I am not a big Palin fan. I am an atheist and not a social conservative in any meaningful sense. In my estimation, her chief virtue is that she annoys and enrages all the right people. However, I do recognize that she does honestly represent a wide and vital section of the America polity. I think the left’s inability to see Palin as a legitimate political figure reveals a great deal about their insular mindset and their deep need to see themselves as superior to other people even at the cost of a loss of political power.
In my previous post on Palin hate as leftwing status-anxiety, an anti-Palin comment by a Mauro jumped out at me as a prime example of how leftists think about themselves and the rest of us. I wanted to go through it in detail to try and explain where these cognitive distortions come from.
I’ll break this up into several posts. In this post, I will examine how Mauro’s comment reveals his intrinsically elitist world view:
Mauro starts with:
… I think that the real issue with her is that she’s basically a walking cliché.
and followed it by:
Honestly, I can’t remember any of her positions right now…
His further comments demonstrate that he really doesn’t understand anything what Palin thinks or even what she has stated. If he doesn’t have even basic knowledge of her positions, how can he say Palin is a cliche?
Easy: When applied to person, a cliche is just a euphemism for a stereotype. Stereotypes are at best statistical descriptions of groups of people that exist solely in the minds of the individuals holding the stereotypes. In short, stereotypes are simplified cartoons that don’t reflect the real people that they purport to describe.
Mauro is clearly working from a cartoonish stereotype. He doesn’t know anything about Palin other than she is not one of his imagined leftist elite. So where does he get his stereotype from in the first place?
It’s not her ideas that are problematic, but her middle-America anti-intellectualism and superstition that is a problem,[emph. added]
Here we see Mauro’s highly typical leftist elitism in its purest form. It’s not Palin’s ideas that he sees as dangerous but simply who she is. By superstition he means “religious” and by anti-intellectualism he means, “refuses to acknowledge how brilliant and infallible people like Mauro are.”
Mauro problem with Palin isn’t that she is unusual, Mauro’s problem with Palin is that he believes her to be an ordinary middle-class American who are themselves unfit to influence public policy
Mauro sees the participation of religious, middle-class Americans in the public discourse as “dangerous for America.” You can’t get more elitist than that.
He hammers home his elitism home with a sledgehammer:
And she drives public opinion; since she’s so popular, when she has some idea, it *becomes* mainstream even if it’s simply ridiculous.
In Mauro’s elitist model of America (“What’s the Matter with Kansas“), it is simply inconceivable that middle-class Americans have their own ideas about political issues. Instead, he believes they can only follow and mimic some rightwing elite, in this case Palin. He believes that, absent that external input, middle-class America is completely politically passive and just stands around thinking and doing nothing.
He cannot conceive that Palin is popular and that sometimes her casual comments prove politically devastating because they crystallize the preexisting ideas and concerns of the middle class. He cannot conceive that many middle-class people see themselves and their ideas reflected in Palin and that is why she is popular.
In the end, leftists’ Palin hatred is hatred of middle-class America itself. In their eyes, Palin and the ordinary Americans who see value in her political stances have committed the cardinal sin of rising beyond their station. They have dared to think for themselves and to designate as a flag carrier someone from outside the elite, someone like themselves.
And that is unforgivable.
In Part II, I will examine how Mauro’s comment reveals the left’s amnesia of its own mistakes and how they use that selective history to feed their elitism.
[Update: I decided to take a slightly different tack in part two. See Palin Dumb? History say “Nope!“]
Shannon,
Consider the possibility that you give their stated rationale too much credit. IMO it’s only a justification for a truly visceral reaction. The tipoff is that the lefty screeds at Sarah Palin are so out of proportion to anything she’s said or done, particularly because her policy statements differ mostly from the GOP conservative mainstream in being better said.
I agree that WHO she is what is setting them off, but my personal experience, and that of brigade surgeon Brendan Phibbs in one of my posts in the other thread, (see here –
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/15616.html#comment-339017
indicate that it is really the existential threat she poses to the left’s spiritual void which is really doing it. I agree with Trent Telenko on that.
Your point here is certainly valid, as was your original one and the more insightful comments in the original thread. My point is that all of those together do not begin to explain the ferocity of the left’s hate for Sarah Palin, and that ferocity should be explored.
