Chicago’s Rules for Radicals Spread Out Across America

by John Kass

Oct. 1, 2025

The concerned and worried American called me from Washington about those riots in Broadview just outside Chicago.

What he’s worried about is a type of weed that strangles Chicago, but spreads to other towns as well. From Portland, Ore. all the way to New York. It kills everything.

But this strangling weed has its roots in Chicago, carried and replanted by generations of Democrat activists including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The man on the phone had seen Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson raving that “jails and incarceration and law enforcement is a sickness.”  And he’d seen Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker screaming about Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alleging racism in federal agents enforcing federal immigration law passed by Democrats and Republicans.

“What the hell is going on in Chicago?” he asked me.

A tree may grow in Brooklyn but weeds grow in Chicago. And they spread.

Why was this necessary? Because radicals and other anarchists were rioting violently outside the I.C.E. facility, stopping traffic.

Four of them were arrested. Two with guns. So much for “peaceful protests”

U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes asked in court: “Who brings a loaded firearm to an ICE protest?”

Who does that? The left does that. The Democrat left.

It follows last week’s shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas, which left one detainee dead and two others wounded. That cemented the Democrat Party as the pro-assassination party, given all their addiction to high-profile assassinations as a means of silencing dissent. Two arrested with loaded guns at the Broadview riots were not charged with violating firearms laws, but with forcibly assaulting and resisting federal officers.

So, about this strangling weed from Chicago. It comes from the left, from Saul Alinsky and forms the core of today’s Democrat Party.

Leftist radical Alinsky who wrote “Rules for Radicals.”

Barack Obama was an enthusiastic Alinsky disciple.

Obama received a comprehensive course in Saul Alinsky during his years as a community organizer in Chicago, an experience Obama recalled as “the best education he ever had.”

Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis on Alinsky, “There is Only The Fight.”

As a result, the Alinsky influence—he loathed and feared the late Mayor Richard J. Daley–is felt by the entire Cook County Democrat Party now. Once, the hard Marxist left was on the defensive when centrist Democrats controlled the party. And under Bill Clinton the Democrats prospered. But with Barack Obama’s presidential election in 2008, and again in 2012 Democrats were pushed so far to the hard left, they became unrecognizable. They became rather like the perpetually bloodthirsty Jacobins of revolutionary France.

You can see Alinsky’s victories in the news today, reflected every day in Democrat policy and politics and the mouthings of their politicians and pundits in media. Consider:

The Rules

  1. “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”
  2. “Never go outside the experience of your people.”
  3. “Whenever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy.”
  4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
  5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”
  6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
  7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
  8. “Keep the pressure on.”
  9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
  10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
  11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.”
  12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
  13. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

Obama’s favorite terrorist couple William Ayres and Bernardine Dorn were Alinskyites. They introduced  Obama to political Chicago. Cook County Democrat Party chair, Boss Toni Preckwinkle is another, owing her allegiance to the true power.

The Chicago Teacher’s Union, that supports leftist Democrats from Johnson to Preckwinkle and Pritzker now has led them in honoring murderer Assata Shakur a fugitive and member of the violent leftist Black Liberation Army, who fled to Cuba after she killed a New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster

But that didn’t stop the CTU from treating her as their heroine.

 

These are the people who indoctrinate your children. In Chicago they dictate policy to the politicians, and elect judges, mayors, Congressmen, Senators, county commissioners, prosecutors and presidents like Obama.

And you wonder why your world is going to hell?

“Today we honor the life and legacy of a revolutionary fighter, a fierce writer, a revered elder of Black liberation, and a leader of freedom whose spirit continues to live in our struggle,” stated the tax-subsidized CTU in an X post. “Assata refused to be silenced. She taught us that “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

But Trooper Foster got in the way of her politics.  She wasn’t silenced by the New Jersey trooper. Her crime left him dead.

The Saul Alinsky ethos spreads through the public government labor movement in Chicago. From the CTU to AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is the largest public employee’s union in the U.S. and the Service Employees International Union SEIU.

These three form the backbone and muscle of the Democrat Party. Not much about it is said by Chicago media who are intimidated and fearful. But the politicians understand who the real bosses are.

Happily, my friend Miranda Devine the fearless columnist from the New York Post is unafraid of Obama and his Alinskyites.

Agreed.

Yes, Obama’s tower has to be the ugliest most soul-destroying architecture to blight Chicago in a long time. Very fitting indeed.

