Drink Up
Digg 
Stumble Upon 
Newsvine 
Slashdot 
Mixx 
Diigo 
Delicious 
Reddit 
Facebook
Yes, it is anti-Palin conservatives who have been drinking the Kool-Aid. That’s it. Let’s just pretend the last two months of pathetic excuse-making for Palin’s embarrassing failures never happened, and furthermore let’s pretend that everything we know about her does not show that she is uninterested in policy details and largely uninformed about the world beyond our shores. I could imagine people making excuses for her alleged geographical ignorance (a claim that was always likely to be false) because conservative pundits repeatedly made excuses for her demonstrations of ignorance. They seemed excited by how much she didn’t know. Can’t define the Bush Doctrine? The pundits had a ready-made answer, “Who can define it? It is a mysterious, changing thing that no one truly understands.” Can’t name a Court ruling other than Roe she disagrees with? No problem–evade the relevant issue and talk about how stupid Biden is! The rule was simple: the deeper the confusion and cluelessness, the more zealous the defense. I don’t much care for lectures about “drinking the Kool-Aid” from members of the personality cult.
On the same topic, Kathleen Parker writes in the Slate forum I mentioned below:
Palin covered her inadequacies with folksy charm and by drumming up a class war, turning her audiences not just against elites but against the party’s own educated members. The movement created by that superelite, but never elitist, William F. Buckley Jr. was handed over to Joe Six-Pack. Know-nothingness was no longer a stigma, but a badge of honor.
The Republican Party’s Baghdad Bobism with regard to Palin, a denial so pernicious that party operatives were willing to let her sit a heartbeat away from the presidency in a time of war and financial collapse, revealed what really ails the party. The “P Factor” isn’t a single person but a sickness that will have to be acknowledged and cured—Republicans will be reciting their newly tailored principles only to themselves.
Update: James Joyner has likewise been accused of mindless anti-Palinism by the same critics for having stated the blindingly obvious. Alex Knapp has more.
Filed under: politics
From the linked piece:
“Let’s see if I got this theory right. Americans generally are poor at geography, therefore, Americans generally don’t necessarily know that Africa is a continent, and therefore, Sarah Palin probably doesn’t, either. O-kay.”
Maybe I’m biased toward you, rather than some web-logger whom I’ve never read, but “but it seems remotely possible that it is true” doesn’t _seem_ (This seems to be a particularly crucial word.) to me to suggest that you aver that “Palin probably doesn’t”.
Keep drinking the Kool-Aid, Daniel; it’s sweet and refreshing.
“Baghdad Bobism”–I will make the phrase my own.
Honestly, I feel bad for Ms. Palin. Maybe if she had been governor for a couple of terms, got to travel and prepare more, she might have been able to do something, but she was put into the situation way before is was even possible that she was ready.
I guess she could have demurred, but that is a lot to ask.
She makes it so easy to believe. Look at Bobby Jindal. He can articulate coherent thoughts, and he is a young governor like she is. With all the garbage that flowed out of her mouth regarding foreign policy, it absolutely was plausible that she did not know.
Pace Kathleen Parker, there is absolutely nothing wrong with “drumming up a class war” against the American overclass, a completely worthless elite that has achieved nothing and deserves no deference, and that is thoroughly opposed to any manifestation of traditionalist conservatism. Indeed, opposition to traditionalist conservatism is one of the class markers for the overclass.
Will Parker next follow her fellow “anti-Palin conservative” David Frum and urge the GOP to jettison religious conservatives so as to better court members of the overclass? That is, after all, a logical progression of anti-Palinism.
Palin cleared up that continent thingy:
“If there are allegations based on questions or comments I made in debate prep about Nafta — about the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there — then those were taken out of context.”
Via
Tom, I think it’s counterproductive to limit conservatives’ choices to, on the one hand, heartless elitists (say, Romney and Rumsfeld) and, on the other hand, mindless pseudo-populists (say, Bush and Palin). I don’t think opposition to, or even contempt for, Sarah Palin implies opposition to or contempt for religious conservatives in general or the policies preferred by religious conservatives. In my case, at least, opposition to Palin is prompted by nothing more or less than my belief that people in positions of great responsibility should be very intelligent and highly-qualified.
I don’t disagree, at all, with the counter-argument that there are plenty of unqualified dopes already in the US government. But what concerns me is that, in their defenses of Palin (as in their prior defenses of Bush), many people have more or less argued that ignorance and inexperience are good things, and might even be qualifications for the presidency and vice-presidency. I think that’s much more dangerous than simply acknowledging that, democratic politics being what it is, there are always going to be a lot of glad-handing morons holding high office.
Charlie,
I am not a fan of the sort of content-free populism that McCain used Palin to peddle, nor do I disagree with the notion that those seeking high office should be qualified for it. This is what I understand Daniel Larison’s criticisms of Palin to be.
But Parker and others have criticized Palin for “drumming up a class war,” and I have no problem with that at all. The task for conservatives today, as Sam Francis argued, is to channel populist resentment of our current elite to supplant that elite, because that elite is both worthless and inimical to traditional conservatism.
I guess it depends how one defines “class war.” If it’s a recognition that elites in Washington often do not (or, maybe, never do) represent the views or serve the interests of most Americans, and a determination to change that, I don’t have a problem with it.