Shannon,
I agree every time I hear Palin reflect what I think, I rejoice that there is someone able to articulate what I think in a way that can be heard. I also find it enjoyable that the liberal liars have been unable to bring her down completely even though they have tried and they will continue to try. Frankly, I both fear her feminine tendency to popoff with whatever comes to her mind expecting to be accepted because of her cuteness and beauty and take joy in it. I like her as a speaker of truth, I don’t think I could reconcile myself to her as a potential president.
The original post was very well thought out and insightful in regards to the status envy in operation in the liberal liar’s media. This was a nice breakdown exposing the lies they believe that lead them to remain steadfastly attached to the positions they cling to.
As far as the passivity and mimicry of elites goes, I find it true of people who rely almost exclusively on NPR for new — with occasional back up doses of Bill Maher.
Tom Holsinger,
I’m an ex-Southern Baptist married to a Greek immigrant and have seen “the other” up close and personal in both situations. A lot of the spirtual void is a case of isolation in the individual’s enviorment. Sixty years ago, most Southern Whites had no experience with Southern Blacks and only knew what was passed down from elders, so they thought they disliked all blacks. The Greek family I married into came from the mountain villages of central Greece and had escaped there when the Ottoman Empire invaded. They were extremely isolated and distrusted anyone outside their enviornment. I believe that the Liberal Left has isolated themselves by eduaction, job choices and where they live. They only associate with others who think like they do and are freightened when someone like Sarah Palin comes along and upsets their group think.
I firmly believe that Sarah Palin would serve her country best by taking all the debts that she’s racking up with candidates in 2010 and cash them in in 2012 to become chairman of the RNC. It’s the ultimate insider job and would enrage the establishment in both parties while both making the GOP more popular and cleaning out the establishment faction of those who won’t play nice with others.
Think about it, the pronouncements of the chair of the RNC can’t be ignored. She would control considerable money and patronage in Washington DC. She would be constantly addressed by the Democrat party and draw tremendous, over-the-top fire that would alienate independents. And best of all a strong stint at the RNC would improve her political game in ways that would make her formidable if she decides to go back to electoral politics later.
Everett,
So why did they go off at Sarah Palin with such ferocity in 2008 when, as John McCain’s running mate, she was limited to expressing his policy positions?
Why didn’t Senator John McCain, as the 2008 Republican nominee for President, incite such a reaction in the left for saying the same things Sarah Palin did?
Sarah Palin did not upset their group think because of what she said then, or what she has said since then. It is her existence and life story which terrifies them.
IMO we are seeing a reaction like that described by Brendan Phibbs, and the one I encountered on GEnie. The left is terrified of Sarah Palin for the same reason vampires and evil fear the light.
It’s like something out of fantasy fiction – the left’s over-reaction to Sarah Palin resembles nothing so much as evil confronted by a paladin.
Tom,
The ones who consider themselves the ruling class, I couldn’t agree with you more. There are a lot of nonthinkers who simply, as Shannon origanally posted , want to be considered part of the “in crowd”, or status seekers. When conversations start and Palin’s name is mentioned, it is fascinating to watch heads swivel and spittle fly as the talking points start. I wish that I could honestly say what causes such irrational hatred, but these posts are showing me that she has a lot more support than the media mavens would like for us to believe.
Thanks for the input.
Thirty years ago evil wasn’t difficult to nail down, one just “knew.” Now both the left and right use the term with conviction and vigor and a detached sense of the true meaning [like the infantile use of the word awesome to describe the ordinary—in the 80’s excellent] was the adjective in vogue].
I tend to to the classical liberal-right and admire Palin’s unique ability to drive the left nuts. Reagan and Bush drew the same reaction. It is just a guess, but I believe we’re approaching an end-game for the moral relativists who have pretty much defined our culture since the late 60’s. Theses folks declared their independence from tradition and embraced the state as the arbiter of good and evil–and we find that good and evil are moving targets. Corporations are evil, but many draw their sustenance from corporations. Energy companies are evil, but we most drive cars. Big pharma is evil, but we depend on their remedies when malady strikes, troops lose their lives under Bush and Bush is a murderer/a liar (evil), they die under The Obama and they are casualties—-my point is that our language has been debased by the purveyors of political correctness to the point of ridiculousness. Rush used a good example today when he mentioned the grilling that Boehner received on Face the Nation about his smoking—he smokes, so what—-The Obama smokes and journalist laugh at his “struggle” with the addiction. One is excoriated and the other elicits giggles; the duplicity is just another example. Words matter, as The Obama said during the campaign–though his besotted Marxist-leaning followers don’t seem to have gotten the memo.
