It occurred to me the other day that the essence of the tactic of Alinsky is cultivating a sense of moral superiority without ever developing a coherent morality. It is binding (remember the root word for religion means to bind) people together in a shared feeling, but not philosophy.
Often, we focus on the effects of Alinsky on enemies, since his principles of character assassination and vilification plainly work at disrupting rational debate; we forget, though, that they also keep the herd in line.