July 16, 2022
"People often say that Sarah Palin anticipated the rise of Donald Trump, but you could say the same of Pat Buchanan or Ross Perot or Herman Cain..."
"... depending on your focus. Trumpism is perhaps best understood as two things: populist-right mood and populist-right policy. The mood is one of resentment toward predatory or incompetent elites, and the policy (in theory, at least) is one of strength through self-containment — whether regarding immigration or commerce or military deployment. J.D. Vance, running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, represents Trumpism mainly as policy, while Palin represents it mainly as mood.
This can make Palin maddeningly hazy on issues that many conservatives and liberals alike care about most.... People often point to personality traits shared by Palin and Trump, such as thin skin and self-absorption... Both have thin skins, but Trump’s covers a hearty and insensate core; Palin described being excluded from McCain’s funeral as a 'gut punch' and told Fox host Sean Hannity that she could watch Tina Fey’s impression of her only with 'the volume all the way down.' Trump enjoys riling the other side, while Palin, despite her flame throwing, seems most eager to please her own side.... Palin’s religious faith alarms many of her critics in a way that Trump’s religious faith, if that’s what you can call it, never did.... [W]hen it comes to self-aggrandizement, her faith also appears to discourage her from Trumpian excesses.... If we can tell a human story of Sarah Palin, maybe people can wish her victory or defeat instead of vengeful triumph or destruction...."
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43 comments:
I’m not going through the paywall, but is TA Frank the guy who wrote, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
And how come we never get similar pieces on Biden, AOC, Pelosi, Crying Chuck Schumer and Schiff the Liar?
The decision to destroy Sarah Palin at all cost - and at any cost - is the one of worst crimes of the left (looking right at you Andrew Sullivan). They feared Sarah and got something far worse (for them) with Trump. Sarah as a politician was an anti-corruption, high competence governor and I can’t imagine the left feared anymore that an effect Republican - except a high competence Republican with populist appeal. Well, now they have DeSantis.
I hope Palin is able to defeat her destroyers. She caused them to tip their hand and Trump took advantage.
Washington Post, it's a hit job and a smear.
The common threads are how Republican voters thirst for candidates who are not part of GOPe because we despise the swampification of those we send to DC, and secondarily both are examples of charismatic conservatives with good instincts that the DNC Media went scorched earth wall-to-wall negative to destroy the public impression. Palin was especially dangerous for having taken on the corruption in Alaska to become governor and she was very attractive, unlike most pols. Trump was especially dangerous because he was not part of the big grift in DC and was a risk to expose just how corrupt both parties’ entrenched members had become. He wasn’t entangled with China like the Clintons Bushes Bidens McConnels Pelosis et al.
We just can’t have any-corruption elected officials. Bad for business.
Tom said...
The decision to destroy Sarah Palin at all cost - and at any cost - is the one of worst crimes of the left (looking right at you Andrew Sullivan). They feared Sarah and got something far worse (for them) with Trump. Sarah as a politician was an anti-corruption, high competence governor and I can’t imagine the left feared anymore that an effect Republican - except a high competence Republican with populist appeal. Well, now they have DeSantis.
I hope Palin is able to defeat her destroyers. She caused them to tip their hand and Trump took advantage.
7/16/22, 8:31 AM
She would have been a HERO if she were a Democrat, but they can't have Republican women showing them how to do it.
If the word you choose to characterize the mood of people who call out predatory or incompetent elites is “resentment,” you might be among the predatory or incompetent elite.
Palin is "thin skin and self-absorbed"?
Maybe I missed something... can anti-Palin people here share examples please?
Thanks.
It's just nice for the media to link Trump with anyone but Hitler these days.
I doubt the respite will last.
Palin is ridiculed by Democrats and their mediaswine as are all high profile Republicans not given to apostasy. Even the apostates, such as McCain and Mittens are not spared when they threaten the progress of leftist true belief.
For example, now that George Bush, the Younger, is a never-Trumper, ChimpyBush McHitler has faded into obscurity.
They burned her church down they hung her n Effigy they had a mob attack her family (and lied about it) sent a stalker next door and soread all sorts of slander) all for speaking truth to power.
The treatment of Palin by the media and "National Republicans" is what paved the way for Trump. She was better prepared to be President than Obama and therefor had to be destroyed. Well to do coastal republicans of National Review and the RNC saw her threat and savaged her. Leftist media decided that her disabled child was the story. Who can forget Andrew Sullivan going all in on little Trig. The masturbating red headed comedian had a routine about Palin's "retard making c*nt." McCain's team served her up to the media and laughed while they tried to destroy her.
That's when flyover conservatives said "F! this" and broke with the coastal republicans. Trump was the first to harness that energy. Low and behold it is a much bigger tent without the establishment.
Palin -- another politician who will disappoint you if you fall too much in love with her.