All that to say; I believe that Marxism is demonstrably evil, with a body count that continues to this day. Central planning is evil—exhibit 1—the former Soviet Union.
Liberty is good; for folks better than our current generation of political leaders (from both parties) had the good sense to stay the hell out of the way and let Americans live free. As Reagan said, “the government is the problem, not the solution.” Palin gets that, and I believe that is one reason that her voice resonates with many Americans. A day is coming when words really will matters; the hyperbole is wearing thin.
I want to return for a moment to my theory that the left sees itself as an aristocracy of brilliance and education. The fact that much of that education is dissipated in nonsensical deconstructionist navel gazing, notwithstanding. She went to state college, four or five of them. She got a communications degree. She was a housewife who decided to get into local politics. All of these characteristics differentiate her from the self anointed elites.
There is an interesting post by Jonah Goldberg today that is the story of a renegade elitist and is entertaining as well as painful. It is a struggle right now to be in academia and have rightist views. A couple of years ago, in a medical school faculty meeting, I made the comment that the greatest educational institution in American History was the Army Air Corps of World War II which taught 240,000 men to fly. You should have heard the snorts of disbelief and ridicule, especially from a few female faculty members. Fortunately, as a voluntary faculty member, I could care less what their opinion is. On the other hand, I’ve been an Assistant Clinical Professor for 40 years.
Everett,
I’m not a Palin supporter. I admire her communication skill and zest for political combat, and particularly that she sets off our enemies so well, but IMO she has a way to go before being ready for national office. It’s more a question of character than skill or experience. She needs to stop responding to personal attacks, and that requires more self-confidence.
This Mauro guy needs to quit accepting the media version of Palin. The media focuses on her clothes, her hand, some throwaway line, etc… anything to avoid talking about her policy positions.
Some say she’s not very detailed, but at this stage in the game, why should she be? Things can change in a year or so and it’s stupid to paint yourself into a corner at this point.
For anyone who wants to do some actual research – http://www.petroleumnews.com/palinbook/introduction.html
IMHO, everyone should hear this interview. I wish it had been blasted from the rooftops after the 2008 election. It was back when Obama had just won and people were willing to give him a bit of a chance, and before she realized that the Left wasn’t going to let her return to her position as Governor. They were going to try to destroy her. –
http://www.palintv.com/2008/11/06/sarah-palin-talks-to-bob-and-mark-on-november-6-2008/
And this one, from 2006 – http://www.palintv.com/2006/10/03/todd-and-sarah-palin-on-bob-and-mark-show-october-3-2006/
Uffda, Thanks for the posted links. Unfiltered she has much to admire.
like the infantile use of the word awesome to describe the ordinary—in the 80’s excellent] was the adjective in vogue].
“Bitchin'” was the equivalent in the 50s. Just thought you might like to know. You may not believe it but, to be a “bitchin’ guy” was an attainment to be reckoned with.
Sarah Palin is the ordinary person elevated to a position of great power by forces that are not of her making. People are so sick of the usual suspects groveling around in the trough, including the universities and the NGOs and whatever other “elites” we can think of. They cannot raise a snout from the trough long enough to make an intelligent comment. Someone else, somewhere else commented on a wedding announcement in which every single person in the wedding party was a government employee. And they were boasting about it !
The comment was “How many parasites can the body sustain?”
I don’t think Sarah is Joanne of Arc but the comparison comes to mind.
“Bitchin” is stil a favorable review…the moniker may have legs:))
We’re approaching a tipping point with the nonsense—the portion of America that did not pay attention now is. 10 is just the beginning, and I’m not convinced the GOP has the sense to build on a certain Nov victory. Most of the national GOP bubbas seem tone-deaf; Steele, McConnell, Boehner, and Cantor can’t seem to decide “what” America needs in response to The Obama Marxists. “What” the GOP does with a majority in Jan will help whoever gets the nomination in 12—Sarah’s continued active participation seems to be helping more than hurting—she’s not like the pigs at the trough.