The people can fight this. All they have to do, is vote the Democrats out. It can be done. Some of us sill have hope. But they must vote, as their lives depend on it.

The Democrat Party has ruled Chicago for more than 100 years with an iron fist. The people have been broken to party control. News media executives and newspaper editors from the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times are intimidated. The collapse of newspaper advertising made the subscription model dominant. And the public employee unions like CTU call the shots. The public employees unions and the checkbooks of lawyers are the muscle of Democrat politics now.

The governor, mayor, all walk softly when public union bosses are around. And all are in the web woven by George Soros and Alinsky and Obama. All of them. They purr like cats.

So, what’s going on in Chicago?

This: Saul Alinsky is victorious. From Marx to Alinsky to Obama. To New York Mandani and the ANTIFA riots of Portland.

It’s all very fitting and soul-crushing for those who give up and stop fighting. It all becomes a dystopian novel like “1984.”

And it’s all too real.

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(Copyright 2025 John Kass)

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About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.

Merchandise Now Available: If you’re looking for a gift for that hard-to-buy for special someone who has everything, just click on the link to the johnkassnews.com store.

Where else would you find a No Chumbolone™ cap or a Chicago Way™ coffee cup?

Because I know this about you: You’re not a Chumbolone.

Comments 51

  2. I’ve been retired for 13 years now but I thought it was illegal to bring a gun to any protest in Illinois. Has the law been changed? If not, why haven’t the State brought charges?

    1. In Illinois, guns are OK if they are possessed by the right people. Apparently, these hired demonstrators are the right people. I’m sure they had concealed carry permits. Yeah, right. Where is Governor Money Bags on this?

      1. They did have concealed carry permits. That’s why I’m guessing no federal gun charges but State wise I thought no guns to protests. This is why I’m asking.

        1. Thank you for correcting me, Mr. Munoz. As for the State, I guess it is who is carrying the gun and what the protest is about. The State’s Attorney is not going to stick her neck to file a charge that will be dismissed anyway.

        2. “Concealed Carry” means just that – concealed. If you get out of your car with your firearm in your hand (and you’re not on your own property) it’s no longer concealed. If you cannot justify un-concealing your firearm by showing you were facing a deadly threat then you have violated State law.

  3. Thank you for your enlightening column. Just like the word “existential” was the word of the day for dems and lefties, “dystopian” seems to be the current choice word for both the left and right in descriptions of the current state of political and social affairs Why don’t we up the intellectual ante and make these Harvard educated geniuses go searching their dictionaries for the meaning of “chthonic” or Tarataream instead of what is becoming the overused ” dystopian?”

    1. I’ve never read the book, but my understanding is Alynsky calls Lucifer “history’s ultimate radical”. If you think about it, he’s right. Much of our ancient history is contained in the Bible, and Lucifer is the antagonist. Actually, I think Saul was more right than he realized. Satan, like Leftists and Communist, make seductive pie in the sky promises (eat the apple, ye shall be like God) that always make things worse.

  5. Alinsky and St. Barack may have planted the weeds, but Trump is bringing in the Roundup. Will it work? Hope so…..at least Obama is getting exposed for the slimy snake he is.

  7. The thing that is being erected is without a doubt as ugly as Obama’s soul…. A fitting monument…..
    The rot that he started is still spreading and I pray we can save our country for our grandchildren.

  8. OK,I am a Democrat who has not donated a dime to the Obama Library ugly tower.I voted for him twice.I voted for Hillary.I voted for Biden.I voted for Harris. I am not shocked that my recent votes were not great choices but Donald J Trump is neither a good man or all that smart a dealmaker. The current shutdown works for him to allow more budget cuts and some agency permanent employees to be laid off. When it is over,Congress will just slog on till the midterm elections and the assumption is Democrats will win the House. But here is where it gets interesting. The National Leadership at the DNC is not purged yet so some of them still believe in the Schumer-Jeffries-Pelosi playbook.They are wrong. Indy voters in the swing states do not want socialists or Alinsky progressive extremists. They want new blood from Democrats not leftover Clinton-Obama or even James Carville economy stupid slogans. They do not want Pritzker or Newsom. Nor do they want military troops in the Loop or going to the hoods where they have not gone,yet. Common sense is in short supply.We agree on this much.Chicago politics are very dark but if someone channels Springfield and the old Lincoln law office,maybe we can find someone willing to compromise? And Democrats are right to scream about healthcare subsidies being lost. But keeping this Government closed is not helping.And John still does not understand that Republicans especially with this wacky Trump group,do not care about healthcare reform or even the formerly respected military units,now being embarassed via National Guard deployments by the River. Socialists? Hardly. It still is about the Trump way which takes advantage of the silent majority via Fox News including Miranda Devine. We continue to muddle through but this is not getting better unless your last name is Trump or an in law.

