If you are interested in politics, or even if you are not, I predict there is a 100% likelihood that the subject of Sarah Palin will come up at your house tomorrow--on Thanksgiving.
Everyone who says Sarah Palin is "dumb" should think long and hard about the fact that this person has managed to make herself not just the number one political story, but the single largest news story in the media cycle heading into the biggest family gathering holiday of the calendar year. Incredible.
Given the inevitability that Palin will come up in conversation, consider this Thanksgiving as an opportunity to set a basic story about her--both in the minds of the people you care about (e.g., those folks around the turkey with you) and, most importantly, in your own mind.
While this basic story about Palin has many elements to it, there are three words in particular that everyone should repeat --and repeat often enough so that they stick (in addition to "pass the gravy").
These word are:
chaos and confusion
The Big Story on Palin
The big story on Palin is the answer to the question: "Who is Sarah Palin?"
It is a simple question, but the most important one out there. How that question gets answered in the minds of most Americans will go a long way towards determining the the political future of this country over the next 3 years.
Let me start out by telling you the wrong answer to that question: Sarah Palin is a dumb person. That answer is so far off the mark it is almost laughable, which is probably why a large part of the mainstream media has gravitated towards it (e.g., most of 'em think with their AP wires rather than their brains).
Think about it for a second: Saying Palin is "dumb" is an insult, not a story. It says more about the person who hurls the insult than it does about the person on the receiving end. If I say "Palin is dumb," the story I set is something like this:
Palin is not like me and that makes me afraid. I have contempt for people not like me.
Egads! What a terrible story to advance. It's no surprise that speculation on Palin's intelligence does nothing more than embolden her fans, sell more books, and keep her on the front pages. Even worse: calling a politician "dumb" makes it incredible easy for that politician to do things that look and feel like success. That is why many Republican strategists often spend their time and money convincing the public their candidate is dumb, thereby lowering expectations so much that even an abject political failure can seem to the public as a success.
What is the better story for Palin? It is the accurate story, which I sum up this way (although there are many ways to say it):
Sarah Palin is the biggest celebrity in America, today. As a celebrity, Sarah Palin's power lies in her fame, earning her more fans and more money than any other political figure in the Republican Party. Despite all her fame, she has repeatedly shown herself to be a profoundly disorganized person, whose creates chaos and confusion with her words and her actions. Chaos is good for creating media buzz and selling books, but it is terrible for the future well-being of America.
Reduced down to just the words in bold, this is what the basic story of Palin looks like:
- celebrity
- fame
- fans
- money
- disorganized
- chaos and confusion
The whole story offers an overview answer the question "Who is Sarah Palin?" that will come up at your Thanksgiving table--not a script, but an outline to the kind of narrative you can bring to the room.
Celebrity: Media Frenzy
While many people often refer to Palin as a "politician," this is not really accurate for a few reasons.
First, she formally quit politics--which does not mean she will never again re-enter politics, but only that she formally left and is not there now.
Second, Palin does not talk or act like a politician. If we were to try to match Palin up to another figure in politics, today, we would have a hard time because the category or group she is in as a celebrity is something different than government or politics.
Third, Palin's celebrity has turned her into an instant media figure whose success is fueled by the large number of loyal fans she has attracted and her potential to sell products (e.g., books, advertising, etc.) to an audience via her appearances.
Fourth, like Glenn Beck, the significance of Sarah Palin is not whether she is smart or dumb, but that she has found a way to use her celebrity to create media frenzy, thereby undermining the leadership of the President of the United States.
Fifth, because celebrity is a key ingredient to electoral success, nobody is going to fully discount Sarah Palin from electoral politics so long as she maintains her celebrity status. Other Republicans with electoral ambitions, for example, will try to capture some of her celebrity (e.g., Huckabee, Giuliani), while the media will stay focused on her thinking their coverage will garner them a lion's share of that critical market of viewers engaged in elections.
In other words, we cannot make these observations without starting off with the basic story that Sarah Palin is a celebrity, not a politician. It is the critical first part of the story.
Disorganization: Chaos and Confusion
Beyond describing who she is and how she does it, the second half of the big story focuses on the impact or significance of Palin's style, approach, and personality.
First, whenever we hear Palin speak, what we hear is someone who is never prepared to answer a question. The most profound example of this for me came in the exchange between her and Bill O'Reilly when she was asked "Are you smart enough." Notice how she answers this question:
The most remarkable aspect of this exchange was not whether Palin is or is not "smart enough," but that she was unprepared to answer this question--that she could was not prepared to deliver a coherent answer on a question with only one possible answer: yes. In all of her interviews, as backed up by anecdotal evidence from the 2008 campaign, Palin bears the hallmarks of a person who is "unstaffable"--someone whose personal style resists and subverts all efforts to organizer her thoughts in any systematic way.
Second, the result of Palin's words is absolute lack of clarity and confusion. Her loyal fans understand her. They hear someone who speaks out against elitism, who defends "normal" people from the fraud and tricks of "elitists," "foreigners," and "government." But for the remaining 80% of the country who are not loyal fans of Sarah Palin, her words leave us confused: We honestly do not understand what points she is making.
Third, while charisma is a huge asset in media and politics, leadership is about telling people what to do, then them doing it. Palin's disorganization is reminiscent of the kind of chaos that the Bush administration displayed during crucial national crises, most notably: Hurricane Katrina.
Fourth, Sarah Palin's actions are often more confusing than her words, leaving even her closest friends and allies wondering what she will do next. In the media, a celebrity who acts in confusing ways can seem spontaneous. In a position of leadership, confusing actions seem unstable.
Fifth, despite her fame and celebrity, Sarah Palin's confusing words and actions have been relatively few and far between as compared to what would happen if she took up a position of national leadership.
The ability to create chaos and confusion are helpful to advance a media celebrity's career because they draw attention to the star. When a leader creates chaos and confusion, they cast doubt and danger on the organization, institution or country they are leading.
Lifestyle, Not Leadership
In the end, the basic story of Sarah Palin can help people come to a very important conclusion:
Palin's celebrity lifestyle does not mean she deserves or is even appropriate for national leadership
Like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin's charisma and her style have earned her a large enough market share of adoring fans to guarantee a certain lifestyle, but this should not be confused with leadership.
"Lifestyle" vs. "leadership" is a simple, non-confrontational way to express concern and doubt about a national figure.
Keep in mind that even though some people may confess to be fans of Sarah Palin at the Thanksgiving table, that does not mean they stop listening when reasonable points are made.
Therefore, if someone says they are a fan of Sarah Palin, do not quiz them on Palin's policy positions. Instead, engage them in a discussion about how disorganized she is, how much confusion she creates, and how that feeds into a a celebrity lifestyle, but not leadership.
Remember: we gain no supporters, bring nobody into our ideas, and convince not one person of anything useful by trying to demonstrate that the person across the table from us is "dumb." All that does is persuade the people not participating in the discussion that we are bullies who think we are better than everybody else in the room.
By contrast, you will be surprised by how far you can get at the Thanksgiving table by simply pushing the basic story of what we already know to be true about the biggest story in the media, today.
We should not waste this moment by wallowing in despair or convincing ourselves that we live in a time that is, more than any other time, weighed down by ignorance or poor judgment. Our job is to lead the discussion--to craft it and pushing it in the direction that matters most--and this is the time to get started.
Good luck, everyone! And a 'Happy Thanksgiving!' to you and yours.