Palin’s Appeal
We may not be sure of Sarah Palin’s ability to assume a political office of national scope, but we can be certain she is polarizing. Obviously there is a gap between left and right, but, interestingly, the conservative commentariat itself is deeply divided. Even within the Weekly Standard crowd, Palin inspires vastly diverging reactions. Matthew Continetti has emerged as a Palin stalwart, while both David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer have taken to criticizing her regularly. The standard reproach against Palin is that she is toxic to the GOP’s brand among independents and unfit for higher office. At the same time, she is consistently popular with the movement Sean Scallon aptly calls “Conservative, Inc.” Palin’s strength within this political subset is that she is a symbol of defiance. That allure is powerful enough that it does not really matter that her policy knowledge or record of governance leave much to be desired. She grappled with the mainstream media and now criticizes the Republican establishment, creating for herself an image as a stalwart defender of fly-over country values. (Rod Dreher refers to this as “selling personality, not a platform.”)
We can see that the same paradigm is at work with Reagan or Bush II. Reagan may have actually signed significant tax increases throughout his presidency, but that was ultimately irrelevant to his iconic status as a fiscal conservative. Bush II’s popularity amongst conservatives can be explained in a similar manner. No scandal or setback seemed to faze many of his backers, who admired him as a symbol of intransigence, a quality he was careful to cultivate. Of course, now that the conservative movement has no need of Bush as a symbol to rally around, it has become de rigueur to criticize Bush’s heresies.
The electoral drawback to being a symbol is that you often appeal only to a particular segment of the population. The point here is not that the solution to the GOP’s woes are more moderate candidates but that relying on a kind of mythology or celebrity to carry your political fortunes is a sign of weakness, not strength. We see this shortsightedness in the insistence that a successful Republican Party must channel Reagan at every turn. If we repeat Reaganesque platitudes often and skillfully enough, the thinking goes, there will be another 1984 landslide. But Reagan’s appeal as a conservative only got him halfway to success; his image as pragmatic and competent — especially in comparison to the disasters that were Carter and Mondale — won the day.
One can bemoan that fact that people are drawn to inadequate candidates on account of their image, but this phenomenon is something to which few of us — on the left, right, or center — can claim to be immune. After all, Obama himself owes much of his success to the fact that he was a larger-than-life, and ultimately unreal, symbol of a new America. The media culture of modern America simply does not lend itself to careful, thoughtful debate. We get snippets, shorter and shorter it seems, from our public figures. Those who can pack a punch in those few seconds win out. No surprise then that simplistic and catchy rhetoric rules the day. Sarah Palin has mastered that art — limited though her success ultimately is — but we can hardly fault her for the existence of a political culture that seeks out figures like her.
This is all true, but what bothers me is that I thought (and still think) that the selection of Dick Cheney as VP in 2000 was counter to the trend of picking candidates based on catchy soundbites and simple slogans. That’s why I voted for Bush 2 at the time. Unfortunately, in the past 7 years Cheney has shown extremely poor judgment, and moreover has morphed into someone who appears willing to spout the same BS talking points as everyone else.
What?
Dude, get a clue. Palin needs no resume to constitute the right choice for the GOP. If the NRC and the GOP want to consider themselves the opposite party consisting of the conservative approach in theory and practice, well, guess what?
You need to aim your backhanded dagger toss across the other aisle or perhaps in a mirror, cause this train ain’t stoppin at the “PAU” railroad station!
Good luck with your future analysis!
Your criticism of Sarah Palin is Sexist! You must be part of the raging misogynist liberal media.
Your criticism is sexist! You must be part of the raging misogynists in the liberal media.
I’m just now watching Palin’s performance on Hannity, and I actually started to believe that she was doing alright, until the Israel/Iran issue was brought up. Thus did her credibility get flushed down the can.
No, Sarah, Iran is not out to destroy America, or whatever it was exactly that she said to that effect. It’s ridiculous. Iran has not attacked us or threatened to in the absence of any threats we’ve made (at Israel’s urging).
And yes, if Israel violates Iraqi airspace then the US SHOULD take action, as we are in control thereof, and what little credibility we seem to have over there would be destroyed if we allowed such a move.
If Israel wants to seriously talk about wiping countries off the map, then it should take a gander into its own history which is what transpired did at its creation. And it should stop the plundering through Palestine which continues to this day via the nonstop land pilfering for more Jewish-only settlements. It should also open up its nuclear arsenal to inspection and sign onto the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, as Iran has done.
In short, practice what you preach or be called on the hypocrisy.
Palin seems no different than the other AIPAC sockpuppets. Sad.
