Many of 0bama’s cabinet seem to love Mao.
Americans should not be too smug about this. We are having our own low-grade cultural revolution now. Who knows how far it will go?
Mao used Top-down control, of grass-roots, organized Leftist political street agitation, using oft-repeated, ill-defined, broad cliches and slogans, which represent the political phrases of power, used to keep opponents off balance, replace traditionalists and opponents in government, and through media, to force change on a pliant populace that only wants to get along. Sound familiar?
Mao did not engage in the dirty work himself, but through his direct political cronies and the organs of state power, his Red Guards attacked his opposition and weakened or destroyed those institutions who would stand in the way of his extreme leftist ideology.
Let’s say you are a President, and wanted more control over the nation’s thousands of independent police departments — one of the most clear and obvious, traditionalist expressions of diffuse government, which are promoted from the bottom up. You certainly can’t fire 3000 local police chiefs in a direct assault on State and local rights. No one would accept that.
But you could, under the pretext of the killing of a petty street thug, start a media campaign painting the man as a victim of institutionalized local police racism. You would have your Red Guards converge on the place, or several places. On one hand, promote over-reaction and the appearance of chaos. Air all grievances, real or imagined. On the other, chant for “justice” for the oppressed group, tell the nation “their lives matter.” Of course, accuse those 3000 police chiefs of the ultimate sin of “racism” (ie. counter-revolution) - and propose a reasonable check on their racist power. Who can argue with that? Have your Red Guards meet regularly at your Department of Justice for legal guidance and counseling. In this atmosphere, have your Department of Justice impose sundry “civil rights” rules and regulations to which they must comply, or the local bureaucrats will face public humiliation. Before long, you have control through the tethers of words, slogans, public shaming, and random penalization
The Cultural Revolution was unleashed by Mao in 1966 and didn’t end until he croaked ten years later.
China as we sorta know it today began in 1979.