Sullivan on Sarah Palin

Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish has been accused of obsession with Sarah Palin. There may be some truth to that. However, obsession can lead to useful insights into otherwise misunderstood phenomena. His latest post on Palin warns us not to underestimate her as a political force on the right as David Brooks of The New York Times might.

The first is the psychological appeal of the beautiful female warrior. Palin is not appealing to the Republican super-ego (in so far as one has survived the last ten years); she is directly, umbilically connected to the Republican id (and some other male organs). Her appeal is visceral not rational. And if modern post-Nixon Republicanism has always had a thread of class resentment sustaining it, Palin concentrates it into a heady brew. If Nixon was cocaine for the resentful psyche, Palin is meth. Secondly, she fuses both Tea-Party anti-government sentiment with neocon conviction about the necessity for American empire.

Of course, none of this makes any sense, but Palin, unlike some of her rivals who feel some kind of lingering need to relate their policies to fiscal and global reality, is a thoroughly post-modern creature. She creates her own reality, and that is an incredibly important talent for a party base that desperately wants to live in another reality (a kind of souped-up version of 1950s culture and late nineteenth century economy). Her book - a fictional account of an imagined life - sold well with the GOP base because they too want a fictional account of America's current standing in the world and an imagined set of viable policy positions. She so lives and breathes this magical-realist culture she doesn't need to channel it. She knows we can keep social security and Medicare and global power for ever and balance the budget without any taxes - because that is what she wants to know. And she has never let reality get in her way. Reality is one of those doors she keeps crashing through.

Like Gail Collins in the NYT blog piece, I really hope Sullivan is wrong and Brooks right.

I still feel more comfortable in a country where the elections are between two sane people.

However, several of Sully's observations ring true. The GOP and its base really do seem to have created their own alternate reality. This is demonstrated by the hammering that Republicans, and particularly Palin, generally take on the fact-check websites. It is amplified by Fox News and the rest of right-wing media and completely embodied, as Andrew points out, by Palin. Individuals or groups that cling to this sort of fictional mock-up are capable of just about anything. As Sullivan concludes:

Yes, many tea-partiers do not think Palin is "qualified" to be president. But primaries are won by enthusiasm and star power. Palin has both. And she has money. And, most important, she has a media machine dedicated to promoting her outside of any real scrutiny or questions. She has never faced a real press conference and speaks to "pre-screened" questioners at debates and speeches. She is a test-case of how willfully divorced from reality a segment of America can remain, and how irrelevant reality is for today's niche-targeted media. All of this makes Palin the most potent force in American politics since Obama. Acknowledging that requires a grasp of the depth of the crisis on the right. I think David still under-estimates how deep that crisis is. I think he still thinks the current Republican party is salvageable as a credible governing force. I don't.

--Ballard Burgher