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.