I held my nose to vote for McCain (I have held my nose since 84–Bush in 04 wasn’t so hard, but his 08 behavior in the financial mess was deplorable), but his elevation of Palin was a stroke of genius. She has the potential to change the game in an “awesome and excellent” kind of way:))
The Lefty reaction to Sarah Palin is as predictable as the day is long. What I find more interesting is the reaction of the Peggy Noonan’s of the world — this putative Republican elite who reacted badly to Sarah Palin as an upstart.
Are the Republican elites reacting as Republican elites do, all Country Club, Skull and Bones, insular insiders who cannot recognize talent when they see it? Or is there some basis for their reaction?
Start with religion. My understanding is that Sarah Palin was born and raised a Catholic, not exactly your WASP-y Mainline Protestant, but it is a church with a substantial following in the U.S., expecially the Irish, part of the German, Italian, and now Hispanic communities. My understanding is that she is a convert to a Pentacostal denomination. There are converts out of Catholicism all the time, but going from Catholic to Pentacostal is not your run-of-the-mill middle-class religious experience. One undergoes such a religious conversion as a particular kind of religious awakening and expression of religious zeal because there is quite solid indoctrination in Catholic upbringing against doing this kind of thing, which puts Sarah Palin on a kind of religious fringe.
Continue with education. The mainstream middle-class college experience is that, yes, you don’t “get in” to Harvard, but you go to one of the higher-ranked state schools, and you buckle down and study and get your degree in four years. There is some sense, and people can correct me on this, is that Sarah Palin graduated from a third tier institution after spending a large amount of time at different places to finally get a degree.
On to gender. There is a sense among many Republicans that race and gender as a selling point of a candidate is an affectation of Democrats, but that Republicans don’t stoop to that kind of pandering, which Mr. McCain was doing, because he needed something to counter the Obama groundswell as it were.
Finally, family values. Even the most loving parent exercising the strictest of moral guidance can end up with a family member “in a family way”, but Bristol Palin’s (eventual) child was on one hand “walking the walk” of the Pro-Life position, but on the other hand raising questions of whether Governor Mom put her career ahead of her kids in the sense of not knowing her daughter was “going with” a cad such as Mr. Johnston.
What I saw as the strong point of Ms. Palin, oddly enough, was energy policy. Especially with Mr. McCain offering his lame admission of “not being strong on economic policy” with the implication that his mind was on foreign affairs. When pressed on her foreign policy credentials (none), she should have countered “Senator McCain is the undisputed senior statesman in foreign affairs, from both parties. What I bring to the team is economic policy and especially energy policy. I have a proven record bringing people together to develop domestic energy sources. Energy is the engine of our modern economy, and the $140/barrel oil price of this summer is what is bringing the economy to its knees, and my aim is to turn this around.”
If she was Ms Energy Policy, yes, the Left would have savaged her anyway. Sometimes you have to stick to your area of expertise, and the Alaska-Canada natural gas pipeline was an achievement in this day when things are so gridlocked you can’t get any domestic energy on line. And Sarah Palin speaks, if not intelligently in an engineering sense, certainly intelligently in a political sense, that “Energy security is a three-legged stool of domestic oil and gas production, alternative energy, and conservation and energy efficiency.” But she became everything but that role as the McCain campaign lost focus and went off the rails as it were.
“I think the left’s inability to see Palin as a legitimate political figure reveals a great deal about their insular mindset and their deep need to see themselves as superior to other people even at the cost of a loss of political power.”
I think that the right has an even greater need to feel superior to others, like blacks and other minorities. Sometimes they need to feel economically superior (restoring honor and taking back their country), but more often they need to feel morally superior, which I think explains many conservatives’ rejection of gays rights. It is conservatives, like Palin, who delegitimize entire segments of American society by claiming that only they (Palin and company) are real Americans. This is indeed an insular mindset, and it risks the loss of political power by alienating independents like me.
I think that the right has an even greater need to feel superior to others, like blacks and other minorities.
