Look. If you sink to their level, then they have won. If you use their Alinsky Rules then how are you any better than they are?
If you stop at using the Alinsky tactics, then you're no better than they are.
Alinsky's Rules for Radicals are designed as a means for upsetting and bringing down the existing order. They're effective, in the same way that rust and dry rot are effective. They're intrinsically infantile and, as such, it's difficult to form a rational argument to oppose them.
The difficulty we have is in trying to propose and discuss ideas in good faith with opponents who are more interested in destroying us, than they are with considering any ideas other than their own. They're helped along in this by a media and social-media culture that treats such contests as games to be watched for fun, rather than a discussion of ideas that have consequences.
Furthermore, we live in a society that, for most of us, lacks much in the way of consequences. Much of what passes for "concern" these days is essentially cost-free, in the sense that the costs are often not obvious or immediately attributable to specific policies.
Most of the time, our perceptions of costs and consequences can be expressed only in terms of frustration and a sort of directionless anger at an oppressive-seeming system that generally doesn't work, for reasons we can't quite pin down. I believe that Trump's campaign and subsequent election was based on recognizing and playing on that dynamic.
Consequences can't be avoided forever and, unfortunately, their return is probably only way we get back to a culture where ideas can be addressed on their merits.