As others have already said, Palin did lead to Trump, but in a roundabout way. We saw how she was treated, and we took the hostility and contempt personally. So when the same people (the media, the Dems, the establishment Repubs) went after Trump, it endeared him to us. I never would have voted for Trump under normal circumstances. But voting for him (even though I expected him to lose) felt like a big middle finger to all the usual suspects. It was a way of saying, "It's not going to work this time. Your smears and mockery and hit-jobs are all irrelevant." Which is why election night, 2016, in which I stayed up until 3 am, was one of the happiest of my life. It felt like vindication, including for Sarah Palin. The bad guys lost, for once.
You don't need to pay anything to read most of these newspaper/magazine articles that the good Professor references.
In Firefox just click on the "toggle reader view" icon in the upper toolbar (icon looks like a page from a book) and that should get you through. Sometimes you don't get any pictures or comments, but you can at least read the article.
I like the fact that she scares the left.
Hunter Thompson perfectly summed up the elite's reaction to populism with his phrase "fear and loathing." With Palin, loathing was the dominant reaction (women seem particularly vulnerable to outcaste messaging), whereas fear is the dominant reaction to Trump.
Of course, identity politics play a role here, too. Over the last 40 years, the Left is especially determined to destroy a woman or Black who dissents from the progressive role assigned to their identity.
Blogger Dave Begley said...
I’m not going through the paywall, but is TA Frank the guy who wrote, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
Thomas J. Frank wrote, “What’s the Matter with Kansas.”
The leftwing media and many Democrats, in general, are shit people high on the politics of hate and personal destruction.
"If we can tell a human story of Sarah Palin, maybe people can wish her victory or defeat instead of vengeful triumph or destruction."
If. But why would any prog write such a story? It's useless. Actually, it's counterproductive. Palin needs to be prog target. She needs to be destroyed. Pour encourager les autres, if nothing else.
all the things she was concerned about, which murkowski certainly wasn't the pipelines which even american oil companies were unwilling to invest in back then, the right to life, to self defense, to your own body (the death panels were real, look at NYC)
It hilarious how these MSM journalists constantly lie. Niether Palin nor Trump is "Thin skinned" or "Self-absorbed". The MSM tried to destroy both of them by non-stop 24/7/365 attacks, mockery, and outright lies. The amount of public abuse and slander hurled at them by the Press is unbelievable.
But how dare they counter-attack or defend themselves!
People forget that the liberal/left/Democrats pursued the same "Lawfare" strategy against Palin that they did against Trump. They won against Palin. Unlike trump she wasn't a Billionaire, and the Alaska Goverment couldn't reimburse her for defending herself against endless Leftwing lawsuits. Result: She had to resign as Governor. she was litterally driven from office.
The idea that Palin was "maddenly vague" on policy is also a lie. She pushed standard Republican/conservative policies. But she - like Trump - can't be given credit for having well thought out policies.
The 'Silent Majority' smiles...
I said it on another thread, but I definitely think Palin dropped out to protect her family from all the attacks.
The way the left attacked her was utterly anti-woman and anti-feminist. All women should be ashamed of the technique that was used to target her. They went after her children, and her husband. They tried to paint her as a whore. Every adult woman should recognize the attack for what it was.
Reporter or Stalker?
The character assassination was ferocious, of course. Who does that to a vice-president, for fuck's sake? She wasn't running for anything!
Anyway, that's why she opted not to run in 2012. It was a pre-emptive strike by our fine journalists on the left.
Imagine right-wing journalists digging into Kamala Harris' sexual history, moving in next door, etc. etc. I didn't even know if she had children until I googled her.
How fucked up is it that we know Sarah Palin's children? She never ran for President. She wasn't a Vice-President.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris? Non-entity. Nobody cares. Nobody knows who her children are. I didn't even know if she had children until I googled them. She has step-children.
The attacks on Palin's kids was ferocious and every fucking person who did that should be openly apologetic for your monstrous behavior.
Nobody did that to Obama's kids, or Bush's kids, or Gore's kids. But Palin's kids got all the shit in the world.
Palin is not "thin skinned" as the phrase is commonly used. Simply not a fact.
If he's that wrong about that aspect of her personna why should anyone respect his other opinions?
This would be the Tina Fey who publicly humiliated Tracy Morgan for making what she deemed a homophobic joke while writing and producing entire storylines about the hilarity of child sexual exploitation.
She's not aging well.
I would argue that Trump's kids got an appropriate level of media attention.
And the media has been extremely uninterested in Joe Biden's son, whose being investigated for crimes.
But Palin's kids were innocent people.
What did Bristol Palin do to deserve all the attacks she got?
She got pregnant in 2008.
The media attacked her without mercy. Big fans of abortion, the media. They believe girls should hide pregnancies, abort their children, get rid of the evidence. The media -- and the left -- hate single moms. So they tried to create an old-fashioned sex scandal around Bristol Palin.
Trump was what they got for destroying Palin.
They are really, really not going to like what they get for destroying Trump.
My prediction for what happens, going forward? If there is widespread election fraud in 2022 that has effect on who winds up elected? If they cheat in 2024 the way they did in 2020?
