Sarah Palin: The Face of Ugly Americanism
I know, I know: Sarah Palin is receiving rosy plaudits for her speech last night. She is being heralded as the savior of the GOP, someone with enough moxie to sustain the party's unholy alliance between the oil plutocrats and the oily preachocrats.
Many pundits in reviewing her polished performance claim to see an unflappable and gung-ho winner on stage. My honest-to-goodness visceral reaction was quite otherwise. What I saw on that stage was the personification of small-minded smugness, an utter lack of humility, a kind of self-righteous entitlement based on little more than puffed-up narrowness. She struck me not as plucky but, rather, as stunningly immodest--to the point of arrogance. Some people are arrogant and maybe deserve to be. They know it, and flaunt it, while everyone else thinks they are jerks. But there's another kind of arrogance, perhaps harder to spot at first, an arrogance that apparently doesn't even recognize itself as such, a sanctified, self-satisfied presumptuousness that flows from sheer naïveté about oneself and the world and manifests itself in giddy ambition.
Hey, I'm all for hockey teams, motherhood, snowmobiling, and small-town virtues. I grew up with such charms [indulgent personal digression here along those lines: Forty some years ago, whenever my family visited my grandparents' farm in Ossian, Iowa, that "event" would always make the front page of the Ossian Bee, right next to a story about someone's canned tomatoes going bad, which was positioned right next to the Ossian Bee's front-page obituaries column. Or, one time, among many, when we visited my father's parents' farm in Coggon, Iowa, we asked, fishing poles in hand, a local young boy for directions to a Bait and Tackle shop, and he gave us elaborate directions, about turning at this corner, and then at that stump, and then winding around some bend in the road, and looping back at the half-mile marker--directions that were almost comically complicated for such a small place. And then he ended his on-the-scene peroration: "But I don't think it's open today." As for snowmobiling, my daredevil cousins used to run snowmobiles on the (hopefully) frozen Cedar River, jumping over cracks and breaks in the ice if they encountered such. Heck, as for credentials, I still have my NRA shooting awards from Cub Scout summer camp.] Such small-town charms and virtues notwithstanding, I also recognize--especially when it's beaming right at me from my Chinese-manufactured television screen--small-town thinking when I see and hear it. What the world--what this country--doesn't need more of right now is Sarah Palin's defiant brand of self-assured provincialism.
Palin and McCain want the United States to consume more and more of the planet's energy resources--in the names of God, country, and industry. Palin believes that the Iraq War was God's will, even though she admits that she hasn't been paying close attention to that war (oh my Lord!). She believes that drilling in Alaska's natural splendor is blessed with Providential Approval. She promotes policies based on her unshakable belief that she herself has a direct pipeline (no pun intended) to the Almighty's intentions. What hubris! How dare she hijack and besmirch true belief for the sake of her particular economic predilections.
She mocks community organizing in Southside Chicago--but has she ever set foot in Chicago? She has no idea what it means to organize on the south side of Chicago--nor, I imagine, does her slickly sarcastic speechwriter. How many African-Americans lived in Wasilla during her tenure as mayor? She hasn't traveled through this great country of ours. She doesn't know its people, doesn't know its amazing and oftentimes vexing diversity. She hasn't traveled anywhere in the world, except one place. She presents herself as an all-American gal, but does she genuinely understand--beyond her own PTA-to-Juneau story--our country's rich and varied and complex history? She recently confessed that she doesn't even understand what the Vice President of the United States does, and her admirers heartily approve of her perversely willful ignorance.
Yes, she can bring a bunch of white people to their feet chanting USA, USA, USA. Good for her. But true leadership in these difficult times will require actual knowledge, not just personality. This world of ours, the past hundred years, has too frequently witnessed the dangers--nay, the evils--of compensatory nativism. Citizens in our own country should have learned one of the major lessons of these last eight years, namely that conviction should not serve as a trump card over competence. To me, Sarah Palin's grin looks like the grin of someone who doesn't feel she needs to think twice before pulling the trigger.
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I live in a small town full of cut throat female realtors who are Palin clones. This type of woman may be new to the big cities, but we have been dealing with her type in middle America for years.
What eventually bring them down is their ineptitude. Hopefully hers will become clear soon. she is an empty vessel
I got much the same vibe! I'm still open to the possibility that she may be a very capable politician, in addition to coming from a small town. At least as capable as the rest of the McCain campaign. We never know what we're going to get when you pick someone with a resume this thin, maybe it'll be a breath of fresh air to the republican party.
Like my Momma use to say, God don't like ugly, and he ain't crazy about pretty.
This goes in the category of another reminder that "it can always get worse." You better think again if you believe that Bush/Cheney is as bad as it can get. I become more convinced every day that a McCain/Palin administration would have most Americans reminiscing about the "good old days" of Bush/Cheney.
Palin is more like Bush than even McCain.
"...the personification of small-minded smugness, an utter lack of humility, a kind of self-righteous entitlement based on little more than puffed-up narrowness."
An accurate assessment.
