Sarah Palin's Myth of America

[maddezmom]

Sarah Palin's Myth of America
Wednesday, Sep. 10, 2008
By JOE KLEIN Enlarge Photo

Sarah Palin has arrived in our midst with the force of a rocket-propelled grenade. She has boosted John McCain's candidacy and overwhelmed the presidential process in a way that no vice-presidential pick has since Thomas Eagleton did the precise opposite — sinking his sponsor, George McGovern, in 1972. Obviously, something beyond politics is happening here. We don't really know Palin as a politician yet, whether she is wise or foolhardy, substantive or empty. Our fascination with her — and it is a nonpartisan phenomenon — is driven by something more primal. The Palin surge illuminates the mythic power of the Republican Party's message since the advent of Ronald Reagan.

To start with the obvious, she's attractive. Her husband ("And two decades and five children later, he's still my guy...") is a hunk. They have a gorgeous family, made more touching and credible by the challenges their children face. Her voice is more distinctive than her looks: that flat, northern twang that screams, I'm just like you! Actually, the real message is: I'm just like you want to be, a brilliantly spectacular...average American. The Palins win elections and snowmobile races in a state that represents the last, lingering hint of that most basic Huckleberry Finn fantasy — lighting out for the territories. She quoted Westbrook Pegler, the F.D.R.-era conservative columnist, in her acceptance speech: "We grow good people in our small towns..." And then added, "I grew up with those people. They're the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food and run our factories and fight our wars. They love their country in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America."

Except that's not really true. We haven't been a nation of small towns for nearly a century. It is the suburbanites and city dwellers who do the fighting and hourly-wage work now, and the corporations who grow our food. But Palin's embrace of small-town values is where her hold on the national imagination begins. She embodies the most basic American myth — Jefferson's yeoman farmer, the fantasia of rural righteousness — updated in a crucial way: now Mom works too. Palin's story stands with one foot squarely in the nostalgia for small-town America and the other in the new middle-class reality. She brings home the bacon, raises the kids — with a significant assist from Mr. Mom — hunts moose and looks great in the process. I can't imagine a more powerful, or current, American Dream.

more:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1840388,00.html?imw=Y

[jakem]

1. um.. Todd is a hunk?

anyone fond for men want to weigh in on that?

[livetohike]

2. Well, I've been married for 33 years so my opinion might

not count for much. He's not a hunk. To me he looks smarmy.

[SheilaT]

3. Agreed. He's no hunk.

He looks like the kind of guy who's something of a self-important a**hole. He married the cheerleader/beauty queen and nothing else in his life will ever quite stack up to that.

[Darryl Smithburg]

4. You must see this!

I recently came across this on Youtube.
Please watch this music video that couldn't be a better anthem endorsing Barack Obama.
I feel that it completely sums up our concerns and hopes for a brighter future.
link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLgJVBoR_zs

Let's get it out there to help make the change!

Thank you for your time

Sincerely,
Darryl Smithburg

[silverweb]

5. Welcome to DU!

Thanks for the link to that great new song. I gave it 5 stars and hope it gets lots of exposure.