Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Oh, Sarah

26 Comments

Emily Zanotti has it right:

Sarah Palin took the stage last night in a strange chainmaille cardigan, determined, it seemed, to relive the best moments from every speech she gave on the campaign trail in 2008. The result was an amalgamation of “Drill, baby, drills!” and vague references to congressional spending as drug use, pulled, seemingly at random, through a Magnetic Poetry kit or the like, from every great speech Sarah Palin has ever given. In some places, you could have easily replaced the what was quickly deemed on social media a “word salad,” with a string of emojis, and still have elicited the same general level of specificity and reason. We will be America! We will go to places! We will ensure the conservative opinion journalists of this world constantly regret their internal provision against day drinking!

The result was bizarre. She raged against crony capitalism — alongside a man who earlier in the day had embraced increased ethanol disbursements to the Iowa farmers we already pay not to grow food. She insisted she was “sticking it to the establishment” — alongside a man who has openly embraced the symbiotic relationship between government and big business at every opportunity. Gone was any indication that she had ever supported grassroots principles — you can’t oppose Obamacare in the same room as a man who recently called for a single-payer health care system, call for lower taxes from a man who has openly committed to raising them, or claim to support the pro-life cause next to a man who claims to be pro-choice “in every respect.” It’s hard to push a conservative agenda when the man standing next to you has no agenda but his own.

[Mid-morning update]

Matthew Hoy is with me:

Now, I’ve never been a big Sarah Palin fan, but I defended her in 2008 against attacks by the media on her fitness to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. Not that I thought she was necessarily qualified to be vice president, but she was more qualified to be VP than Sen. Barack Obama was to be president. It was the media’s willful and abject failure to apply a consistent standard that prompted most of my defenses of her.

I don’t know if yesterday’s endorsement will help Trump in Iowa or any other state, but for Tea Party conservatives, Palin has trashed what little remains of her own brand. Donald Trump is in no way shape or form a conservative. It’s almost mind-blowing that in her endorsement speech, Palin would include the following, considering who she was standing next to:

The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class, and that’s why you see that the borders are kept open,” Palin said. “For them, for their cheap labor that they want to come in. That’s why they’ve been bloating budgets for crony capitalists to be able to suck off of them.
Trump is the living embodiment of crony capitalism. He brags about how successful he is at the crony capitalism game.

I’m through defending Sarah Palin against anything anyone throws at her, no matter how vile.

[Afternoon update]

Does Palin’s endorsement of Trump spell an end to the Tea Party? An interesting conversation with some libertarians:

I’m not one of those guys that thinks that Donald Trump would make a bad president because he’s not a conservative; I’m one of those guys that thinks that Donald Trump is dangerous because he has such an authoritarian instinct that we don’t know what he would do as president. But he would not follow the rules, he would not respect the differences between the executive branch and the legislative branch. And that’s what the Tea Party was supposedly all about. We didn’t like executive power. […]

And I hate to use the F-word, but let’s go ahead and use it: The technical definition of fascism, and the history of fascism in the world, really wasn’t tethered to some sort of ideology the way socialism is. The goals were more random and scattered, but it creates a lot of chaos and it requires a lot of power. And I think we as Tea Partiers, as libertarians, as constitutional conservatives, we should judge a candidate based on whether or not they’ve actually read and respect the restraints placed on government power by the Constitution….

And by the way we should point out that there’s a mythology that all of Trump’s support is coming from the Tea Party. The data suggests something quite different–there’s a lot of independents, there’s a lot of registered Democrats, there’s a lot of people that haven’t participated in the process before.

That’s pretty much my take, too.

26 thoughts on “Oh, Sarah”

  1. I can’t say I listened to her speech or paid any attention to what she wearing, but I think her endorsement helped Trump in the near term. And I think any of the Rep candidate would have wanted her endorsement.

    I don’t think it is Huuge, but Trump did do what others couldn’t and so it is definitely another brick to Trump’s “I can do what others can’t” theme.

    1. On the topic, rubio has good response to atheist:
      https://pjmedia.com/election/2016/01/19/responding-to-atheist-rubio-has-perhaps-best-answer-about-religion-ever-by-a-republican/

      It’s possible it wasn’t a real atheist. Or my sense it was too good to be true, gives me a small amount of doubt. But even if it was staged- first it was very well done:) Or in the long history of staged performance it would rank up there as the best.
      Now I am not Christian, and don’t care if a president is a Christian, but there is no doubt that what a president believes is important, and being a Christian makes easier to know the sort of faith of a President.
      Or we should not want a President who thinks American “should not” be a superpower [that it’s morally wrong- kind of like the stupid ancient Greek faith of view of the world].

      1. In my adult lifetime we’ve had 2 presidents who self identified as Christian, but whose routine conduct or verbal gaffs lent great doubt to that claim.

  2. Rand,

    Instead of a kickstarter campaign for an ad, perhaps you could start a twitter tag, “formerpalinsupporters.”

  3. Expect more of the Palin-is-stupid party line from the “liberal” Hive. This, from the geniuses who think statist economics actually produce prosperity, the Law of Supply and Demand has been repealed, and that the more power we cede to Big Brother, the happier and better off we’ll all be!

  4. Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.

