The Gulen Movement's manipulation tactics: an ingenious scheme of exploiting the political divides in our society

The Gulen Movement has proven remarkably adept at exploiting the political divisions in our society to further its own ends. 

The public comments on any newspaper article covering the Gulen charter schools show how they have co-opted the conservative positions on charter schools.  Pretending to be non-Gulenist American parents, they post lines about how school choice is good, teacher unions are bad for education, our schools are failing and must be rescued, and about how the charter school movement is the solution.  In this manner they suggest that anyone objecting to their charter schools is merely trying to block progress in education reform.

At the same time, they exploit the progressive view that our society has anti-Islamic elements, and constantly play on this in an attempt to make their critics look like narrow-minded bigots.  Again, pretending to be non-Gulenist American parents, they post about how any criticisms of the Gulen charter schools are simply driven by people who are against Muslims or diversity and that their concerns are therefore baseless.

The comments section of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution piece on Fulton Sunshine Academy provides just one of many examples of these tactics.

One has to acknowledge their brilliance.  They have found the perfect formula to play all of us against each other.

And while we argue among ourselves, they continue to rake in the money, and to further their political goals.

It doesn’t matter which side you are on in these arguments.  The key point is that the Gulenists adopt all these positions purely in a calculated maneuver to further their own goals.  They will change their views, even reverse them completely, any time it is beneficial to their movement.

Are we really this gullible?