Elon Musk's sparring with the Biden administration merited a tweet worthy of attention.

The attacks against me should be viewed through a political lens — this is their standard (despicable) playbook — but nothing will deter me from fighting for a good future and your right to free speech.

The attacks against me should be viewed through a political lens – this is their standard (despicable) playbook – but nothing will deter me from fighting for a good future and your right to free speech

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 20, 2022

He's 100% right: the left does have a tried and true playbook when it comes to going after their opposition.  In my new book, The Democratic Party Playbook, I identified the most common nefarious approaches that the left utilizes when going after their opposition.  The public needs to know how to spot them when they are being employed and see them for what they are.  The radical Progressives employ these without remorse or care for the damage they inflict.  Here's the short version: 

#1 Make it Personal.  The Progressives don't fight the issues; they fight the people.  The reason is that often their arguments to support their points on issues is weak.  They "elevate" the fight to the person.

#2 Discredit the Opposition.  Smearing or defaming an opponent is considered fair game by the left.  The truth is irrelevant with this tactic; leftists merely seek to ruin reputations with this approach. 

#3 Apply Guilt by Association.  Don't like someone?  Claim he is a Trump-supporter, call him a QAnon conspiracy follower, link him to someone inflammatory.  Harvest his social media and twist his posts to fit the narrative. 

#4 Label.  Calling someone a racist, some sort of "phobe," an insurrectionist, a seditionist, a Nazi, or any other inflammatory adjective is commonplace.  The Progressives like lumping people into groups and assigning negative qualities to those groups.  They do this without even a hint of irony, that these are the same tactics used by tyrants.  If a label doesn't exist, they are not above making one up. 

#5 Use a Poll to Show You Are Right.  The very afternoon of the leak of the Supreme Court ruling on abortion, the Progressives plastered the airwaves with polls showing that 71% of the nation is on their side.  It didn't matter that the poll had been done a half-decade ago, because it fit their narrative.  Most of these polls are faulty; they use oversampling to get the results that they want, but that lack of validity does not prohibit their use.

#6 Misdirect.  When you can't win an argument, the next-best thing is to argue about something else, some tangent or thin corollary.  What is important is the argument, not its validity.

#7 Apply a Logical Fallacy.  This is when you attempt to make a situation seem better or worse by comparing it to the best- or worst-case scenario conceivable.  For example: During the debacle in Afghanistan, the Progressives used this with the argument, "If Donald Trump had been president, things would have been much worse."  It is a fallacy, but one they and their ilk embrace. 

#8 Exaggerate.  You can exaggerate your opponent's stand on an issue, carrying it out to even irrational extremes.  No exaggeration is too big to fit their bill. 

#9 Bury Opponents on Social Media.  The trolls and crap-posters of social media can be employed to overwhelm a political foe.  Using fake accounts, they can make negative things trend about a perceived enemy. 

#10 Lie.  Lying is as old as politics.  Don't worry: the media will never call you out for your utter fabrication.  That's not going to happen.  A lie, repeated often, is the same as the truth. 

#11 Leverage Talk Shows to Mock Your Opponent.  On the national stage, comedy is dead, smothered by the Woke Left.  The View, The Daily Show, The Late Show — are all conservative hit teams.

#12 Assume the Moral High Ground.  Facts and truths are messy and hard.  The Progressives feel they own the moral high ground and flaunt that position often.  They are out to save the planet, which means their opponents are clearly out to destroy it. 

#13 Use Contradictory Data.  We live in a world where for every fact, there are three counter-facts.  A method for discounting an opponent is to leverage counter-data, regardless of its validity.

#14 A Little Violence Goes a Long Way.  We all remember the summer of 2020 and the mostly peaceful protests.  The left is now the party of violence to achieve its goals.  Leftists are aligned with radical groups such as Antifa to inflict this on the American people.    

#15 Move On.  People have incredibly short attention spans.  Remember when we thought North Korea was going to fire nukes at the U.S.?  What about Putin?  How about that invasion of the Ukraine that was going to start WWIII?  As hot-button as these kinds of topics are, people get bored — especially when the mainstream media saturate us 24x7 with the same news nuggets and clips — we want the next thing.  So if you wait long enough, you can always count on the American people to simply move on to the next shiny object.

Blaine L. Pardoe, is author of Blue Dawn: The most chilling "what-if" in history...the progressive overthrow of the United States and The Democratic Party Playbook, Election 2022 Edition.  Pardoe is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author who lives in Virginia.  He is the author of numerous science fiction, military history, true crime, horror, and business leadership books.