Then tell me why I was ready to support Condi Rice as my President?
Sometimes they need to feel economically superior (restoring honor and taking back their country),
As opposed to reducing ourselves to the least-common-denominator of human society and subordinating our liberty and ability to pursue happiness to a self-selected group of Best and Brightest whose performance has been anything but?
but more often they need to feel morally superior, which I think explains many conservatives’ rejection of gays rights.
As opposed to redefining a fundamental social contract that transcends religion and culture, just so they don’t have to deal with even principled criticism of their lifestyle choice?
I think that the Re-, er, Progressive Left not only takes the positions they do to garner a feeling of superiority …
… they do so to take from others what they think they deserve for themselves, simply because they think it (and jamming the tenets of their faith down others’ throats in the process …
… and to protect their ability to indulge in whatever pet vice they may have, without fear of having their mellow harshed.
(First of all, after this fisking, and also reading the evisceration of that Oler character in the linked Palin thread, I am reminded again to never get on Shannon Love’s bad side.)
The ironic thing is that this contempt for Palin among the race/class/gender “educated” crowd has raised a great deal of class consciousness among us “vulgar bourgeoise.” I don’t think the middle class really had any notion about how their belief systems and values were held in such disregard by their “betters.” I think they certainly do now.
Besides, it’s always fun to see the Margaret Dumonts of the world sputter at Rufus T. Firefly. Palin, right now, is our top Rufus T. Firefly.
Michael K…”in a medical school faculty meeting, I made the comment that the greatest educational institution in American History was the Army Air Corps of World War II which taught 240,000 men to fly. You should have heard the snorts of disbelief and ridicule, especially from a few female faculty members”…very revealing. One might have gotten a similar reaction from a group of British aristocrats in 1900 about a large-scale training program for locomotive drivers, or for that matter mechanical engineers.
There was also a large-scale WWII trainig program–can’t remember the name exactly–to train people for a manufacturing environment. Not teaching Rosie the Riveter how to rivet, but rather teaching Sally the Scheduler how to schedule production. I think Evolving Excellence posted a link to it a while back.
The insanity of the Progressive Left with Palin was very much evident at the time of her VP Debate with Biden.
Journ-o-list spent a huge amount of effort creating the “Palin is Dan Quayle in a skirt” story line and building up the debate as her coming out failure and it turned out that Biden was not Lloyd Benson and Palin was….not Dan Quayle.
Few seem to remember that this VP debate is where 69 million American TV viewers got their first real introduction to Sarah Palin.
She did well, the Progressive Left ground their teeth, and the result in foreign eyes was very apparent.
See:
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php
In Palin, the Left has found a new conservative to fear and loathe.
Had she been a community organising Democrat woman who bore a child out of wedlock and favoured affirmative action, abortion on demand, gun laws and gay marriage, they would be saying very different things about her.
Give her a break, they would say. Stop poking fun at her private life. The White House is replete with examples of inexperienced politicians, they would argue.
Palin has attracted the blowtorch from progressives for one reason alone. What really scares them are her conservative views about family, faith and country – not her political inexperience.
And what frightens them even more is the fact that Palin speaks directly to a broader audience of social conservatives whom progressives can never really understand because they don’t want to.
That she spoke in straight-talking language with humour and charm to middle America during yesterday’s debate will mean that after progressives have wiped away their tears of disappointment, they can return to their infuriation at the Palin phenomenon.
She may not win McCain the election come November. But yesterday at Washington University, Palin certainly didn’t lose it for him.
Who cares what Palin’s political positions are?
Political positions are poses and lies used by politicians to persuade voters. They have little connection to reality, truth, or how the politician will behave in office. I’ve learned never to pay attention to “issues,” since once in office, only a issues can and will be addressed by any politician.
Anonymous,
I think that the right has an even greater need to feel superior to others, like blacks and other minorities.
Oh, right, everyone on the right is a racist while everyone on the left is morally perfect. Got it.
Hmmm, strange isn’t that while the right thinks that poor black people are responsible enough to keep firearms for protection, the left tells everyone that blacks can’t be trusted with guns? Isn’t that the argument behind the need for gun control to reduce “urban” i.e. black violence. I’m confused, wouldn’t people who thought that black people where morally and intellectually inferior want to disarm black people? That was certainly the pattern in the past.
