While I've been familiar with Alinsky's book since my college days, I disagree with your assessment of the current reality.
The old Left may know that violence only turns people against them, but the younger generations are actually beating up people who don't agree with them.
The old Left grew up on Rules for Radicals. The younger, socialist, Marxist Left have turned to Hitler's brownshirts for their marching orders.
It is the Left who endorses Antifa's vilolence by voicing their approval when it suits their purposes.
Gone are the days when the leaders of both parties and the media would be criticizing the violence and calling for it to stop.
Nowadays, the Left and their media, encourage this kind of drip, drip, drip of violence against Trump supporters because it advances their own narratives.
It is the Left who are committing violent acts against the opposition, like the guy who severely wounded Steve Scalise while trying to kill Republican congressmen at a ballgame.
It is the Left's Maxine Mouth who is egging on their supporters to go after and harass the Trump people in public. It will only be a matter of time before someone takes this looney bin's call too much to heart and crosses over the line into physical violence.
So I disagree. Violence is part of the current Left's playbook. It is becoming more mainstream and commonplace as a result.
We’ve had our share in history of people a little like Maxine. But what I’m getting from the thread is a concerted effort toward violence with unlawful, planned attacks upon people that grow from organized rebellious people like a trained army of traitors. The liberal party is not near capable of the Hitler type efforts as they are not defined enough to get organized. They are clear enough between the many factions only to have sparse, local thuggery in major locations like in St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, and other major cities with the capacity to get ink is available.
But unfortunately, for any major player in the liberal party to get identified with this type of cabal would be suicide for their party’s presidential aspirations and it would lead to prison terms as accessories at the least. I really think the article is talking about gang style operations. They would never be able to control it and even they would realize it is nothing more than crime. I think they will dance with who they brought.
rwood