No More Mister Nice Blog

I Don't Know That I Agree With This:

What the people who are flipping out about the treatment of Palin should be asking themselves is what it means when it’s not just jerks like us but everybody piling on against Palin. For those of you who can’t connect the dots, I’ll tell you what it means. It means she’s been cut loose. It means that all five of the families have given the okay to this hit job, including even the mainstream Republican leaders. You teabaggers are in the process of being marginalized by your own ostensible party leaders in exactly the same way the anti-war crowd was abandoned by the Democratic party elders in the earlier part of this decade. Like the antiwar left, you have been deemed a threat to your own party’s “winnability.”

And do you know what that means? That means that just as the antiwar crowd spent years being painted by the national press as weepy, unpatriotic pussies whose enthusiastic support is toxic to any serious presidential aspirant, so too will all of you afternoon-radio ignoramuses who seem bent on spending the next three years kicking and screaming your way up the eternal asshole of white resentment now find yourself and your political champions painted as knee-jerk loonies whose rabid irrationality is undeserving of the political center. And yes, that’s me saying that, but I’ve always been saying that, not just about Palin but about George Bush and all your other moron-heroes.

What’s different now is who else is saying it. You had these people eating out of the palms of your hands (remember what it was like in the Dixie Chicks days?). Now they’re all drawing horns and Groucho mustaches on your heroes, and rapidly transitioning you from your previous political kingmaking role in the real world to a new role as a giant captive entertainment demographic that exists solely to be manipulated for ratings and ad revenue. What you should be asking yourself is why this is happening to you. Even I don’t know the answer to that question, but honestly, I don’t really care. All I know is that I find it extremely funny.

Its the great Matt Taibbi, and I agree that, in a sense Palin has been "cut loose" and the hit is on. But I don't agree that the "Five Families" aka the Republican elites are going to be able to marginalize the Palinites and the teabaggers for whom she has become a symbol. One problem is the confusion in the three paragraphs, which may be due to my misreading, between the political leadership and the media moguls. It is the media guys who are "drawing horns and Groucho mustaches..." and who are "transitioning" the rebels into a "new role as a giant captive entertainment demographic..." But of course none of the viewing audience has ever been anything other than such an entertainment graphic--have they?

Just look at Digby's clip from Hardball in which all the political crises facing the country are reduced to the notion that there's a "30-40 year old demographic" that "wants to make a buck..." and a real, serious, senior voter "55 and older" who want to decrease the deficit. Matthews et al not only assume a certain demographic in their viewers, but project totally bizarre notions of these limited demographics onto voters. Oddly enough lots of people are still "interested in making a buck" (also known as surviving) from age 20 right up until retirement, and increasingly no one is retiring. But demo speak only knows little bitty ten year slices apparently. Because the entertainment/news industry explicitly models its political coverage on the idea of the voter as consumer, buying some cheap, knock off policies that politicians are selling. Also, demo speak only addresses individuals qua individuals--they are never in family units, or experiencing the demands of family and friends. So grandparents never worry about the economic realities faced by their children and grandchildren. And none of those "30-40 year olds" are trying to pay for both their children and their parents when they "make a buck."

At any rate I agree with Taibbi that, for a lot of reasons, Palin is going to rapidly descend from "America's next potential leader" to "America's next public pratfaller." That's the celebrity cycle in a nutshell generally speaking. It is all the more the celebrity cycle for a mass, pop cultural phenomenon. And that is what Palin is--because that is who she has chosen to be. Palin marketed herself aggressively to McCain's base as an outsider for outsiders, as a holy roller for religious fringe types, as a working mom for the disaffected. In the heat of the campaign the Republican party and the mass media were happy to accept that this was authentic and meaningful and delightful and that such people (being authentic americans with real votes to spend) should have their icons stamped and sent directly to the White House. When McCain's populist gambit failed to put him over the top during the last election cycle Palin was supposed to go back into her box, or prepare to be used again in four years by some other kingmaker who needed some populist cred. But she refused to go back and went out on the hustings again marketing herself--mistaking the populist base of the GOP for a real, potential national power base.