Isn’t it the right that says that minority parents are smart responsible enough to choose their children’s own education through voucher/charter systems whereas leftist say that minority parents can’t be trusted to do what is best for their own children and that instead distant, largely white, educrats should make all the decisions?
In general, doesn’t the right view all people, including minorities, as mature capable people all equally capable of managing their own lives? Doesn’t the right advocate putting more money and decision making authority directly in the hands of minority citizens?
Is that how real racist act?
You are correct that people on the right have a need to feel morally superior. That is because all humans have that need. The big difference is where the moral rules come from. Leftist believe that they and they alone possess the awesome intellect to invent new moral rules and to reengineer society from the ground up. Leftists believe if they individually cannot see any harm in changing, say one of humanity’s core universal institution then, because they are so brilliant, that no harm can possibly result.
Non-leftists, especially social conservatives take the exact opposite tact. They believe that knowledge of the correct behaviors is universal and that every adult, young, old, rich, poor, educated or illiterate understands what is the correct thing to do. Unlike leftist, however, they don’t believe themselves to be perfected humans but rather mortal being who must daily struggle to do right. They believe that laws have to exist to provide guardrails on correct path to keep everyone from succumbing to temptation and falling off the path.
The social conservative view of the intersection of morality and law is therefore highly egalitarian whereas the leftists view is highly elitist.
This is indeed an insular mindset, and it risks the loss of political power by alienating independents like me.
I don’t think you will find a lot of people who agree. Frankly, if it is a choice between loosing all control over ones material existence and waiting a few years for gay marriage, I think most people will choose the later. It’s not a life or death thing like medical care.
Most leftists don’t even care much for gay marriage or they wouldn’t be so dismissive of peoples objections to it and instead would try to engage and listen to concerns e.g. the claim that marriage as an institution has nothing to do with children. Instead, they just use issue as a cudgel to rhetorically beat people with. The issue will resolve itself, they will feel smug and then move onto to breaking some other cultural taboo like polygamy or “intergenerational romance.” Anything to demonstrate their own superiority.
Palin was….not Dan Quayle.
Was Dan Quayle Dan Quayle? Everything I heard about the man I learned from individuals and institutions that I know have been lying to me relentlessly for at least ten years.
Palin loves this country and wants the best for it. That American spirit attracts people except the intellectualoids. They’d rather hate.
You’re on the same point I’ve been on with some of my “progressive” friends on a few occasions lately:
If you really want people to believe you’re as open-minded, intelligent, tolerant and sensitive as I’m sure you think you are, you’re going to have to come with something better than “everyone who disagrees with me is an idiot.”
Because otherwise you’re none of those things.
…that sometimes her casual comments prove politically devastating because they crystallize the preexisting ideas and concerns of the middle class.
It is something much worse.
Mauro and his ilk understand that the middle class may have ideas and concerns, they simply believe that those ideas and concerns are of no merit due to the nature of their source, and so warrant no concern by the governing class.
Palin offends them, not simply by being one who gives voice to the little people, but as someone who might tend to reinforce the middle class’ notion that their opinions matter.
Hmmmm.
Reminds me of the whole “lords and serfs” feudal model.
Hmmmm.
In another line something that I’ve noticed over the years is that liberals have great difficulty in understanding conservatives so inevitably they ascribe evil intentions to replace what they don’t understand. And because conservatives, due to being former liberals or having been inundated since childhood by liberal ideas, do understand liberal POV tend to regard them as somewhat unhinged or crazy.
E.g. liberals think conservatives are evil, conservatives think liberals are crazy.
May not the Establishment’s (Left and Right) reaction to Palin be simply a matter of defending territory? Territoriality is a tremendously strong drive and the political/moral territory occupied by the Establishment is pretty choice.
ThomasD,
Mauro and his ilk understand that the middle class may have ideas and concerns, they simply believe that those ideas and concerns are of no merit due to the nature of their source, and so warrant no concern by the governing class.
I think there is a lot of merit in that idea. The leftmost 10%-20% of the American spectrum are essentially crypto-marxist (although many are unaware) and one of the basic tenets of Marxism is the idea of “false consciousness” that primarily affects the middle-class. Marxist considered those with a “false consciousness” as being utterly delusional and incapable of making correct political choices.