The lid is going to come off the pressure cooker, and a bunch of people are going to get hurt. To include the self-declared "elite" that think they have a right to run this country into the ground, and that the common folk of the nation have to sit back and take whatever bullshit they come up with.
You think the French Revolution was ugly? Wait. Just wait. They've got a chance to dial back on the stupid, and if they don't take it and try to manage a clean dismount from the tiger they've brewed up? That tiger is going to have them for a light snack, before moving on to others.
I honestly would not rule out the US going the way of the French Revolution, and some demagogue figure turning the resulting wrath on the transnational "elite". Coupled with a US nuclear arsenal, and at the head of a revitalized and ideologically motivated US military, I would not rule out that the Davos types wouldn't wind up in a very, very bad place. Like, on tumbrils heading off to the guillotine.
I don't think "holocaust" is too strong a word to use for what Roe did to people with Downs Syndrome. Once Palin had the temerity to white rose Trig, an awful lot of democrats found their inner Hitler. That should never be forgotten, as with any other holocaust.
So when the same people (the media, the Dems, the establishment Repubs) went after Trump, it endeared him to us. I never would have voted for Trump under normal circumstances. But voting for him (even though I expected him to lose) felt like a big middle finger to all the usual suspects. It was a way of saying, "It's not going to work this time.
Yes. I referred to it as a brick through the window of the Establishment of both parties. Michael Anton's article "The Flight 93 election" was also on target.
I wouldn't include Ross Perot in that list of right wing conservatives. I wonder how old T.A. Frank was when Ross Perot ran? I remember the Perot campaign. He was a political outsider and he was all about reducing government spending and fiscal responsibility.
I would not say Palin is "think skinned." She was the only reason many of us voted for McCain. The McCain family showed what low class they are. Beer distributor's daughter and druggie.
It's actually a pretty good article. I haven't looked at the comments, but I'm sure he's getting a lot of heat for being at all sympathetic to her. Points for this:
"As I began this article, I checked old stories of mine to see if I’d ever written anything nasty about Palin. Yes, it turns out, I had: a cringe-inducing parody in 2009 for the Guardian of “Going Rogue” that epitomized everything people hate about journalists. It mocked her manner of speaking, suggested she was a fabulist, made fun of her education and in general hit on every cliched target in the snottiest way possible. Welp."
Though interesting that he didn't remember it and had to look it up.
I wouldn't include Ross Perot in that list of right wing conservatives.
Palin and Trump were nothing like Pat Buchanan. Maybe "right wing" as far as lefties were concerned but Pat is a paleo conservative.
"She was the only reason many of us voted for McCain. "
[Raises hand.]
During the McCain campaign, my wife and I went to a Palin appearance in Lee County, FL, in a facility holding thousands, and there were thousands outside who couldn’t get in. She was electric! At the same time, Biden made a local appearance that barely filled a school gym.
- Krumhorn
"Liberals" (i.e., tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping State-humpers) used to work overtime to convince us Palin is stupid, without presenting any evidence of it. I figured anyone who genuinely believed in their melange of junk economics, envy cossetting and magical thinking had no business accusing others of stupidity.
I donated to Palin's senate campaign. Better than Murky is a rather low standard. Palin was a competent governor and right about drill baby drill. Compared to any of the major states Democrat governors she is a rocket scientist. If NY, CA and especially IL had a governor half as competent as Palin was people wouldn't be leaving in droves.
If we can tell a human story of Sarah Palin, maybe people can wish her victory or defeat instead of vengeful triumph or destruction.
That would be the normal human thing, the humane thing, maybe the noble thing to do. But politically committed people only do that with people who don't threaten their interest and their desires (or who don't advance their interests or their program very far). Stand for anything and very many people are going to hate you and take pleasure in your misfortunes.
I got into the habit of voting Republican, so I voted for McCain and Palin. Looking back, I'm not that enthusiastic about either one of them. McCain looks smaller and less substantial as time goes on (so does Romney). Palin, like the Bushes (and to some extent Trump) was somebody who I wished well but who didn't measure up to my (probably unrealistic) expectations.
I was NOT a McCain fan. Yes, he was a war hero and he was probably a fine man personally, and of course he wouldn't have been as bad a President as the guy he ran against. But he was the sponsor of the NcCain-Feingold anti-free speach law. So he wouldn't have been THAT MUCH better.
But when he picked Palin as his VP I thought for a moment that McCain might not be quite as captive to the Washington Establishment as his record showed. WRONG! I don't know if McCain gave the orders for his staff and supporters to undermine Palin, or whether he just looked the other way. It doesn't matter.
Palin would certainly improve the level of political discourse at the national level. Here's a little exercise for the reader: Suppose the President was a Republican who showed clear signs of mental deterioration, and the VP was Sarah Palin. Compare the current situation.
The jones memo proves otherwise
Forty comments, and only one of them by someone who clearly read the article.
Althouse really knows how to apply the little rubber hammer to the knees of her commenters.
Hey,Not Sure: I read it. If you choose to whinge, offer examples, quisling.
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