You are very far off-the-mark. Reagan was loved for a very simple reason. He loved us, the American citizen. He never called us stupid. He never thought he knew better than the American people. He always took our views into consideration on his policies and the best interests of the USA 9both dems and reps). He did not do like Bush did with amnesty, dubai ports, Myers etc act like he knew better than us. He did not do like Obama and claim that he was the second coming and we where all little children that needed to be told what to do, how to eat, how often to exercise, how much energy to use, etc.
Palin is the same way. She accepts America how it is. She accepts citizens how they are. She does not call them racists, she does not call them stupid, she does not talk down to them. She believes in the people and ideas of the America. The good that comes from freedom and liberty.
Until the Gop elites understand that they are not masters of us, nor of the world; they will continue to lose elections. The people in DC are not kings or queens. They have no special knowledge that the rest of us do not have. They are there for one reason and one reason only to protect our rights and to better our country. Reagan understood that. And many believe that Palin does also. Bush ran his campaigns as if he believed that but governed as if he did not and is the reason he left office at 27% approval.
Americans are intelligent adults and do not need a sugar daddy, or a stern mother figure. We want to be treated like adults not like children. We wanted to be respected and treated the way Reagan treated us, like citizens not subjects.
I can’t believe it. The woman is as open about her beliefs as a person can get, and still, articles like this attribute a million wrong reasons as to why people follow her.
She can hunt and fish with the best of them. She helped run her family’s business, has actually been to a grocery store and shopped for food, cooked it, and put it on the dinner table for a family to eat. She saw things wrong in the political system in her area and decided to do something about it. Even the democrats in her state legislature have defended her against the AP story and its falsehoods about her breaking up the culture of political games between the state and oil interests. She says what she believes and lives that life.
What part of this makes her an inadequate candidate? How much ivy league education do you need to appoint communists into positions of power in the whitehouse? Do you believe these are the types of people Palin would surround herself with? Do you really think her choices could be worse?
Heaven deliver us from another ivy league theorist – the ones who believe that Mao is someone to be admired, that increased government spending will help the economy (they actually believe that government ‘jobs’ are real jobs – forgetting that they are paid by TAXES) and that what we need to help our under performing schools is less heterosexual indoctrination.
By the way, I’ll bet Sarah knows how many states there are in the union – and it’s not barack’s 57 (that’s how many islamic states are represented by the organization of the islamic converence in UN – coincidence?).
Sarah Palin is Karl Marx’s grandchild, in a way.
She’s built her career so far out of speaking for an under-represented social group: white, rural, working-class Americans. I identify with that in a very real way. There are a lot of people in DC who look like me, but almost none who talk in my manner of speech and spend their weekends the way I do.
In spite of this appeal, I hold off on supporting her for two reasons:
One, I reject the idea that class, race are the most important things about a person. I don’t like Marxist identity politics when they’re aimed against me, wouldn’t it be rather hypocritical of me to like them when they’re marketed towards me?
Two, her foreign policy is so obviously fabricated to fit in with the power structure that I have good reason to believe that the way she governed on every other issue would be as well.
I do not assume Palin to have hidden motives or malice. My point is that her populism is stylistic more than substantive. (Exhibit A: she had no problems with supporting the Wall Street bailout last fall). She employs victimology — a tactic I once associated entirely with the left — to her benefit. To be clear, she was a victim of hatred and loathing from many “elite” types, but her fierce defiance in the face of that opposition hardly qualifies her as a good candidate for higher office. I think the root of conservative problems is that we settle for these flawed public figures because we identify with them. For my part, I gave G.W. Bush a pass for a long time because I liked his combative qualities, but it turned out that toughness was a poor substitute for prudence. I’m afraid that Palin exhibits a similar persona, even if I can appreciate her stumping for limited government and traditional values.
Oskar,
Give it up, man. There is no way you’re going to gently coax the Palinites away from their idol. She’s a grifter, pure and simple, and she’s giving her marks exactly what they think they want; i.e. a constant barrage of nonsensical wingnut-friendly soundbites and ‘proof’ that there’s an organised conspiracy against everything they believe in,
I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’d see starbursts if she actually – did – manage to parlay her current cred with the Entertainment Industry hacks who are running the modern conservative movement into a 2011 Primary victory, but I can’t see it happening.
The only way that – could – happen is if the cold-bloodedly realistic Big Money behind the GOP brand decided to cut the Base loose before 2012 and shifted its priorities towards expanding their links with right-wing Democrats, leaving the rump GOP to nominate whoever the hell they most wanted to see buried under an electoral avalanche, that they would then blame on George Soros, Michael Moore, and ACORN.
That – might – happen, but it’s not exactly good news for conservatives.
Charles P. Pierce has written a marvelous book, called “Idiot America.” It is a lament over the loss of something precious: the ability to separate the village idiot from the rest of us. He blames, in part, the media’s appetite for simple celebrity in order to satiate an audience characterized by woeful incuriosity, short attention spans and possessing dangerously little information. Whether they are named Sanjaya or Sarah, we never seem to run out of celebrity darlings deserving of our fawning attention, respect or even our votes.
