The Cult of Palin

[Bgno64]

http://blogs.lancasteronline.com/smartremarks/2010/06/04/the-cult-of-palin/">Gil Smart at Smart Remarks:

What you have with Palin is a cult. People identify with her personally more than any other political figure I have seen in my lifetime - this is Michael Jackson-esque. It’s Bush-ism on steroids. These are people who might not know and certainly don’t care what her “positions” on the “issues” are - they don’t have to. Because they “know” in their “gut” that she is “true” and so whatever her position on the issues - it will be the correct one. They just know it.

These people are dangerous.

Palin will be/is every bit the corporatist Obama has turned out to be. More so - because her fans will aggressively embrace her corporatism. Or maybe you think Palin will go to war with some “vested interests” besides Hollywood and “extreme greenies.”

Palin, in fact, may be the best way for the corporate oligarchy to keep the party going. Because the game has always been about convincing the people who get the short end of the stick to embrace that fact; to declare it good and natural and right, and of course to provide some convenient bogeymen for them to slough their hate off onto.

Well, the recession/depression is beginning to shake that foundation - perhaps even the Rush listeners who demanded that the “death tax” be abolished, though they of course have no real wealth to pass on to their heirs, if they have any (but the death tax is just morally wrong!), perhaps even they have begun to look askance at how their hated government sure seems to be marching hand in hand with their beloved virtuous capitalist corporations.

Palin puts out those smoldering embers, at least amongst her followers. They won’t gain any ground economically - in fact, they’ll lose even more. But they’ll learn to love it, and they’ll defend it. Because that’s how cults work.

[The Wizard]

1. The Republican Party is a cult

with its own electronic propaganda network. Between Pox News and right wing hate radio, they reach out and connect with the most vulnerable Americans, the uneducated and flat out stupid.
Their underlying message is it's OK to go out hunting for the coloreds.

[K8-EEE]

2. +1

[newtothegame]

3. We've created this. At any given time, there are as many posts about Palin on DU as about PBO.

08 was spent ridiculing her and her campaign and talking about how she brought down the ticket, but yet we're obsessing over her 2 years later like she's some big threat.

[Tutankhamun]

4. She doesn't want to be President -- it's way too much work.

[nxylas]

9. She wants the glory of being President

She probably figures she can let other people do the hard work.

[Populist_Prole]

5. The few I know that like her enthusiastically

Are all pretty much self admittedly too lazy to read in depth and are ignorant regarding civics in general. Talking heads sounds bites resonate with them.

The few that are fairly politically aware are hardcore christian fanatics, and adore her even though they admit she's not very worldly.

The rest I described like her just for superficial reasons.

Other than with the fundies, I don't really know that I would say it's cultish thing, but more just a manifestation of the continual dumbing down of the population allowing ignorance and apathy to affect one's thinking.

In my opinion, the real danger is not her hardcore base of wingnuts ( due to their small numbers ) but rather the possibility that she might gain enough popularity amongst center/right voters if she polishes her act and tones down the more extreme views she currently blabs about.....and come accross to the ignorant as a viable "none of the above" type candidate. Then again she's so damned categorically stupid she she may lack the ability to do that, despite lots of help grooming her.

[MisterP]

6. apathy, disengagement, and atomization are huge

though I have noticed a late-00s surge in messianism that goes far beyond "enthusiasm," where the mortal in question has everyone's hopes, all that is good and decent, poured into them--despite heavy signs that they're gonna ream everyone; this results in pseudoreligious adoration of the subject, praise of any and everything they do and say, and damnation of opponents as enemies of humanity. this happened with Bush, Obama, Palin, and Steve Jobs. McCain, Gore, Dean, and Kerry didn't reach messianic levels: Dean did as he said, whereas Kerry's IWR vote and vociferous warmongering were excused by his 80s investigation of one of BFEE's banks; Gore had something of a waiting-in-the-wings-to-undo-Bush aura about him, I'll admit; McCain could not achieve even enthusiasm

what you're describing are Pluggers: vaguely-blue-collar schmoes who want meat-and-potato diets, 12 MPG Fords, and no Endangered Species Act or Great-Society Programs since that's how it was done in 1957. They vaingloriously laud themselves as the bedrock of Real Murka though they're mired in their own near-suicidal misery, denounce welfare and government programs--and will pass a brick if you threaten their Medicare and Social Security, which they don't think come from the government.

[Bgno64]

7. But the hell of it is,

the Pluggers were better off in 1957 - they most likely belonged to a union, which they now despise; higher tax rates on both the rich and the corporations, which they would now never tolerate, created a situation in which the rising tide lifted all boats far more evenly than it does now.

They project onto Palin. She IS them, writ large; they see her as this hockey mom outta nowhere and they think - that's me. That epitomizes everything I'M about - plucky, a fighter, refusing to stay down no matter how many time the powers that be knock you down, etc...

And as such, they're impervious to logic. It's all emotion to them - very akin to religion.

[MisterP]

8. specifically, the emotion of desire, which is connected to that of hope(TM)

the middle class's economic decline started in the 70s, with OPEC, union-busting, outsourcing (which was blamed on union "overreaching" by corporatists and moderates), and libertarianism/neoliberalism, which replaced the 1920s-60s "Fordism" that tried to make the workers love capitalism by giving them lots of stuff (partly funded by financiers taking over the non-US world) and which replaced Jack London/Dickens-style industrialism. Now we have neoliberal Free Trade Zones with $3/day wages in the 3rd World and dismantling of 30s-60s welfare-state institutions in the 1st, to keep everyone scrambling to make ends meet without a safety net beyond a handful of relatives and neighbors. Capitalists' ideal went from sweatshops to the American Dream (built on the GI Bill, I might add) to

Question is, what are they going to DO with all that money, besides keeping it from the rest of us in a monetized economy? There's only so many yachts, jets, cars, mercenaries, mansions, and acres one can buy. It's probably just a Milken-Helmsley-like desire for more more more.

[teknomanzer]

11. That is the real question isn't it?

What are they going to do with all the money? Eventually, the rest of us will get smart and realize the markers are not the real wealth, just a place holder. When that happens it will be their turn to experience poverty.

[classysassy]

10. Oh McCain what you wrought.