    If Trump just gets immigration under control he’ll have done more than Bush to move the country away from galloping Eurosocialism. The left has constructed the present wobbly edifice one small bit at a time. It will have to be dismantled the same way. The big reason the borders are open is the need to keep an ever growing population to feed the ponzi schemes. If that doesn’t happen those programs will have to be radically cut back.

    1. If Trump just gets immigration under control he’ll have done more than Bush to move the country away from galloping Eurosocialism

      Free trade and the right to travel are European socialism? That would have surprised Hitler and Stalin. They had travel restrictions, internal passports, walls and machine-gun towers — all the things immigration warriors long for. Perhaps you’re too young to remember the phrase, “Show are passport, Comrade”?

      Twenty years ago, the GOP stood for individual liberty, limited government, and traditional values. Today, GOPers merely want to expand government power and turn it against their own enemies. (“Who cares if Trump raises taxes, regulates us to death, and tramples the Bill of Rights, as long as he keeps the foreigners out!”)

      This is not surprising. As Robert Heinlein said, “Political tags–such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and. so forth–are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.”

      The argument between Republicans and Democrats is merely one of *how* people should be controlled and who will be the more effective controllers.

      1. It’s no longer about a right to travel. As has been repeated here and elsewhere, you can’t have unlimited immigration with a welfare state.

        I’ve always liked Sarah Palin, and still do, even though I didn’t care for this speech at all. I also like Trump, and prefer him to almost all the other contenders. But I’d like to be a realist about all of them. I’ve never agreed with everything that any of them said. The only other candidate that I like a lot is Cruz, and I have my issues with him, too. Each of you could probably say that about whichever candidate you’re going to vote for.

        Our options are few. You’ll need to pick one. Trump isn’t the authoritarian that most people here seem to think. He’s a lot better candidate than most of the others.

        1. As has been repeated here and elsewhere, you can’t have unlimited immigration with a welfare state.

          Hardly an original observation. The Wall Street Journal has said the same thing. Hastening the demise of the Welfare state is one reason why they favor immigration.

          Whereas the so-called “conservatives” here believe that protecting the Welfare state is more important.

          Of course, absent immigration, the US population would be in decline, which would also cause problems for the Welfare state. Immigration warriors never seem to consider that.

          Trump isn’t the authoritarian that most people here seem to think.

          Arguably true. There is a difference between an authoritarian and a totalitarian. 🙂

          1. Jobs are in decline, too. Although he won’t say it, that will continue even with Trump.

            The welfare state is something I’d rather not share to broadly.

          2. The welfare state is something I’d rather not share to broadly.

            That sums it up very well. Republicans just want to protect their “share” of the welfare.

            Which is why a corrupt billionaire welfare queen makes the perfect candidate for your party.

  5. It was a horrible speech. I think she is dyslexic and either never figured it out or was never told. It was must have been hard for Trump to stand there with a straight face.

    This could help Trump right now against Cruz and he thinks so or he wouldn’t have scheduled it for now. It isn’t an endorsement that matters in the general election. I wonder how she was brought on board, was it quid pro quo, an appeal to vengeance over being shafted by the GOPe, or something else?

    Trump certainly isn’t conservative. He is a centrist that fits in the establishment camp of either party. He strikes me as a person that would use government as a tool and play by the rules as they exist rather than reform the system.

    Obama has done a lot of damage to the system. Anyone who fears what Trump or other potential presidents might do by playing by the rules created by Obama shouldn’t blame future Presidents but the one we have right now and the people in the media, courts, and congress that enabled it.

    1. Oh, c’mon.

      The let-it-burn attitude in 2008 from those on the Right who disliked Senator McCain helped elect Senator Obama.

      1. Those Republican voters didn’t force Obama to use a phone and a pen and more people, around 7m, would have had to show up than voted for Bush in 2004 to keep Obama out of office.

        Its more logical to blame people who support Obama and voted for him rather than those that did neither.

  8. The funny thing is, the anti-Trump camp calls just about every one of his unexpected political actions and statements the end of him, and yet here he is, more popular than ever. Perhaps, just perhaps, he has gauged the wind correctly and it’s the anti-Trumpers who are the noisy minority, whining about purity and “real” conservatism. The GOPe is hopelessly corrupt and beyond help. They betray their voters wishes and American principles at every turn and yet so many STILL want to see them with control of the government, rather than chance an uncorrupted and “unpure” outsider. It’s idiocy.

    1. Yes the GOPe is indeed corrupt and beyond help has you say.

      But what if that “outsider” is as craven as they are and a better master at persuasive deception than they?

      Does the GOPe being evil make anyone or everyone willing to stand up to it good?

      1. “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

        H. L. Mencken

  10. What a crazy election. After everything Palin’s done and said the last seven years I didn’t think there was anything she could do to turn her die-hard supporters against her, but apparently there is.

    And now you have Bob Dole — Bob Dole! — saying that Trump would be a better choice than Ted Cruz. Amazing.

    1. You know what won’t be amazing, Jim? You supporting whichever candidate is the most statist and anti-freedom.

  11. Matt Kibbe: “The technical definition of fascism, and the history of fascism in the world, really wasn’t tethered to some sort of ideology the way socialism is. ”

    Rand: “That’s pretty much my take, too.”

    Interesting to hear that you agree with Kibbe, since you’ve argued many times here that fascism is inherently leftist.

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