    2. You sound like you want a traditional Republican! Ignoring your past votes, ignoring Trump, name some exact policies you would have in a perfect world, assuming you were a benevolent dictator and had the ability to put them in action. Genuinely curious about that. If you wanted to take the time to talk about why you would put those policies in place, that would be interesting too.

    3. With all due respect, Mr. Isenberg, I think you are delusional. The DP has been commandeered by far left wing lunatics, socialists and marxists. If not can you point out one Democrat who has stood up, and loudly declared that the party must move to a more mainstream position? Other than Sen Fetterman, who? The Party still remains a captured entity of the radical left wing lunatics and sociopaths. The plain inconvenient fact is that the DP has fallen down the rabbit hole, and can’t seem to get out. All they can think of is Trump 42/7. It’s all Trump’s fault. That’s all they got: sanctimonious virtue signaling gas bags. If Trump told a Democrat to breathe he’d hold his breath. Right? You and your fellow Democrats remind me of women on You Tube that are now gulping down Tylenol just to prove Trump wrong – ignorant to the fact that Tylenol is one of the leading causes of liver failure requiring liver transplantation. True idiots. By the way, just to illustrate how wrong you are in your assessment: NYC is the nerve center of American capitalism … in fact world capitalism. It has more Jews than any other place save Israel. Yet NYC is very likely to soon elect an admitted Jew hating terrorist sympathizing socialist as Mayor who has pledged (until very recently) to globalize the Intifada. I mean, wake up man, get with the program.

  9. In 8th grade, my son’s English teacher asked all to write a poem in Haiku.

    He wrote,

    “Hope. Change. Something We Didn’t Get.”

    Obama was President.

  10. JoAnn Deborah Byron(Chesimard) aka Assata Shakur, murderer of father of two, convicted bomber, and bank robber, who has never shown an iota of remorse, was in “exile” in her worker’s paradise known as Cuba when she got her just rewards on earth, wrote a personal letter to the late great Pope Paul asking his intervention to return her to the USA, but got no response. Why would she want to live in this capitalistic and oppressive nation when she was in Castro’s red nirvana. We should can take Ayers, Dohrn, Obama, Stacy Davis Gates, and BJ and do a prisoner exchange with Cuba or Venezuela.

    2. I thought she was on the FBI’s most wanted list and therefore the US would have gladly taken her back … right back into prison from which she escaped.

  11. Weeds and Alinsky — great stuff, John. Just throw in Rezko’s deal with young Barry to see the first plot of the road to the mansion in Martha’s Vineyard.

    During the Obama and Straw-Man-Run-By-Obamans administrations, I had flashbacks to the epic novel of leftist tyranny I’d read in high school, “1984.” Written by brilliant Brit George Orwell, a youthful socialist soon chastened by Stalinism, it warned about the red tide of totalitarianism (that Alinsky would later coach).

    My most vivid reminder of “1984” was a first look at Chicago’s gargantuan Obama Tower, equally horrible and laughable. Orwell even foresaw the architecture of despotism back in 1948, with Big Brother erecting pyramidal towers the Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Peace, Ministry of Plenty, and Ministry of Love.

    Anyone interested in the architecture of leftist fanaticism could check this out:

    https://architizer.com/blog/practice/details/the-architecture-of-george-orwells-1984/

    1. I too flashed back to “1984.” Since I read it in high school when I was totally naive about the real ways of the world, I decided to re-read it in 2022. It scared the hell out of me because I realized that Orwell was right; his predictions were just off by a few years. Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia have been under construction for decades, and are now just an election cycle or two from becoming reality. Thought control is already happening on a number of fronts. A number of folks here have called the Obamination in Jackson Park the “Death Star.” Looks more like a giant prison to me.

  12. John, great column as always, but I feel duty-bound to point out that among the admirers of Saul Alinsky way back when was your old boss/colleague Mike Royko. On the acknowledgement page of his 1970 book about Mayor Richard J. Daley, “Boss,” Royko wrote, “I am grateful for the help of many knowledgeable Chicagoans in putting this book together…my thanks to Saul Alinsky for being around and gutsy…” I know Mike distanced himself from the lunatic Left later in life, but it goes to show that Alinsky’s influence here was even more insidious than we think.

