fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Did Sarah Palin really say that? Wow.

Sarah Palin said some amazing and terrific things the other day — and nobody who wasn’t there heard about them. From, believe it or not, The New York Times, in which a columnist points out that we’re so used to goofiness coming from Palin that we missed some really interesting things at the Tea Party […]

Sarah Palin said some amazing and terrific things the other day — and nobody who wasn’t there heard about them. From, believe it or not, The New York Times, in which a columnist points out that we’re so used to goofiness coming from Palin that we missed some really interesting things at the Tea Party meeting last week — something that even liberals would have found compelling. Read past the jump for Anand Giridharadas’s summary of the great things Palin said. A hint, to get you to read further: “Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.”

I certainly cheer (and stomp and whoop) for these remarks of hers, if they have been accurately reported in this passage from the Times:

She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.

Her second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.

“Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?” she said, referring to politicians. “It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed — a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.”

Because her party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words.

Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.

Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.

“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”

Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?

I hope so! Maybe Palin would do more good for American politics by staying out of the race and becoming the sort of independent activist suggested by these remarks.

UPDATE: The great Ryan Streeter over at ConservativeHome USA agrees. Excerpt:

Her base of support will be too small if she runs, and she will be too polarizing, but if she rises above politics and stays on this theme, she might actually attract people to her cause who have been reluctant to support her this far.

Advertisement

Comments

Want to join the conversation?

Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.

Join Now