Palin is selling herself to the fringiest, most unhappy, most aggressive, most detached segment of America's right wing. She is demanding that they see her as one of them, and they do. But every action has an equal and opposite reaction, doesn't it? And the equal and opposite reaction that Palin is having with the mass media is that the more she aligns herself with our crazy aunt in the national attic the more she loses the kind of class status and social distance that enabled them to swallow her in the first place because John McCain gave her his imprimatur. This is the same phenomenon you see in any caste society, btw, when a lower caste tries to come to power, or when an upper caste person associates with a lower caste person. Look at Howard Dean, who Taibbi discusses elsewhere in the post, he was assigned the class status (and by class status I mean really a kind of political status) of the anti-war movement and therefore seen as impossible as a legitimate candidate. For purposes of democratic mythology the press are willing to pretend, every four years, that everyone in the country is entitled to dream of getting representation in the White House. But as Taibbi argues in the post they inevitably determine which candidates will be taken seriously and which won't.

Palin, like her voters, may have been determined to be beyond the pale right now (and she and they may not). But this minor, aesthetic repudiation will only continue until the Republican party has need of them again and then a new figurehead will be put forward to take the torch from Palin's faltering hands. This has to happen because although the Press doesn't need one Palin, or another, to fill the 24 hour maw the Republican party does just as soon as it needs votes. Which is by way of saying that I don't think for one minute that the Republican party is going to be able to dethrone its own new heroes, or assuage the grassroots anger of the teabaggers. However much they may want to "draw mustaches" on anyone's picture they are going to do it quietly, in the back of the bus. Because the lunatics are driving and they want to go where Palin, or someone like her, is taking them.

Time Is What Prevents Everything From Happening At Once.

The big question for me is "what is the shelf life of Palin and of Palinism? I think that Palin's shelf life is actually going to be rather short--longer perhaps than any other failed VP candidate in American history but short in political life terms. Palinism is another story. That will be with us as long as there is a Republican Party and a retro/angry white base for it to lean on.

The important thing to remember about Palin as a candidate for any national office is that it takes way more than for "Barkis to be willing." The Candidate proposes but the national party, the money men, and the talented managerial staff (in the end) dispose. McCain essentially failed into the nomination during the last round of Republican Primaries. That is, his other competition, each with their varying bases, finances, friends, connections and staffs canceled each other out and he was the last man standing. But at that point all the money and staff came to him. They ran a lousy campaign but his campaign managers were far from inexperienced. The first hurdle for Palin is going to be putting together an actual crack team next time around. She may be able to get the best people, or she may not.

McCain had OK people running his campaign, but they were, of course, hampered by the fact that McCain's logical voters were unexcited by him. That's why they brought Palin on. They explicitly wanted to get the well organized Evangelical Church turnout going. That's a base that's really sturdy. But is that really Sarah's base now? I'm not so sure. There seems to be a big overlap between the Tea Baggers/Dick Armey's tools and Palin's public fan base. But these are all different things. For one thing, despite Dick's best efforts, the Tea Baggers are proving to be difficult to herd and are currently suing each other left right and right of center. This, needless to say, is going to be a serious energy suck and if they can't get the problem under control the Tea Baggers as an authentic populist movement are going to be really hamstrung. Worse (from their point of view) they will become unable to organize anything at the grassroots, let alone voter registration and turn out.

Which brings us back to the actual Evangelical Churches/Mega Churches/Christian right. Are they really going to be Sarah's base? I can't tell. I've got no particular insight into this. To my mind Sarah has a problem with (some) portion of the truly right wing religious in this country. I know some women chose to vote "third party" because they did not approve of her working outside the home although they did approve, of course, of the five kids, the religiosity, and the unaborted baby. But those women tend to be extremely anti government--Sarah actually blotted her copybook further with them by claiming that she would encourage some kind of government action on behalf of special needs children once she was in the White House. Every attempt to reach out to Independents/people who don't hate and fear government was seen as a betrayal by this faction.

