Action tool: Tactic Assessment

A quick checklist to determine politically effective actions

Hello readers! Today we continue on the theme of action and tools to sharpen our effectiveness.

If you want to skip down to the checklist, it’s at the bottom of this brief post. But I think the next minute or two of reading will be worth your time.

The conservative side has often done nothing but notice what the enemy is doing, complain about it, and fundraise off of it. We donate occasionally and every two years we vote. And then we go back to noticing and complaining about all the wins that the Left is racking up. (Observe “conservative” news - how often do they teach you or inform you about effective right wing movements or social actions you could join or imitate…. or do they just report what new grotesque efforts of the Left are going on?).

This strategy will result in never winning. The point of education in virtue, politics, and culture is not merely to be aware, but to act. Only when we shift to goal-directed action will we will get wins in culture and policy. (Policy is indeed a proper goal - culture is often downstream from politics, because most people will simply conform to whatever the-powers-that-be tell them. )

There are entire “toolboxes” of goal-directed non-violent actions to effectively change social policy: community organization, institutional activism, etc. I've read conservative action books and Leftist ones, and while the Right has some people making a strong effort, the Left definitely has this down to a science - they've been practicing it for generations. I strongly recommend studying the books and websites they have written to educate their social activists (and I’ll continue to provide bite-sized lessons here on my Substack). Even the cutting-edge people on the right are admitting they have some catching up to do.

(Two Leftist books on the left, two anti-Leftist, restorationist action books on the right)

We can’t merely imitate all the tactics of the Left of course. For one reason, we have transcendent morals and virtues given to us from a holy God (although this should embolden us with righteous strength to defeat evil and work to bring about a good society); for another, we do not have a fawning media to cover for us. So we can’t - and shouldn’t - be like Antifa, but we should study them in their own words and understand their tactics. As we continue to build non-violent activist knowledge, we need to get started and learn as we go.

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TACTIC ASSESSMENT

As we brainstorm various actions, we should assess how effective they are likely to be and fine-tune them for better results. In addition to the Spectrum of Allies covered in the last post, the following non-violent Tactic Planning checklist allows you to review and score an action’s likely impact in several key aspects.

To download it, click here to go to the PDF (it’s on page 126 but the link should take you right there).

I encourage you to:

1. Print it out,

2. Practice assessing potential actions using the Tactics Assessment page.

How could you tweak potential actions to produce more effective results?

A brief note on the word “Tactics.” This word has more to do with the business world and culture than it does with military maneuvers. It’s similar to companies trying to capture and retain loyal customers (or recruit excellent employees) through advertising or promotional campaigns, to get them to perform some action (usually “buy our product” or “think well of us,” but in this case it’s obtaining more civic power and policy success). Tactics are the specific actions you take within a larger strategy, to move you closer to your objective, based on your goal for the future.

What tactics have you seen or thought of that would be effective in today’s cultural, institutional, and political environment? Let me know in the comments! As always, if you found this post worthwhile please consider sharing it with a few like-minded people.