*Sort of.
A lot of people I know to get Sarah Palin. They look at her, and they see the artifice. They hear the misshapen sentences and note the exaggerations and outright lies in which she is caught up... virtually every time she opens her mouth or puts finger to key.
And they see this frenzied crowd of people, rushing to debase themselves, coating Palin with white hot adoration, thick jets of it, gouts of it...
And they wonder... what the HELL?!? They talk to people, reasonable, rational seeming people. Point out errors, outright lies... try to explain what seems to be the reality of Sarah Palin... only to find themselves attacked as if they've accused someone's mother of blowing carnies behind the local Bennigan's.
Lots of people I know... don't seem to get Sarah Palin. They look at her, and they see the artifice. They hear the misshapen sentences and note the exaggerations and outright lies in which she is caught up... virtually every time she opens her mouth or puts finger to key.
And they see this frenzied crowd of people, rushing to debase themselves, coating Palin with white hot adoration, thick jets of it, gouts of it...
And they wonder... what the HELL?!? They talk to people, reasonable, rational seeming people. Point out errors, outright lies... try to explain what seems to be the reality of Sarah Palin... only to find themselves attacked as if they've accused someone's mother of blowing carnies behind the local Bennigan's.
As always, your uncle Ken is here to help. And as always, your old uncle is a wordy motherfucker, so please do have a little patience.
What happens if you play by the rules for your entire life... only to find out that the rules were all one massive lie?
You worked hard, did what you were told, obeyed authority... and in the end, all you really wanted was what you were told you would GET: The candy apple red, metal flake and chromium trimmed marketing scheme known as The American Dream.
A house, a car- maybe two! Decent food, education for your kids- so that they could have an even better life than you, and provide an even better life for their own kids.
A retirement funded by money you'd saved- and a little that the government had helped you save. Sitting by the stocked artificial lake in front of your small but clean and well lit retirement community apartment... sipping a beer and stroking your faithful golden retriever... thinking maybe you'd tinker with that old Ford you've been hot rodding for the past ten years of weekends.
It's all you wanted. Nice stuff, GOOD stuff. And the rules on the package were clear as crystal. You, the undersigned, agree to provide the sweat of your brow for X years, put money into the consumer economy and in general act as a good capitalist... and in exchange for using the fruits of your labors as we see fit, we, your social leaders, do promise you will be provided with one shiny American Dream.
You did your part. But the dream? Never came.
You'd be pretty goddamned pissed. Anyone would be. And you would feel OWED.
Well. That's the story with a whole lot of Americans right now. They bought the bullshit, the okey-doke. And they've ended up with a lap full of nothing. While all sorts of other people- who don't seem to have worked nearly as hard- have ended up with everything.
They keep hearing that they should have a new Ford Mustang, or maybe one of them cool little foreign jobs. That they really ought to take a couple weeks in summer to tour Tuscany, or laze along the beach in Hawaii. And then they trudge out to the icy Target parking lot with their bag full of storebrand hotdogs and hope the three year old Tercel starts.
What the FUCK happened? SOMEONE has to be responsible. They cannot believe that they put in all this work for so little. That what they were sold, and what they believed in for so long was a load of horseshit.
Hell, they STILL believe in the dream.
So. Who took it? Who stole it? Who prevented them from getting what they jolly well earned? What has locked George Babbit away from the gleaming towers of Zenith?
These are the folks to whom Sarah Palin appeals. She looks like them, sounds like them and acts as if she's as angry as they are- at all the same people.
No matter that she's as artificially manufactured as the American Dream they were sold. Hell, they love that. She seems as if SHE GOT IT, and is down here trying to help them figure out where the hell theirs went.
Uneducated? Inarticulate? Just so. She sounds like someone who doesn't worry about the best way to express a thing before she says it. The slick talking, educated sonsabitches are the ones who LIED to them all these years.
Seems to believe in an America than never really existed- where hard work and ability mattered most?
SO DO THEY.
Takes criticsm personally, constantly seems to feel as if others are thwarting her ambitions, blocking her from achieving all that she ought?
Well, hell, that's just how THEY feel. Like they made a shitty bargain and got gypped out of what they were owed.
She believes in, fronts for and seems determined to fight agressively to GIVE THEM BACK THAT DREAM.
Friends.
You can't fight a secular saint Or with her followers.
Sarah Palin is... the second coming of Huey and Earl Long, Sister Aimee Semple and heir to a long line of bombastic populists. If you look through history, right or wrong, direct opposition to her type never aorks.
And...
Maybe we shouldn't try to fight her- convince others that she's a bag of hot air in a performance haircut, etc.
Because... it's entirely possible that Sarah Palin serves a good purpose. Just as have populist demogogues before her.
Well. Ultimately. They tend to do a lot of goddamned damage. Set fire to acres and acres of heart wood. But in the end... I really do think they serve a good purpose.
Like them, she's giving a lot of people the feeling that they oughta stand up for themselves. Demand answers. Tell their leaders to pay some damned attention to them.
That is neither wrong nor bad. Indeed, it is a behavior that the people who created this nation were counting on. There were never three branches of government; there were FOUR. Executive, Legislative, Judicial, The People. The government was designed by shit stirrers and rabble rousers and it was supposed to function for the_same_ rowdy_bastards_.
Encouraging them to be active in their government- and in their society... is not bad. And rather than trying to talk them out of following Sarah Palin... we should take the opportunity presented us and talk about the things that they feel Sarah supports. And talk about maybe more positive ways, more inclusive ways for them to deal with these things.
Rather than telling them they're doing something wrong- recognize the rightness of the impulse and maybe help them come to a better understanding of the issues that confront them.
Putting this another way. Bunch of people lived together in a cave- all they knew was the dark, dank cave. Every so often, one of them found their way out of the cave. Discovered that there was a world of bright, warm sun, green grass and blue clouds, waiting to be enjoyed. Some of them ran right off into it- never to return to the cave. Others came back in- and were promptly beaten to death by the forces of orthodoxy. A bright world? Blue sky? Lots of room to run around in? Get my club.
One day, someone got out, came back, and took one other person out with them. And that person went and got another person, who then went and got another.
Pretty soon, there was no one left in the cave.
Sarah is appealing to people who are genuinely looking for their way out of that cave. The opportunity confronting us... is to use that same impulse to help them find the light they seek- rather than the orthodoxy they crave.
Well. I'm wa-ay late for my medication. Be seeing you.