In the marxist hierarchy of evil, the middle-class was worse than the rich capitalist. Palin hatred, and hatred of the people she represents to leftists could just be the modern manifestation of this old Marxist idea.
*Sigh* We took out Fascism and Communism but the damn thing still alive. It’s like killing a vampire. (An old school nosferatu, not the sparkly kind.)
“Was Dan Quayle Dan Quayle? Everything I heard about the man I learned from individuals and institutions that I know have been lying to me relentlessly for at least ten years.”
Indeed. I have a high school friend (who is now running for congress) who was at the 1988 New Orleans Rep. Convention. He saw DQ talk before GHWB had “popped the question.” Very bright. Articulate. Funny. Off the cuff. A real star. He didn’t recognize the guy a couple days later after Bush’s handlers got done with him. The Palin-in-McCain’s-campaign fiasco was very familiar.
Sorry, premature post.
May not the Establishment’s (Left and Right) reaction to Palin be simply a matter of defending territory? Territoriality is a tremendously strong drive and the political/moral territory occupied by the Establishment – and now laid claim to by Palin, and through her by ‘ordinary’ Americans – is pretty choice.
It’s most interesting to watch some people respond to Palin. I am of the camp that ‘she makes all the right people angry’ and that is part of what I love about her.
It’s particularly interesting because by rights I would be part of the ‘elite’ but their behaviour has made me choose instead to identify with the TEA party crowd. I have a couple of graduate degrees from ‘good’ schools (including one in International Political Economics) and I am from a very Democratic, well educated family (everyone has at least one graduate degree… usually more) in a major liberal city.
However, I was also raised as a Catholic and I am still an active practicing Catholic. That means that those attacks against anyone who lives a life of faith is an attack against me as well. During the last election it really got bad and I realized that I needed to choose what is most important – my self perception as a ‘smart person’ or my faith. My faith absolutely won.
Now I laugh when my former compatriots in the ‘elite’ tell me that I am stupid (funny, I wasn’t stupid when I was on their side) and ‘superstitious’ (always by people who never have actually STUDIED religion). I have realized that in many point of substance I have more in common with the blue collar guys I have met at TEA party events… and that those people often have a much more sophisticated understanding of economics than I did when I got my fancy piece of paper.
Mauro and others like him should realize that with attacks like this they are not just attacking Palin. Rather they are showing who they really are and what they really think about other people who have more in common with Palin that he may realize.
“A couple of years ago, in a medical school faculty meeting, I made the comment that the greatest educational institution in American History was the Army Air Corps of World War II which taught 240,000 men to fly. You should have heard the snorts of disbelief and ridicule, especially from a few female faculty members.”
Try suggesting that the US Marine Corps has done more for world peace than all the NGOs and petitions and proceeds from Ben and Jerry’s ice cream combined.
Or that Walt Disney did more for overall human happiness than all the philosophers from Aristotle on.
Fun for hours!
Shannon,
I agree with your assessment. My own experience in myriad interactions with self professed ‘progressives’ is that if you dig hard enough most will either openly express such belief that whole swathes of the populace are incapable of making informed political choices; or they will attempt to avoid any overt confirmation of such belief, all the while still expressing the sentiment.
Fascism and communism (Soviet totalitarianism really) were nothing but the flowering of something with much deeper roots. It is a belief system that sprouted out of seeds sown by the likes of Hegel all the way to Rousseau and some of his contemporaries – that is where the germ lies. If we are to defeat this menace to liberty we will need to get beyond the limited conceptions of the Twentieth century. We chopped off those flower tops only to see new ones arise.
MST,
Long ago I saw a hilarious internet video of an episode of a TV talk show – I think it was in Florida – which had then-Senator Dan Quayle and George Carlin on it. The show was first aired months (or maybe a year) before the 1988 GOP convention.
Quayle had no idea who George Carlin was, while Carlin realized he had a live one. I wish that video could be reposted on YouTube or something.