Perhaps that is neither here nor there. What matters for this group as a whole is the hierarchy and what they think. But are they going to throw their weight behind Palin early enough, as well as late enough, to push her to the top of the candidate field? That is going to depend on who else is running. All things being equal if they can get a respectable, responsible, handsome, male in that role they are going to prefer that. Not least because after following the last campaign they must be as aware as McCain and his team are that Sarah can't be controlled and channeled. On this blog we've been talking a lot about what Sarah's fans think, or see, but the truth of the matter is that the big money people, and the big mega church people, are as important in this mix. They, too, are watching Sarah on this unofficial campaign tour. Every misstep, every public lie, every little bit of ugliness and every piece of information is being watched. And when those guys watch Sarah at work they are going to be balancing her undeniable crowd appeal/fundraising success against the fact that they won't be able to reach any real agreement with Sarah about how the next campaign is going to be run, or how the country is going to be run. The principle fact of Palin's life is that she is extremely stupid, self interested, and unteachable. I don't say that because I don't like her. I say that because of what she says about herself and how she describes the campaign. People worked for McCain because they loved him and people are extremely forgiving of men, especially (sniff) war heroes when they are cranky assholes. They are incredibly unforgiving of women. And they are scared of them--scared of their uncontrollable angers, whims, and confusions. We need to factor that inherent sexist imbalance into the picture before we can begin to think realistically about how Dobson et al are going to approach the early funding and backing of Palin.

Which is a long winded way of saying that a few years is a long time in political life. And its a longer time in a woman's life. Palin has the unenviable task of keeping herself in the public eye, and respectably so, for two years before she even starts officially running. Of course she can do it. She is at least as well equipped as previous right wing darlings like Coulter to show up at important events, punditing, etc... And, of course, not holding any kind of public office or job means that she can freely pontificate on any topic without fear of having to put any of her theories into practice. That's all good. Its the same route Huckabee has chosen, though less successfully, to keep his name in the public's eye. But the longer she's in the public eye the more chances she and her entourage have to descend into farce, or disaster, a la Jon and Kate plus Eight--or even a la Princess Diana. Live as a Celebrity mother/sex object and die the same way. McCain bet the farm that she would serve her purpose before he ran out of electoral time. And he was wrong. Essentially she's running the same gambit--can she run out the clock on her own flaws and imperfections as a role model, political actor, and campaigner?

If she can't make it over the hump and gain the nomination for her party in 2011 what's next for Palin? Can she can continue on as a cult figure, like Ron Paul or Nader or Perot? I think she can, but not in a very meaningful way. But every year we move away from her original burst onto the stage the voting population that supports her will get older and whiter and less relevant. Will their kids be as excited by her? Because if not, appealing to Palin's popularity will, in a few years, become as mythic and strange as the recent appeals back to Reagan. The old geezers keep talking about him but most of the younger voters simply have no idea what they are talking about. She's been compared to Nixon, but she's no Nixon. She is not now, and never will be, the successful architect and manager of her own career on the national stage. She either has the backing, or she will fail. She's been compared to Buchanan and to Gingerich. There, I think, the comparison holds a bit more water. As I said before in the post "Imitation of Life" there's plenty of money to be made punditing around on the basis of having been an also ran, at least for Republicans. I can well imagine Palin having a niche market in sound bites and pundit interviews for a very long while to come. But other than bitching and sniping and lying (and I mean that perfectly analytically) she doesn't actually have much to say so if that's her goal she will end up some kind of Fox News figure with relatively little significance--she'll always say the same thing. The same people will listen to her, and the same people will ignore her. She will cease to be an important figure because she will cease to surprise or to lead.

But what of Palinism? That, I think, will be around for a long time since its just the latest avatar of anti-government, white ressentiment, christianist hand-wringing, apocalyptic, faux small town nostalgia. Because its all those things at once, and they are neither mutually inclusive nor mutually exclusive, expect to see Palinism (once it is freed of Palin herself) fragmenting and re-arranging itself around various hysterias--sometimes anti-tax, sometimes anti-gay sometimes hyper-patriotic sometimes extremely anti-government (and these are of course, sometimes the same thing). But without a polar figure around whom to dance it will not succeed so as soon as Palin is no longer sucking up the oxygen the various segments of her following will be looking for a new icon to worship.