Sarah Palin is acting out the role of Dana Carvey's "the Church Lady" from Saturday Night Live. It's just not as funny when there's a prospect that the new Church Lady could be ruling us all from the bully pulpit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Lady
Ugly American was exactly what entered my mind as I watched her appalling speech.
I am still reeling from the anger of her thoughtless selection from McCain who claims to put country first. To consider putting the USA in her hands if anything happens scares the bejesus out of me. With her sophomoric credentials her arrogance, smugness and insinuation that she is better qualified than Barak was an insult to my intelligence and a totally nauseating experience.
Is this the best the repugnant party and McCain can do? Her nomination reveals just how indifferent they are to what is best for our country and their approach in dealing with the critical issues of our future. Thoughtless and careless indifference!
A huge "whapping" thank-you.......well said!
I look foward in what is to come from a working Obama/Biden team.
An American White House inclusive to all it's people.
...there's another kind of arrogance, perhaps harder to spot at first, an arrogance that apparently doesn't even recognize itself as such, a sanctified, self-satisfied presumptuousness that flows from sheer naïveté about oneself and the world and manifests itself in giddy ambition.
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what you are describing is also the "sanctified, self-satisfied" arrogance of someone who truly believes that she is on a mission from god and that jesus is on HER side
this is at the very core of what we have endured for the last 8 years with George w. Bush and radical, right-wing, evangelical (i'm going to heaven and you're not) christians everywhere and is not one bit different from extremist muslims who use their religion to justify themselves and their actions
i'm pretty sure that most of mainstream america (christians included) is sick and tired of this twisted religious extremism and has endured quite enough of it coming from washington dc
Words cannot express my gratitude for your astute, insightful analysis. The last line was especially chilling - '. . . . Sarah Palin's grin looks like the grin of someone who doesn't feel she needs to think twice before pulling the trigger' - and summed up perfectly the danger that is Sarah Palin.
This kind of thoughtful, thorough analysis makes living through these strange times just a little bit easier.
I am emailing this article to everyone I know and then some.
Thank you and bravo!
What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney? Lipstick.
"PLEASE FIND THE REAL PALIN FOR US BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE"
What the heck does that mean? What is it you want to "find out" about Palin and why? YOU aren't going to vote for her. What you meant to say is find some dirt...and if you can't find some dirt...make it up!!!
You and your kind have spent close to two years blindly supporting Democrat Candidates without acknowledging the truth about any of them:
Clinton - Not enough cyberspace to list her misgivings
Obama - Rev Wright, Rezko, Annenberg Challenge...I hear nothing from the dinosaur media about what happened to the $10 million he and his buddy "The Mad Bomber" Ayers "spent" to improve a place that showed NO IMPROVEMENT!!!
Edwards - Story buried by the dinosaurs but you have the nerve to want SARAH PALIN to take a paternity test!!!
No wonder you guys are slipping badly...
Watch out for The Boogie Woman...she'd coming!!!!
PALIN/JINDAL 2012
“What I saw on that stage was the personification of small-minded smugness, an utter lack of humility, a kind of self-righteous entitlement based on little more than puffed-up narrowness. She struck me not as plucky but, rather, as stunningly immodest--to the point of arrogance.”
I thought you were talking about the HILLARY.
I have to admit Johnny-Boy, you have the talking points down...too bad for you a majority of Americans stopped buying what you are selling about 15 minutes into Palin’s speech…how about starting a draft Hillary movement?
Caveat Emptor!!! Democrats UNITE!!! The Boogie-Woman is coming and her name is Sarah…HAHAHAHAHA.
James “He’s maybe Ragin’ but he’s no Cajun” Carville was right…Barry O’Bama (He claims Irish Heritage) should have put HIS “small-minded smugness, an utter lack of humility, a kind of self-righteous entitlement based on little more than puffed-up narrowness” aside and chosen Mrs. Clinton…but in the infamous lyrics The Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose, “It’s too late, to turn back now”.
PALIN/JINDAL 2012… Real Diversity and Real Change for Real People!!!!
GEAUX TIGERS!!!!!
She is the Cheshire Cat, He is the White Rabbit.
US Election = Reality TV Show = run for Tabloid Main Stream Media who like Ratings for their Advertisers.
thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!absolutely brilliant and spot on.somehow,anyone from a large urban area gets painted as meanspirited and dismissive of smalltowns and their people,yet the truly ignorant and small minded are those who havent been exposed to our country as a whole.
by the way,if sarah palin lived in philadelphia,chicago,st louis,detroit etc...where countless children are killed and seriously injured each and every day as a result of pathetically insufficient gun laws,she may have a different view on that issue as well as many others.the real problem here is,small town people demand to be acknowledged and respected for all their values and contributions,yet its perfectly acceptable for these same people to dismissanyone from a large city as sex-crazed,drug addicted,god hating,elitist criminals.
Great post. Palin reminds me of George W. Bush when he was running for president (except that she's female and governor of a state with a population the size of ONE of the cities in Texas). At least she can pronounce "nuclear" - when it's spelled out for her phonetically on the prompter. But in many ways she's more extreme right wing than Bush - and that's scary!
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