Note to Left: Stop Making Martyrs

An old organizer's notes on how to lose

I just watched Mrs. Erika Kirk’s speech.

The picture of courage, determination and composure was awesome and to the Left should be frightening. Her husband was just assassinated and she is absolutely on fire. I’ve seen that kind of fire before. Things do not end well for its enemies.

No one on the Left is asking for my advice… in fact, very few people are asking for my advice other than a friend who wants diet advice which I’m happy to give (high protein breakfast, no carbs before lunch, cut out all non-vegetable carbs except for the occasional fresh fruit, cut out all sugar and alcohol, focus on protein, full fat dairy, and tons of vegetables with olive oil and a teaspoon of flax oil morning and night. There, your free diet advice!), but if they were, I’d suggest this:

1. Do not caveat any statements about fact that the murder of Charlie Kirk was wrong, and that his assassin must be brought to justice with ANYTHING. Every caveat makes you sound pathetic at best and evil at worst. Condemn assassination wholeheartedly and frequently.

2. Shut up about guns right now.

3. Talk about unity and how we must break through the political divides that are ripping our country apart.

4. Ignore your whining base for a moment because the rest of the country swung the last election and that side’s majority is getting bigger by the minute.

5. Tell your supporters to stop the violence. The leaders of the Democratic Party and any other respected leaders left of center need to come out right now and unequivocally say STOP THE VIOLENCE!

No more “mostly peaceful” protests. No more glorifying of assassins. No more excusing bad behavior by blaming it on guns, mental illness, or anything else.

The Democrats lost the moral high ground so long ago I struggle to find the exact point in my calendar, but it was awhile back. They weren’t too loud about condemning the Passover attack on Governor Shapiro’s home and family either. Shapiro had an excellent statement that should be the model for what anyone says about this horrific event in our country’s history. “It is not okay,” he says, speaking of political violence on either side.

Ordinary people who have considered becoming more involved in politics are either:

a) afraid to do so for fear of risking their safety and that of their family

b) emboldened.

This is why you should not create martyrs. The ones in camp a are the ones who are more moderate, more what you might call “sane.” More likely to seek unity, compromise, and civility. The ones in camp b are more likely to be at the extremes, both less likely to seek compromise and more effective. If there is one thing any good organizer knows it’s that people who have less to lose are more willing to do whatever it takes to win.

Remember when they fired the lead worker three weeks out from the vote? Some version of this has happened to every organizer, I just reference an instance that happened to me.

At first we thought we were dead in the water. The boss had dug up some dirt on the leader of the campaign, our other leaders were running for cover, and we thought we would lose a very close election. Plus, a father of five had just lost not only his main job but was fired from his two other jobs, obviously blackballed. We had that to deal with too.

What did happen was…

Supporters of the union who had been quiet got mad. “Pete was always there to rescue me when I was drowning!” said the nurses, from young to old. They didn’t care about the dirt management dug up. Management had turned an ordinary guy, if a very good nurse, into a martyr.

On the day of the union election it rained as it almost never does here. Two main highways to the bridges that lead from New Jersey, where many nurses lived, to Philly where they had to vote, were flooded out. Under normal circumstances, they would have just turned around and gone home, not voting (for those of you who don’t know, there are or at least were no absentee ballots in a union election. Win or lose based on who votes on election day.) Instead, nurses went miles out of their way in torrential rains to vote for the union. Why? For Pete, the martyr.

People will do things they wouldn’t have done before once there’s a martyr to follow.

I had never heard of Charlie Kirk before I got a text saying that he had been assassinated. I was busy working on something else (diet advice) and couldn’t be troubled to care for a few hours.

Then I saw the alas predictable reactions coming in.

Friends on the Left, if you have any power or any following whatsoever, even if it’s just your ten best friends, please tell them to stop the violence. Make a pronouncement from your social media saying “Stop the violence!” You don’t want to live in a country where it’s applauded to kill people who disagree with you, I don’t think you really do. At least not my subscribers.

Please take some responsibility. Say stop the violence, as Governor Shapiro says, stop it from all sides.

And if you ever, ever want to win back the heart of this country… don’t make any more martyrs.