"The more you listen to Palin, you sense a shift in her consciousness, a shift that she is indeed the woman chosen to save this country - chosen by God. "It is God's plan" was Palin's reaction to losing the election.
And the plan is that she will lose once only to be resurrected at the head of a large army of disaffected and alienated Christianists, a brigade of anti-government populists, channeled and organized directly by a media outlet that has long since abandoned the role of a neutral journalistic organization.
FNC is now the RNC. The strategy is clear: demonize Obama as a threat from within (the classic McCarthyite paranoid tradition, given more oomph by race and religion), add a whiff of the idea that he is deliberately weakening America to allow Islamic terrorists kill us, portray even obviously emergency moves, like bailing out the banks, as a plan to take over the entire economy and socialize it, and wrap it all up in a coded religious eschatology.
If you are not alarmed by this development - a new, proto-fascist political party being recreated on television in front of our very eyes - then you have not read much history." -Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish
Perhaps I've been too flippant in dismissing Palin and what she represents. As I've said these people, while not that bright, are definitely mad about something and even if they don't exactly know what they want they definitely know what they hate. I just figured that since there aren't a vast number of these wingnut teabaggers that they don't represent that much of a threat electorally but if they were actually able to convince enough sane Americans to sign on with them this country could have some real problems. My only hope is that the more reasonable people see and hear from Palin the more they'll understand what many of us who pay too much attention to politics already know: that she's a self-centered, incurious hack who believes that she's more competent and important than she actually is. But unfortunately with a cadre of teabaggers at her back and her own dedicated cable network at her disposal, it's just possible that she's more dangerous as well.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Something Someone Else Said
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14 comments:
Good post. It's too bad that Freedom of Speech includes people like Palin, Beck and Limbaugh and Fox news. I wish the FCC could find a loophole to knock them off the air.
We can only hope that despite their exposure and noise, their numbers aren't as great as they seem, that the majority of Americans are decent, and that comments like Robertson's will alienate rather than attract.
Thanks Leslie, but I disagree with your assessment of freedom of speech. As much as I detest what Palin, Beck, et al say I'm glad that they have the right to say it.
Now these particular individuals are obviously in this for the money and I don't think they believe everything they utter but I'm glad to have them saying it in public where everyone can hear it and judge for themselves. That's how they're going to lose (as long as this country isn't as stupid as it acts sometimes).
How about sedition? Anyway, I really wasn't being serious. A little sarcasm and a little wishful thinking.
JBW,
well written post.I often dismiss teabaggers as idiots but there are smart ones too.
Someone said the smart ones are just too lazy to read and research so they prefer someone else do the "heavy lifting". Then they can tune in for 1/2 an hour and find out what their opinions should be.
But that doesn't really do it either. My latest theory is, they have a kind of 1984 doublethink that enables them to sublimate their intelligent thought while supporting people they intuitively know are wrong.
Hey it's a way to cope man !
Excellent post. I'm generally an optimist & believe that Americans are far too smart for Sarah Palin. But, then again, I also thought by now she would be irrelevant to any sane public policy discussion. I'm sure Ms. Palin has some good qualities (besides charismatic manipulation), but I'm convinced she has Narcissistic personality disorder. Has any politican reacted the way she has with any criticism, her self-importance, and complete and utter engagement of only self-interest?
Just to be different, I'm going to say that I don't know what was so great about this post.
As always, just to prove the point one L. I respect that.
My biggest disappointment since the election is the lack of anyone of note in the GOP saying "this is not how we want to go" or showing any cohesive effort of reforming the party and getting their center back. I really thought they were better than that. I still wonder sometimes if they're just marking time or allowing the Palinistas to flare up and burn out
Just a minor point: Fox News was never a "neutral journalistic organization".
Murdoch hired Ailes to run it because Ailes was a media consultant for Nixon, Reagan and with Atwater is possibly most responsible for Bush senior winning over Dukakis. Murdoch believed there was liberal hegemony in political media presentation and wanted a counter to it. The amount of access that Murdoch and his cronies have had to politicians since 1960s Australia, through everyone in the UK, US all the way up to and including Obama is staggering. The Fox war on Obama was much about Obama being among the very few who have refused to bow their head to that power.
After the last election magpie I heard so many Republicans talking about how they lost because their candidate wasn't conservative enough. They actually believed that since Palin improved McCain's numbers they just needed to appeal more to their base and then they would win big.
The problem with this strategy is that Palin actually only pulled in disaffected right-wingers who didn't like McCain while she actually pushed away the moderates that he needed to win. True, he did better with her than he would have without her but only at the cost of pulling their party further away from mainstream voters.
That's why there's a deep division within their party right now with actual thinking conservatives on one side and the rabid, Obama hating Palinistas on the other. Personally I think that the Palin mob will eventually burn themselves out but only after their party has been laid so low that the party leaders will have no choice but to reinvent themselves in their original mold.
Of course this is all assuming that the Democrats don't shoot themselves in the foot with their incredible incompetence and pussification, so take it with a grain of salt.
Thinking they weren't conservative enough...
Yeah I heard a lot about that loopy logic, but all you have to do is crunch the numbers and see it doesn't work. The money-base Republican supporters have the creative tax-dodging accountancy to demonstrate a grasp of math, and the stone-cold cynicism to know far public manipulation goes, so they should see the fallacy of the analysis just as readily and you and I do....which leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that moderate Republicans have the pussification problem too, and their rancid Right wing is stealing their show.
as bad as american politics has sunk - the rise of Palin represents a new low (hwo is that for an oxypalin, i mean oxymoron)
sarah palin is actually very shrewd and savvy person - she intellectually a moron, she has no curiosity for anything real or important. the only thing real and important to her - is her. over her family, over her children, over her responsibilites (hence her quitting as governor).
why do the teabaggers and radical zombies on the right love her - because the left and progressives hate her so much. that is another reason they stuck with bush even after they saw what a disaster he was - as long as the left would trash and ridicule him, they would rally around him
the nuts on the right could care less about ability or thought process - they care about winning. roger ailes proved that with the success of fox -
i dont think palin has a prayer a national office. her descamisados are very noisy - but probably not all that large. i think even the corporate GOP elite - who truly control elections and will have even more power when the supreme court rules in their favor shortly - dont want her. she will take a country that is literally in financial ruins (us) and will make us wish we only were as bad as katrina or haiti. she is that much of a disaster
she cares about money - again her quitting alaska - she knew full well she would get a gig on Fox (like Rove) - and something tells me she will be satisfied with that.
Argentina had evita and then spend decades wandering the desert -- to me, we have stepped into that wasteland.
ps - love your blog
Nice analysis DC, and thanks. Hope you keep stopping by.
Like Sarah, I also love money. Too bad I'm not blessed with nice legs, ass, and a willingness to repeat ignorant right wing catch phrases.
Well, I would repeat the catch phrases but the lack of nice legs and ass is a killer. The republicans have enough sad looking white guys repeating their crap already.
Plus if you were a Republican you'd just be discriminated against by the liberal (fill in the blank) for being a white Christian anyway, T101. In America today, Whitey just can't win.
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