Hate Sarah Palin? She loves that

[cali]

Palin, like Richard Nixon, realizes how powerful a weapon contemptuousness toward her can be in the American political landscape.
By Neal Gabler

November 29, 2009

It's week three of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue" book tour, and while she has been met with rapture from her fans, she has received a wave of hostility from the mainstream media. David Letterman devoted four minutes of his monologue on publication day to mocking her. New York Times columnist David Brooks called her a joke, and Newsweek referenced "The Sound of Music," asking on its cover "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" Even domestic diva Martha Stewart weighed in, calling her "boring" and "dangerous." Palin is a media punching bag.

Which is exactly the way she likes it. It's not that Palin is a masochist. It's that she realizes how powerful a weapon contemptuousness toward her can be in the political war she will likely be waging in 2012. As commentators revile her, Palin realizes they are also empowering her. Indeed, she is engaged in one of the greatest feats of rope-a-dope in political history. Laugh at her, but you laugh at your peril. She can ride that laughter right into the White House.

Of course, Palin didn't discover the politics of contempt. America was born not only as a protest against English political rule but against a larger sense of English superiority. What distinguished America more than anything else from Europe was its sense of egalitarianism. Americans tended to bristle at all the European formulations of high culture, and they rapidly devised their own popular culture of dime novels, crime pamphlets, vulgarized theater and more, which was a backlash against "official" high-minded European prescriptions. It is commonplace among intellectuals that vast swaths of American popular culture are largely idiotic. What those intellectuals never understood is that the popular culture was often idiotic by design -- as an act of hostility and aggression that continues to this day. Nobody tells ordinary Americans what they should or should not like.

If our popular culture evolved into a kind of protest against hauteur, so did our politics. Early on, politicians vied to show who was the least patrician and the most plebeian, and the election to the presidency of the hero of the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson, is often cited as the point at which American politics turned and the egalitarian strain triumphed. The upper crust hated "the people's president," Jackson declaimed, and "the people" too. By instinct or design, he knew just how to play on ordinary folks' sense of grievance.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-gabler29-2009nov29,0,7189434.story

[ixion]

1. for the most part, I try to counter all that negative energy by ignoring her, although

as Ms. Stewart said, she cuts a dangerous swath in the political fabric.

The real problem is the MSM echo chamber. If they ignored her, it would remove considerable momentum.

[derby378]

2. "I don't care what they say about me, as long as they spell my name right"

I think Phineas T. Barnum once said that. Then again, he's also responsible for "There's a sucker born every minute."

[FarLeftFist]

3. I don't think anyone hates Sarah Palin.

I think people hate un-intelligent former politicians that tour the country to point fingers, complain, and spread their message of lies and propaganda to masses of mindless drones to serve their own self-interests all for the low introductory price of $29.99 while not actually being part of the solution. And all the while trying to inject their corrupt morals and philosophies onto everyone else. Plus no one likes a quitter.

[janedum]

4. Sarah, THE QUITTER .. Unqualified for office. Dumber than GWB.

[AllentownJake]

5. She's a zero sum gain for the GOP

Any positive she delivers for voter turnout in the direction of their base is an equal positive by our base and independents don't like her.

No if we are talking Fundy Nut jobs, Sarah doesn't scare me, she amuses me, Mike Hucakabee scares me.

[saltpoint]

6. She appears to have a knack for drawing unstable and foolish people to

her events.

She's the Buzz Girl from Alaska and evidently she is wealthier now than she was a year ago, slaving away in that low-life public service job as Governor.

Had she remained in Juneau bowing to the demands of governing the state she was elected to serve, she couldn't be making the big bucks, she wouldn't have the media attention she clearly craves, and she wouldn't have a public relations platform built up from which to launch a presidential campaign.

[Vickers]

7. Just because I ridicule someone doesn't mean I hate them.

Project much, Mrs. Palin?

:rofl:

[Raschel]

8. I don't believe it. She loves making the money, but she is weak and cannot stand the

ridicule and negative things things being said about her. Her book was all about getting back at people.

