Alinsky’s books, Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals. The websites that give the fake Alinsky quotations usually seem to cite these books as resources. Not only are these quotations not found in Alinsky’s books, they do not resemble Alinsky’s ideas, which emphasize social justice and equality, and, in fact, the fake Alinsky quotations contradict his most basic principles. Furthermore, the quotations are not in Alinsky’s writing style, which is given to long, complex sentences and action verbs.

Back to Obama and Clinton. Obama and Clinton both seem to have read Alinsky’s books, and Clinton discussed them in her college thesis. Clinton, however, recoiled from Alinsky’s “inconsistency” and felt that his ideas were “anachronistic.” Not a ringing endorsement. The connection between Obama and Alinsky is more a matter of unsupported speculation.

For my own part, I disagree with Alinsky’s persuasive methods, which I think are both unethical and unnecessary in a representative democracy. That does not mean that I sympathize in any way with people who invent or spread fake quotations.

So, three conclusions:

1. People invent fake quotations to make a point that they cannot support by reason or facts. People spread fake quotations because they know they are wrong, and the use of fake quotations proves their lack of intellect and morality. People who repeat quotations, especially malicious ones, without checking their accuracy are equally guilty.

2. Members of the public believe fake quotations only if they lack critical thinking skills. Any competent teacher will tell students to go to primary sources. If you want to understand Plato’s ideas, read Plato’s dialogues. No secondary source will do the job. If you want to understand Donald Trump’s presidency, read or listen to his actual speeches (which I often analyze in this blog; use “Trump” as your search word in the box up and to the right). If you want to understand the Holy Bible, read it. If you want to understand Islam, read the Holy Koran. If you want to understand Alinsky, read Alinsky’s own books. There is no substitute.

3. Fake quotations are everywhere. The Internet is a sizzling frying pan full of fake quotations, invented facts, and obscene smears. Reader beware!

P.S. My article about fake gun control quotations is behind a paywall, but a good library should be able to find a copy for you.