    1. Alinsky received mucho financial backing from the Catholic Church Catholic Charities and was dear buddy with Monsignor John Egan, Royko was not alone in his deception.

    2. Thank you, Terry, for your tough-minded recollection of the problematic pre-Tribune Royko, a great writer who fortunately — gradually — grew into Chicago journalism’s voice of social and political realism. Sentimentality can blur that 1960s landscape. Ouch.

      But then, I know many people of genteel education and humanistic values who still think Obama was admirable, something other than a smiling quisling advancing elitist Marxism. They’ll be kneeling at Chicago’s monument to Big Brother Yes We Can.

    3. Interesting. Royko’s book left a big impression on me. I read it when I was 18, about 7 years before my career would cause me to move to Chicagoland. That book is why I later read Royko in the Trib, which is why I later read Kass.

    4. mike did distance himself from the left, especially as it took hold of the tribune. eric zorn and dahleen glanton led the leftist chorus against him.’
      jk

  13. Yianni,
    The chumbolones of Chicago and Illinois will continue to vote for the leftists/socialists/commies as long as there’s something in it for them, like high paying jobs, private schools for their kids, and bodyguards! Media continues to be blind, deaf and dumb! How dumb can it get? Let me tell you – Obama’s temple to Allah will end up costing Chicago’s taxpayers for decades to come, seeing as how he (aka donors) is unable to fund the trust set up to pay for the construction! Surprise! Surprise! Been saying it since this monstrosity was started on public land, it’s gonna cost us big time. Thankyou Barry for all you do for- and to- Chicago….

  14. I feel sorry for the people in this neighborhood. This structure looks like an alien spaceship that dropped out of the sky. Add in the financial woes for the community and now Obama is being exposed every way possible.

  15. There is in the south this ugly nasty plant called kudzu. It has literally eaten the south. One just has to see it to know its destruction it spreads quickly. I’ve thought recently of the Democratic Party as such.
    Can kudzu be destroyed? Yes but it takes constant attention of digging it up and using herbicides.
    Sometimes it’s funny how nature teaches us.
    Thanks for your words.

  16. A couple of historical points. In the book City of the Century, Prof Donald Miller shows how Chicago was built. It was always a place where government and industry were tied at the hip. The Combine has ancient roots. The Republicans ran the Combine until the Democrats seized power in the 1920s.

    How did they seize power? The Haymarket Riots were a start.

    Nationwide, communism has always had a welcoming intellectual home in Chicago. It is a center and is the intellectual anchor for US communism. Still, it is thanks to Barack, Bill, and Bernadine, among plenty of others.

    FDR knew public sector unions were a terminal cancer to the “American Experiment”. Trump should move to decertify public sector unions.

    However, it is not just public schools that have the cancer. In Chicago, Latin, Parker and Lab all have the cancer and it might be worse because they are the upper crust of Chicago’s “polite” society. They are the sons and daughters of the people the left wing press fawns over. They are so rich, there is no accountability for them.

    I’d also note this. I was chatting with a Navy Seal once. He served several tours in intense combat. I hypothesized a new American Revolution that would overthrow the bureaucracy and return America to its founding thesis of a Constitutional democratically elected republic. I asked him of the warriors and of the bureaucrats, who would fight on which side?

    His reply was this. It’s not going to be 50/50. Two-thirds of all bureaucrats and warriors will fight to keep what we have today with all its grift and graft. Why? They don’t want to lose their pensions.

    Keep that in mind when your thoughts turn to Civil War.

  17. As ugly as the Obama Presidential Tower is, and however over budget it might be, it is the interior of the building that deserves our admiration reverence. There will be an “Obama Shrine” and gift shop. Every hour a chicken will be beheaded in the shrine while Obama’s Hope and Change speech will be played over loud speakers. The gift shop will sell Obama memorabilia such as the Hope Poster, bobbing Obama head dolls for your dashboard, and a full set of 10 CDs with his speeches plus a bonus CD playing the “Most Beautiful Sound I have Ever Heard” music. Obama signed copies of Rules For Radicals will be available but supplies are limited to the first 50 people in line. And a set of LARGE latex ears will be available that attach over your own ears! Limited supplies. The profits from the Shrine Tours and Obama Gift Shop should cover any cost overruns.