If she can't handle a nineteen year old baiting her, why should we believe she loves the contempt of half of the nation? pffft

[MurrayDelph]

9. I think one should quote the classics:

Ugarte: "You despise me, don't you Rick?"
Rick: "I might if I gave you any thought."

[DavidDvorkin]

10. I don't remember anyone sneering at Nixon's intellect or political ability

It was his character that we held in contempt.

[Berry Cool]

11. Neal Gabler is an idiot, and I say that because:

Palin is playing that same card on the gamble that anti-elitism will trump her own inexperience, incompetence and lack of knowledge. She knows that the more pundits harp on these so-called deficiencies, and the more the media cover it, the more she can claim that they are really just engaging in an old sport: expressing contempt for ordinary Americans, of which she is the self-proclaimed political exemplar. Her self-promotion is designed to elicit their contempt for her and express her's for them, including the very title of her book.

1. Guess what. Palin already gambled last year with the notion that "anti-elitism" would win the day for her and her running mate whatsisname. She LOST. Big time. The public by and large was tired of eight long years of "inexperience, incompetence and lack of knowledge." They were ready for someone who appeared to be smart, competent and knowlegeable. They didn't want their country being run by an "ordinary American," they wanted it being run by someone who maybe had a better idea than the "ordinary American" of how to run things. Possibly, they also didn't all buy the idea that Barack Obama was a snooty silver-spoon elitist just because he managed to collect some Ivy League degrees.

No, Neal. Anti-populism and anti-intellectualism do NOT always win.

Now, I don't doubt for a minute that the reason the Republicans are beating on every decision Obama makes is because they have no new ideas and can think of no more effective strategy for 2012 than to say "Look how this silver-spoon elitist you picked four years ago did. He's a failure, and it's because he's out of touch with 'just plain folks' like you. We have someone who is 'just plain folks' like you who will do much better." But something tells me that when they pick a candidate, Palin ain't gonna be it. Because she's just going to be poison by then, and will never appeal to more than a small sliver of stupid people. Besides, they don't want someone who might "go rogue" on them; they want someone the party can control, and she's already proved, that ain't her.

2. There is a HUGE difference between "egalitarianism" and "belief that even people in power should be no more intelligent or educated than one's own self is." You would find a hell of a lot more people who believe in egalitarianism than who also believe that they don't want the government to be run by people any more intelligent than they are--who really, if given a choice, would trust the hockey mom next door to run the country more than they would, say, a professor of constitutional law who also had experience as a community organizer. Oh, and come to think of it, let's go back to those community organizers, shall we? Not exactly high-and-mighty people, are they? Yet, last year in a speech, someone sure tried to make them sound that way...tried to make them sound like lazy, out of-touch people with titles that meant nothing. Who would that be? Oh, yeah, that hockey mom with ACTUAL RESPONSIBILITIES, Sarah Palin.

3. Some people don't believe "egalitarianism" means "the opinion of a hockey mom from Wasilla is just as valuable as that of a professor of constitutional law." They DO believe that the person who was born in a mansion is no better INNATELY AS A HUMAN BEING than the one born in a trailer, and that intelligence and wisdom can be acquired whether one's origins are high or humble. But they don't necessarily believe that willfully ignorant people trading on their "just plain folks" persona should have precedence over smart, educated people. 'Cause, see, it'd have been one thing if Sarah emerged from the wilds of Alaska to earn college degrees, served responsibly in government for a while (making decisions that weren't just self-serving) and touted herself for high office based on a genuine concern for the people based on wisdom and experience combined with good old-fashioned common sense. But she didn't. She essentially said "Hey, I'm just like you--and if YOU sometimes feel YOU could do a better job running the country than those who do, well, hey, vote for ME!" No sale. We'd already had eight years of a willfully ignorant patrician playacting at being "just plain folks"--and it was disastrous.

4. Oh, and finally, Gabler, "her's" is not a word. "Hers" never takes an apostrophe. Idiot.

[nickinSTL]

12. Hate her?

That would indicate a degree of caring about her that I just don't.

Sorry, Palin, I don't hate you. You're simply irrelevant.