Sarah Palin's Faux Populism

It was not my intention to be writing about Sarah Palin, since everyone with a laptop, a No. 2 pencil or a red crayon seems to be covering that beat. But then came the pundits:

"She's a populist," gushed Karl Rove on Fox TV. Weird, since this right-wing political slime and corporate whore loathes, demonizes, mocks, fears and tries to destroy real populists.

"Perfect populist pitch," beamed CBS analyst Jeff Greenfield right after Palin's big speech at the GOP fawnfest in St. Paul. In his less infatuated moments, Greenfield surely must realize how ludicrous his comment was, since once, long ago, he co-authored a book that had "populist" in the title, so he has at least had a brush with the authentic people's movement that the term encapsulates.

So they made me do it. Karl, Jeff and other pundits who are rushing to place the gleaming crown of populism atop the head of this shameless corporate servant -- they are the ones who have driven me to write about Palin. Someone has to nail the media establishment for its willing perversion of language, American history and the substance of today's genuine populism.

Palin might be popular, she might be able to field dress a moose, she might live in a small town, she might enjoy delivering "news flashes" to media elites, she might even become vice president -- but none of this makes her a populist. To the contrary, she is to populism what bear is to beer, only not as close.

You want a taste of the real thing? Try this from another woman who hailed from a town (smaller than Wasilla, Alaska) and was renowned for her political oratory:

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street. ... Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. ...

There are thirty men in the United States whose aggregate wealth is over one and one-half billion dollars. There are half a million looking for work. ... We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out. ... We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the Government pays its debts to us.

The people are at bay, let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware.

That, my media friends, is populism. It comes from Mary Ellen Lease, who was speaking to the national convention of the populist party in Topeka, Kan., in 1890. In a time before women could vote, Lease traveled the countryside to rally a grassroots revolt against the corporate predators of her day, urging farmers to "raise less corn and more hell." She didn't need to brag that she was a pit bull in lipstick, because her message, idealism and actions made her an actual force for change.

America has been blessed with populist women ever since, including such honest and insistent voices as Ida Tarbell, Mother Jones, Dorothy Day, Rosa Parks, Rachel Carson, Karen Silkwood, Barbara Jordan, Molly Ivins, Barbara Ehrenreich and Granny D. Measure Sarah Palin against these.

Populism was and is a ground-level, democratic movement with the guts and gumption to go right at the moneyed elites. It is unabashedly class-based, confronting the Rockefellers on behalf of the Littlefellers. To be a populist is to challenge the very structure of corporate power that is running roughshod over workers, consumers, the environment, small farmers, poor people, the middle class -- and America's historic ideals of economic fairness, social justice and equal opportunity for all.

"Populist" is not an empty political buzzword that can be attached to someone like Palin, whose campaigns (lieutenant governor, governor and now Veep) are financed and even run by the lobbyists and executives of Big Oil, Wall Street bankers, drug companies, telecom giants and other entrenched economic interests.

Populists don't support opening our national parks and coastlines to allow the ExxonMobils to take publicly owned oil and sell it to China. Palin does. Populists favor a windfall profits tax on oil companies that are robbing consumers at the pump while milking taxpayers for billions of dollars in subsidies. Palin doesn't. Populists don't hire corporate lobbyists to deliver a boatload of earmarked federal funds, then turn around and claim to be a heroic opponent of earmarks. Palin did. Populists favor shifting more of America's tax burden from the middle class to the superwealthy, while opposing another huge tax giveaway for corporations. Palin doesn't and doesn't.

Another thing populists don't do is sneer at community organizers, as Palin did in her nationally televised coming-out party. Indeed, populists of old were community organizers, as are today's. They work in communities all across our great land, putting in long days at low pay to help empower ordinary folks who are besieged by the avarice and arrogance of Palin's own corporate backers. Since the governor likes to put her fundamental Christianity on political display, she might give some thought to a new bumper sticker that expresses a bit of Biblical populism: "Jesus was a community organizer while Pontius Pilate was governor."

Environmental justice groups, ACORN, living wage campaigns, the Bus Project, clean water efforts, union organizing drives, PIRG, Fighting Bob Fest, Jobs with Justice, Apollo Alliance, United Students Against Sweatshops, the Evangelical Environmental Network, clean election initiatives, stopping mountaintop removal, USAction, community supported agriculture, Campus Progress, local business alliances, Citizens Trade Campaign, Wellstone Action -- these are but a few of those doing terrific community organizing today. They embody the vitality of modern populism, doing the essential grunt-level work of democracy.

What gives Palin any legitimacy to denigrate that? She embraces none of these causes, instead supporting the rich and powerful whom grassroots folks are having to battle. She's a plutocrat, not a populist. Big difference.

Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker and author of the new book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow" (Wiley, March 2008). He publishes the monthly "Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer.

This post originally appeared on Alternet.