  18. If we can’t vote our way out of the Alinsky putsch, what else can be done? 77 million voters united to enact an America first agenda, but the Marxtards think it’s still 2021 and the Biden bulk mail ballots are still rolling in. The Portland and Broadview miscreants act out on their ersatz Fort Sumters- but notably missing from their 2020 Summer of Peaceful repertoir are the pre-staged bricks and frozen
    water grenades. 77 million voters are watching the hecklers veto attempts, and losing their patience.

  19. Hmmm….I inadvertently have become a user in my social media posts with Rules For Rsdicsls number (5) – “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”

    Well, here’s to you “Dollar Store Obama, Kankles, Botoxic, Seven Feet of Sanctimony”, et al. You know who you are, clowns to be ridiculed!

  20. Those of us of the old South are very familiar with Rules for Radicals, especially number 5. 5 and 11.
    Its as low as a human being can go. It takes no intellect, good ole Harvard.

    Dabrowski will face this from Pritzker. I used to think that he would then have to talk over the guy and then directly to the electorate. This garbage is so low, these tactics, so devoid of any substance – he can talk straight across to Illinois voters.

    Great and informative column as always

  22. It’s 1964 and I’m back in my graduate urban affairs seminar. In comes a “community organizer” to describe how his goals were achieved following Alkinsky’s directives. Uuh aah, said the room full of bright, young, approving liberals. It gave America so many things, like riots in the streets. So, more than six decades ago, some of us got a glimpse of what the rest of the time would be like.

    As long as I’m remembering things, I’d like to mention that as far back as the 1990s that I was writing op-ed columns for the newspaper not to be named, I was angry that the city was going ahead with that ugliest of buildings in Jackson Park. The do-good lakefront preservations did nothing. The Friends of this and that were silent. The City Council, the Illinois Legislature, federal regulators and more stepped aside as this brazen assault on the city’s Lakefront Protection Ordinance was launched. I tried to get readers to imagine how a brutal, 20-st0ry hunk of concrete would dominate this historic park. I called the building a bloated menhir. Now I’m glad I’m no longer living in Illinois where I don’t have to see this monstrosity. Or to hear Obama lickspittles praise its beauty and how grand it is that Chicago has it.

    1. You tried as you often did, Dennis, but you ran up against an entrenched reality. It should be democratically possible to oppose political insanity. But in a leftist autocracy like Chicago, you can’t win against a politicized religion. All hail the current imbecilic mayor and former crypto-Marxist president! Keep voting for them, whether functioning or brain-dead! Erect a monument.

  25. JK you wouldn’t recognize a real commie if you tripped over one. None of what you list from Alinskys book can be found in Marx’s Das Kapital. Did you read that book JK. Thought
    so! You didn’t did you. A good reporter researches what he says before he writes. Nothing Alinsky did that King Richard The First, the Real mayor didn’t do. In fact King Richard was worse with his tactics to instill fear and get even. I worked for Alinsky and RJD. Both were ‘organizers’ of the first degree, politically smart and brilliantly manipulative.
    If Alinsky is a Pinko so too must be ML King, Jr. Malcolm X ? James Baldwin? Stokely Carmacle (sp?). Abbie Hoffman? Jerry Rubin? Father Pfleger? All those demonstrators that challenged Bull Conner, Gov Wallace, Etc. All the demonstrators in Chicago when King came.
    I remember the red neck Southern racist bigots calling King and SCLC: ‘commune nists’.
    Ya all who comment here must have backed those red necks in 50s, 60s. Come on admit it. You did, didn’t you. How’d that work out for ya.
    JK, you must of flunked history/political science courses, if indeed you ever took one. I can loan you my copy of Das Kapital if you want. It’s not too late to educate yourself.

    1. I was an undergraduate at the University of Rochester when Alinsky came a calling. Kodak was the problem. As you imply, Alinsky was not so much a political disciple per se, but rather a brilliant organizer. His focus was the “disenfranchised”. That is how I think he defined his life’s. And quite frankly some of his tactics were hilarious. He brought Kodak to the negotiating table after threatening “the fart-in.” And then of course he made King Richard of Chicago blink when he threatened the O’Hare “piss in.”

      By the way for those who want to get a “feel” of the guy in the flesh, there is a Youtube of him being interviewed by Wm F Buckley in the late 1960s. Whats interesting is the way Buckley just allowed his guests to ramble on … no interruptions. And how mundane and uncharismatic Alinsky comes across. Certainly not the “firebrand” as depicted here by John.

  26. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”
    “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”

    You mean like all those memes showing Democratic officials and hangers-on wearing sombreros?

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