Is this Mauro fool actually part of the elite, currently aspiring to be part of it or simply imagines himself to be part of it? Since there are no ID cards (as far as I know) or membership blanks to fill out, I would assume the agenda is set by the biggest mouths – the MSM, Obama and his flacks and the usual list of celebrity and political windbags. I mention this because elitism is fundamentally an anti-democratic concept and thus not subject to the usual give and take of rational debate. The agenda of the elite is thus subject to go wherever their psychoses and self-righteousness takes them. So what if the elite one day decide that everyone whose name begins with “M” is a danger to society? Would he still cling to the notion that the elite should be deferred to? Would he “think for himself” and disagree with their position? If so, on what basis would he expect support since he has always opined that the ruling class should hold all the trump cards? Maybe there is a reason we allow everyone to speak, even those that the leadership considers “stupid”.
Stereotypes are at best statistical descriptions of groups of people that exist solely in the minds of the individuals holding the stereotypes. In short, stereotypes are simplified cartoons that don’t reflect the real people that they purport to describe
This is a popular misconception. Stereotypes are usually characterised as (a) unfavorable to the groups they purport to describe and (b) inaccurate. Whereas as this learned (but extremely hard going) tome explains :
http://www.amazon.com/Stereotype-Accuracy-Appreciating-Differences-Science/dp/1557983070
stereotypes are more usually (a) favorable to the groups they purport to describe and (b) accurate.
They are indeed only statistical descriptions, but they are more often than not rooted in reality rather than merely in the minds of the stereotypers.
Lee Moore,
Yes, I am familiar with some that research on stereotyping. I’m not sure how much credence I give it. Psychology being a mushy field. However, even that research shows that the accuracy of stereotypes with a decrease in first hand knowledge of the group being stereotyped.
In this case, Mauro et al actually know nothing about Palin except what they’ve been told by 3rd parties with an agenda. So I feel confident my original statement is correct. Mauro only understands a cartoon version of Palin.
Isn’t it fascinating that the left elite attack on the right as racist and economically elitist is by some one who is too cowardly to post their name? (Anonymous 9/14 9:19am)
Even the commenters on this blog are scared of Palin. People are relegating her to all manner of lower positions, except the one she’s most qualified for: POTUS. During the 2008 election, Palin was the only candidate with 20 years of executive experience. In reading the comments, I found the sluts objection, the nuts one, the yes-but. Fascinating. Does the idea of a female POTUS scare Americans so much?
In my estimation, her chief virtue is that she annoys and enrages all the right people.
Yep. She’s a very good, and very resilient, lightning rod.
Charles Krauthammer summed it up nicely: before Palin can be presidential timber, she needs to bone up on history and get a grip on the evolution of personal and economic liberty, from the Magna Carta and John Locke on forward.
Indeed. Liberals don’t engage conservatives anymore. They simply describe conservatives or their positions as ignorant, greedy, racist, nativist, whatever. I cannot decide if this is because they consider themselves above such people or if they smear them because they can’t rebut them. Maybe what flusters them most is being unable to rebut arguments made by people beneath them.
I think that much of the modern Left – that which doesn’t consist of rent-seekers of various sorts – is comprised of people who have chosen their positions only as an aesthetic reaction to truck driving, WalMart shopping, churchgoing types. The Left dislikes conservatives because they consider themselves to have more refined taste.
Either way, their open hatred for mainstream, working Americans is obvious everytime the modern, 60s and post-60s Left takes complete control of the government, which is why they never do so for but 2 years at a stretch: 1992-94 and 2008-10.
Great post Shannon! I am a Conservative, who happens to be Christian, and I sometimes find Palin annoying, but I agree with her on most issues. You nailed Mauro as a classic Progressive elitist. They believe people like Palin are idiots, because they may not come from the same circles, didn’t attend the approved ivy league schools, or don’t speak with a meaningless “word of the day” diatribe that they are used to hearing. One of the good things, that has been a result of the current events over the last 2-3 years, is that people are actually starting to THINK about what they hear politicians say, and finally deciding if it makes sense. You don’t need a degree to know that 2+2=four.
Paul,
McCain picked Palin to staunch Libertarian bleeding from the party. It had nothing to do with gender.
Why McCain Picked Palin
Me? I’m a libertarian Republican and the day McCain picked Palin was one of the happiest political days of my life. I turn 66 in Oct.