I don’t think (and it sounds like you and I may be on the same page here) that having “elites,” is a bad thing. If “elites” are just smart people who have expertise in a particular areas like law, foreign policy, economics, etc., and who use that expertise in politics, business, etc., then I think that having elites is a very good thing. That said, I’m all for breaking up the undue influence that some elites have in various areas of American life. But a lot of the defenses of Palin seem to cross over into contempt for expertise as such. I think there’s a middle-ground, and we should be looking for politicians who occupy it.
My problem with Palin is that she’s the worst of both worlds–she inspires a lot of arguments along the lines of, “Who needs intelligence or expertise?” and she simultaneously was willing to carry water for John McCain, who is a perfect embodiment of the DC establishment.
I guess she could have demurred, but that is a lot to ask.
A lot to ask? Not really, for someone who has some humility and self-knowledge.
Re: Sarah Palin.
I’m reminded of what Tina Fey once said of Paris Hilton, “She’s unbelievably dumb and so proud of how dumb she is.”
You can draw your own conclusions…
Tom – can you explain what you mean by traditional conservatism? I get confused by this, because for some people it means God and guns. For others it means not letting government get big and intrusive and spendy. Your desire for a class war doesn’t make any sense unless you define what classes you’re talking about.
Palin would be great in a 1999-type environment, when the economy is just nearing its peak and the US is at peace. Elections can be about trivial stuff and no one really cares if the President can speak 3 phrases in a row that make sense. But when times get tough, it’s not enough just to be cute. And that’s really all she is: cute and charming. She’s downright frightening, however, as the leader of any movement that wishes to lead the nation in troubled times.
It is too bad that Gov. Palin showed herself, not to be a “middle-american radical” as Sam Francis envisioned (a populist who repudiates the corporatist policies of both parties in foreign and domestic policy), but rather a redux of GW Bush–incurious, ill-informed and given to mouthing ideological tropes. It certainly appears that it is Mr. Larison and other critics (at least the non-neocon ones) who are correct about her.
That said, as Tom Piatak points out, if the self-serving advices of the Frum set are put into play, then they’ll have simply made easy the choice of social conservatives to abandon the GOP which should have been made in this election anyway.
There are lots of smart people who do good work. All of them are disciplined and educated, some of them educated in a formal sense.
But an Elitist is educated beyond his intelligence, and invariably does bad work. Puffed up with their own self-worth and importance, Elitists believe they know what is good for everyone else. (“What’s the Matter with Kansas?” was written by Elitist Thomas Frank.) Arrogance and charisma are dominant characteristics of all Elitists. Charisma is a grossly over-rated characteristic when you are talking about national leaders. Arrogance should be a capital offense for any national leader. Now, before you say anything stupid, President Bush is neither charisimatic nor arrogant.
There are many famous elitists: Marx, Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao, Obama, to name a few. Elitists organize themselves into factions: Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Gramscians, National Socialists, Alinskyite community organizers, whatever.
Elitist governments are universaly marked by functional inefficiency and institutional corruption. The Soviet Union collapsed from functional inefficiency and institutional corruption. The EUSSR suffers from functional inefficiency and institutional corruption and is now in economic decline and social/demographic collapse, dating to well before the recent economic problems.
Obama’s presidential campaign was marked by functional inefficiency papered over by hundreds of millions of dollars from George Soros and his Bolshevik billionaire buddies. But the institutional corruption was evident; Obama participated in and encouraged voter fraud and illegal mortgage manipulation, resulting in the recent collapse of the mortgage market and the severe hit to the capital markets. .
It will be abundantly clear to some that the imposition of an Elitist-led government in our Republic will not be healthy for us or for our children. Fortunately, our governmental system of checks and balances may (or may not) remain intact during an Elitist presidency. If the Constitution is bypassed, I will fight to the death to preserve the Constitution.
I don’t think that Tom is saying to get rid of elites; he is advocating replacing the current elites. Now, if I were a culturally traditional conservative, I might wish for the same thing – I think that Tom (correctly) realizes that cultural conservatives are doomed to political and cultural marginalization as long as the current elites are in place.
But historically, elites have been replaced only in two ways – through violent revolution, or over many, many years through slow evolution. It simply isn’t happening in the United States in the short term, and most likely not in the long term.
Thus leaving cultural conservatives with two not-entirely-incompatible options. withdraw from the larger culture to the extent possible, or try to do the difficult work of changing the culture from the bottom up (which will, over time, if it works, change the elites as well.
But trying to effect political change in a culturally conservative direction will continue to be a frustrating and (mostly) hopeless task. The fact is that the kind of “true” populism that Tom (and our host) hopes for probably isn’t possible – or, at least, is capable of any real electoral success – given our current cultural milieu.
And as a side note, and as (I think) Tom realizes, but as many people (Draco, apparently) do not, the “problem”, if you define it as such, isn’t just the “liberal” elite, but elites of all political stripes.
I don’t want to sound too harsh, but if Draco thinks that the Obama presidency represents something new in terms of “elite” governance, he isn’t much of a student of history. We have been governed by elites from day one of the republic, aside from (maybe) Andrew Jackson.
Of course, Draco also seems to be defining elite in a rather … unique … manner, so I’m not entirely sure that he is really even part of the conversation in this thread.