Comments

[Mozart123]

Excellent article. Palin's winfall tax on oil let Alaska rake in a cool $10b. Obama is for windfall taxes on big oil, McCain, Palin's lead partner is opposed. Go figure.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008103325_alaskatax07.html

[Jane]

Thank you Jim! I loved this post. You know what you are talking about, and HOW!

[wandering girl]

Karl Rove made a mistake: he used "populist" when he meant "popular."

[PLUMPLUM]

With McCain's oil leases and Palin's unsavoury and other unknown oil connections, why do we need 2 more people who revel in their relationship with Big Oil, in the Whitehouse? The Republicans seem to think people are stupid. She fought against Big Oil, my behind? Let's search for the kickbacks.

[janelson44]

I dont know why most everybody is missing the point with Sarah Palin...maybe because people usually do miss the point.... Sarah Palin is the new face of Racism. This what Racism looks like in 2008. The KKK is dead...those old 1960 images are gone. She is racism borne of evangelical intolerance...separatist/redneck silliness marinated in a state removed from the rest of the country with almost no black population (3.7%, no measurable Hispanic population and 17% Native American whom we never hear from and who are very resented in Alaska because they have received huge reparation settlements from the Federal Govt)...some twisted feminism/NRA membership stature (???) and please someone interview those males who find her "Hot"...this is one of the most cold blooded women I have ever seen...If you dont beleive she is a rascist...where were you during her speech to the RNC???

[Easttexas82]

Give 'em hell, Jim! Folks, this is what is known in Texas as "telling how the cow eats the cabbage." If you young liberal bloggers haven't heard of Jim Hightower before, check out his website. Hopefully he will put more of his articles here on Huffpost. I can't believe we used to have people like Jim in our state government and we took it for granted. Now we are gerrymandered by the republican party and have a Governor that makes GB look like FDR.

[fairwitness]

Great post, Jim, thanks. Our political discourse has become so polluted by those (mainly Republicans) who have absolutely no regard for truth, it's almost impossible to keep up with their depredations of language. Palin and her supporters count on the public's willfull ignorance of the difference between "populist" and "plutocrat". Many are beyond hope of linguistic redemption, but you can still get through to the young, upon whom we rest our last hopes for a national rejection of the neo-fascism and fundamentalist tyranny of the Palins and McCains. .

[0whole1]

Rowe-style politics depends on hijacking terms. In this cycle, they hijacked the concept of "change." In the past, "liberal" and "feminist" were hijacked, shot up, and so debased that they now have no real meaning other than calls to outrage.

In this article, I've read the beginnings of a new, and necessary, rebranding -- "moneyed elites". The current speech-writers on the radical right chuck "elite" around with the same profligacy they do with "liberal," and to the same effect -- inflame the crowd, not convey any meaning.

Call McCain and the folks behind his party "moneyed elites" though -- and you point out who's leading who by the nose.

--------------

We need to recapture the meaning of "conservative" while we're at it, because a group of people bound to create an imperial presidency through executive orders and the politization of the Justice Department, and thus destroy the American system of government, is in no way "Conservative."

[TJ Franklin]

I agree 100%.

All of my life, I have labeled myself as a conservative, although now the word has become synonymous with the Republicans and has almost become a dirty word.

But let me define what a conservative is from my viewpoint.

A true conservative:
Fights to preserve, or conserve, the Constitution.
Fights to conserve the American Dream.
Fights to conserve the seperation of church and state - as intended by the founding fathers.
Fights to conserve the working middle class, and the rights they are entitled to.
Fights to conserve the way of life and the natural beauty of this great nation, so that our children will be able to witness it as we, in our youth, did.

Yes, I am a conservative, but not by today's popular, misrepresented definition that the republicans have hijacked. I once considered myself a republican, back when I naively believed that they were still conservatives. No longer. I am today, an independent, although I still haven't had the dreaded R word removed from my voter registration card. After all, that R will ensure that whatever voting scam they try, I will always be allowed to vote.

[bootcamp]

Get the meme going. McCain-Palin have nowhere to go now but down, and I will tell you exactly how this will happen. They can run away from President Bush, but they can't run away from the Republican Party. The Republicans will be regarded from now on as "the party that wrecked America." Over the weeks ahead, as carnage in the economy and the financial markets ramps up, it will become increasingly clear. It is important that this meme be spread through the internet. I urge all commentators to adopt and spread the idea that the Republicans are "the party that wrecked America." It will work because it is the truth. Just spread the word. Get the meme going.

[MHR55]

Let's look at the latest Rasmussen poll on Palin:

Among all voters:

39% very favorable
17% somewhat favorable
14% somewhat unfavorable
26% very unfavorable

Total of 56% favorable. Not bad, but lets look at the numbers when asked of those who classify themselves as moderates:

20% very favorable
15% somewhat favorable
26% somewhat unfavorable
35% very unfavorable
3% not sure

Only 35% of moderates view her favorably. In other words, she's doing slightly better than President Bush. For comparison purposes, Joe Biden is viewed favorably by 70% of moderates.