In the Cold War era, Republican politicians on the far right brought up the phrase "useful idiots," which they claimed was coined by Vladimir Lenin or Joseph Stalin. They meant to gain political high ground by mislabeling their Democratic rivals as pro-Soviet "Reds." Today, the "Woke Revolutionaries" on the far left are using a similar playbook, accusing their Republican rivals aka Trumpists of turning America into a Fascist white nation. 

Politics may not be the core of my life or yours, but politics can be a big deal to some serious intellectuals--so much so that they trap themselves in "useful idiocy" knowingly or unknowingly. My little research indicates that these serious intellectuals have big egos and huge followings. They believe in their own charismata as a reckoning force of change for the better. They might go so far as to imagine themselves as Plato's philosopher kings. Then, a little Communist radical comes along and brings some of these intellectual giants to their knees in the following typical scenario:

With a stroke of genius, the little radical shocks the targeted high-brow intellectuals into realizing that social and political changes are actually low-brow. He takes them to a poor couple's shack on a summer night. He gives no political speech. Instead, he checks the numerous mosquito bites on the faces and limbs of their little kids to whom he administers treatment immediately. Together with the poor couple, he manages to trace a nearby source of mosquitoes possibly with vector-borne diseases. He then suggests community actions agreeable to the poor couple and their shantytown neighbors. 

In brief, pressing personal problems must first be identified, which calls for concrete community actions. By addressing real-life issues, a political movement doesn't have to bear anything remotely related to politics. After all, politics could and would scare people off. If and when a critical mass is reached, the movement will sustain itself with a momentum of chain reaction leading to open politicization and even militarization. Targeted intellectuals may well be impressed and co-opted. 

Mesmerized, the likes of Betrand Russell and George Bernard Shaw willingly became "fellow travelers" i.e. useful idiots of the Bolshevik Communists. Of course, they had already lost much of their faith in capitalist democracy tarnished by the Great War and the Great Depression.

Author: Lingyang Jiang

*There is no better radicals' playbook than Saul D. Alinsky's Rules for Radicals (1971).