The problem is that we no longer seem able to separate the farcical from the fabulous. It’s just as if the nutty babblings of the town crank is as entitled to just as much respect as the research of our most learned college professor. What’s the difference? Who can tell us?
So long as the celebrity appears to be someone we’d like to have a beer with we’ll even vote for him. Some day we may even elect a woman President solely on the basis that she says she can shoot moose from a slow moving airplane. What other qualifications are there?
Pierce tells us that in the old days, townsfolk viewed the village idiot with a sense of civic pride: “he may be an idiot but at least he is our idiot – pay him no mind.” Today, the idiots are indistinguishable from the rest of us. We all lust after our own 15 minutes of fame, a book deal and a chance at immortality. While those lofty goals are beyond the reach of most of us, we celebrate those who, like Sarah Palin, sacrifice so much so that we can live out our dreams vicariously withhout ever noticing that somewhere there is a village that has lost its idiot.
Chick Dante,
I would not characterize Palinism as the equivalent of this “village idiot” scenario — because she really does appeal to legitimate concerns and I don’t really doubt her personal sincerity — but your larger point is very true. People on the right scorn the Hollywood celebrity culture for good reason, but they often fail to see the equivalent arising in their own midst. I suppose looking for heroes with which we can identify is a natural tendency for human beings, but it is made all the worse by our mass media — including the conservative mass media. And I don’t mean to exempt anyone from this broader criticism because one can see how supporting any political figure (be it Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, or even Ron Paul) could develop along the same lines. What I devoutly wish for is a figure that does not court adulation or view himself or herself as a symbol of true America. As soon as someone claims to speak for an “unrepresented” group of American society, they are heading down the wrong road. They are seeking out emotional attachment, not reasoned commitment.
Oskar Chomicki
Thanks for the insight. I know you make a good point. I am trying to understand how folks take seriously that Palin “appeals to legitimate concerns?” I am not arguing the point. But, I am baffled by the fact that there are folks who sincerely believe both Palin and her “appeal.”
Here is an example of what I am talking about:
Bill O’Reilly Interviews Sarah Palin Re: Couric Interview Question On Reading The News
http://crooksandliars.com/
……
O’Reilly: Why did you boot it? I mean, if somebody asks what do you read, I say I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, I could reel them off in my sleep, you couldn’t do it.
Palin: Well, of course I could. Of course I could.
O’Reilly: Well, why didn’t you?
Palin: It’s ridiculous to suggest that or say I couldn’t tell people what I read. Because by that point already, although it was relatively early in that multi-segmented interview with Katie Couric — it was, it was quite obvious that it was going to be a bit of an annoying interview with a badgering of the questions. It seemed to me that she didn’t know anything about Alaska, about my job as governor, about my accomplishments as mayor or governor, my record. And a question like that, though, yeah, I booted it, I screwed up, I should have been more patient and more gracious in my answer, it seemed to me the question was more along the lines of — Do you read? How do you stay in touch with the real world?
O’Reilly: See, that was your inexperience.
Palin: It was my inexperience with having to deal with a condescending, badgering line of questioning. No — no reflection at all on my inexperience in terms of administrative record or accomplishments or vision for America.
[Comment: What makes a question like "what newspapers do you read?" a badgering line of questioning? In the video, Palin is not bridling at Couric's arrogance -- she's drawing a blank, reaching for straws and, in the interview above, prevaricating. She looks and sounds stupid and covers up for it with "word-salad." To what "legitimate concerns" does this appeal?]
Ah yes, Palin is just a populist, but what of it? What do we deserve as voters and citizens if we do not listen and advocate the causes of the more thoughtful statesmen? Personally, I have always liked Alan Keyes (a thoughtful, if bombastic politician) since the 2000 presidential primaries, but he is politically incompetent and a complete disaster (my opinion is that he should have become an academic). Palin is combative, she’s tough, I like a lot of what she stands for, but she is completely unqualified to be any sort of statesman (stateswoman in this case), because of her lack of education (sorry, I’m just as much against Ivy-League elitism as the next guy, but uneducation is not the solution to miseducation), her lack of experience, and her combative style. I would like her to step down from the national stage and focus on channeling her great energy back on local issues in her state of Alaska. If her principles are so great, than should she be successful in Alaska, the prosperity and success of Alaska would speak for itself. Right now, it just seems that she’s selling books.
Certainly I believe we have had a sober and dispassionate analysis of many of these points previously, in the TAC blog:
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/09/25/if-mccain-dies-shell-be-president/
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/09/04/youre-not-in-a-summer-place-anymore-sarah/
I think, currently, Mr Chomiki is simply rehashing some of TAC’s earlier work.