Read With Clutch: Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky

The handbook the powerful hate and the powerless keep reaching for. This month, we’re reading Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky.

Why We’re Still Reading This

Rules for Radicals was published in 1971, but it definitely reads like it was written for 2025.

Why? Because every injustice you see today, crooked judges, prosecutors drunk on power in addition to booze, families broken by poverty, still exists for the same reason: no one is forcing it to change.

Saul Alinsky’s book isn’t about polite petitions or hashtag awareness. It’s about strategic disruption. It’s about getting under power’s skin, and making the price of injustice too damn high.

Who Was Alinsky — and Why Does He Matter?

Saul Alinsky was a Chicago-born community organizer who believed in using pressure, conflict, and public spectacle to win change.

He worked in meatpacking districts, slums, and forgotten communities, places where people had been told to be quiet and grateful. His response?

“The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means.”

Alinsky taught people to fight city hall with creativity and confrontation, not to wait for permission from the schmucks who profit off your silence. Alinsky organized workers, tenants, and forgotten communities with creativity, spectacle, and confrontation.

He taught that you don’t wait for permission from the powerful; you apply pressure until they have no choice but to move.

Most Quoted — and Most Misunderstood

Some progressives love to quote him. Nearly all conservatives love to demonize him.

But most people have never read the book. And that’s a big mistake, because buried under the hot takes are some timeless tools for organizing:

• Power is not what you have; it’s what the enemy thinks you have.
• Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
• The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
• A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
• Keep the pressure on.

Alinsky’s “rules” are controversial, not because they’re wrong, but because they work. In fact, if you look around clutch, you may have already seen some of them in action.

What Clutch Justice Takes From It

Alinsky didn’t organize for aesthetics. He organized to win. He knew that when institutions become comfortable in their abuse, the only answer is discomfort.

For us, that looks like:

• Holding prosecutors and law firms publicly accountable when they donate to judges.
• Exposing family court weaponization even when no one else will.
• Naming the names, tracing the money, documenting the misconduct and never backing down.

Key Takeaways for Today’s Organizers

• You don’t need money to build power. You need people.
• Conflict isn’t the enemy; apathy is.
• If your tactics don’t cause friction, they’re probably not working.
• Don’t wait to be liked. Fight to be heard.

Read This If You:

• Are tired of being told to “go through the proper channels.”
• Want to understand the real mechanics behind successful protest and movement-building.
• Are ready to make powerful people nervous and strategic about it.