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.

Read more analysis from HuffPost bloggers on Sarah Palin

Comments

[Anthony712]

What has Sarah Palin done in Alaska that gives her the arrogance to suggest that she knows what it's like to lose a job in Ohio as a result of her own party?

[wildishka]

I agree with every word written by John and that of Anthony. Im so infurated with Palin and Juliani for lying thru and thru. How dare she, the one who claims to have risen from the small town America, demean community service or the organizers?? And who are these people that think Palin represents all women. No. NO NO. Never!!!

[FaceofAmerica]

It will be our luck that John McCain will drop dead a week after winning the elections. God Help Us......

[speechteach]

You put enough gigantic American flags behind someone, play country-style patriotic music, cut down the "liberal" left without basis, use the terms POW and 9-11 every other sentence, and you will convince people to vote for you. You don't have to mention one thing about what you will do to improve this country for the next generations.

[clover2]

I think this commentary captured Palin's essence perfectly. Unfortunately, I think the description also says legions about the crowd that was cheering her on. It also makes me gag at the prospect of a McCain presidency. Folks like this make me a Democrat.

[95flhtcu]

your story seems to forget that John McBush ls a POW! Where are your manners?

[Billie]

How about callous, machiavellian, christian poseur, twisted sense of entitlement, narrow-minded? These neocons are a scurge on America. They ooze hatred toward anyone who is not a clone of themselves. They are low brow people. They give our nation a bad name.

[jl0810]

Great article - although your points are spot on, we liberals should be scared. I'm afraid the election was lost for us last week - these morons beat us at our own game. Now we look like the bloated Big City establishment party with 2 career politician­s/politica­l hacks (yes, I'm counting the community organizing). How the heck did this happen - literally overnight. Heck I barely remember B.O.'s speech at this point because it's been Palin, Palin, Palin, Palin for this long, long week

The Republicans are the darn smartest, idiots I've ever seen......­.........I­'m going to cry

[notthistime]

that makes no sense.

[Rashnak]

You start to see the truth. It will hurt less on election day I think.

[PrairieDog]

She has been in a managed environment for the last week. But in that time there are multiple stenches eminating when people start looking at who she really is. She hasn't had to stand up to any one-on-one scrutiny either. We'll see if she can make a fool of herself while soaking up the (gasp) celebrity status.

[BBackSoon]

I don’t think they are idiots. They are maniacal. The way that the Neo-Cons took over the Republican Party and began the systematic destruction of every safeguard that was put in place during the last century to protect the little guy, was brilliant in its execution.

The real power in our country (who ever ‘They’ are) is pushing toward a modern version of Royalty and Peasants with little or no middle class. And the scary part is that they have done a heck of a job. Rove and Cheney have subverted every check and balance and have planted under qualified Bushco commissars into every department of government, whom are more than willing to push fair minded people out in order to fill their ranks with more Bushco believers. The actual scale of this cancer will not become clear for decades but the damage is already evident.

The fact that McSame is still in this contest is proof of the level of control that these Power players actually have over our reality. The fact that more than a third of our country believes McSame is a regular guy with our best interests in mind, and Obama is uppity and power hungry is so bass-ackwards that you have to marvel at how they continue to pull it off.

[apingebrig]

Yes, she can bring a bunch of white people to their feet chanting USA, USA, USA

That's all you really need to be able to do in order to lead the Republican party.

[Owlygirl]

So frigging true! Arrgh!

[ex-pat]

Actually..­. i think it is very basic...sh­e has always been the big fish in the small pool... welcome to the big pool little Miss... I felt as though she had this sense of entitlement and deserved it....

[okmama]

You nailed it !

[LITU]

You don't get it do you? The current manipulators of the Bush Administration will remain behind in January to indoctrinate and edumacate the incoming team on such matters as 'how it is', should McCain/Palin deceive enough voters in November.

B u s h has proven one thing if nothing else - the office of the P r e s i d e n t requires nothing more than a heartbeat. Now do you get it?

[favoritebuddy]

Excellent.­....thank you

[Bramptonian]

John Seery, this article is a grand slam!! I just posted a blog on Foxnews.com which echoed the same sentiments in this piece only not as witty and articulate as yours. I just can't swallow the 'rave reviews' and well-rehearsed 'excitement' this speech seems to have generated when all Sarah Palin did was read a speech she did not even write! By Golly, if reading well and being attractive is all the prerequisite for the office of VP for the USA, then I'd better consider giving it a go.

[kimest3e]

This woman scares me. I also felt a sickening reaction to her speech. I have spent the last two days trying to explain to people, how scary she is. I am a born again Christian woman. So I understand perfectly her rhetoric and that she genuinely believes every word she said in her speech. What we saw on TV last night is spoken over and over again, on a weekly basis in Pentecosta­l/Evangeli­cal churches. Not every church but a lot of them, and if people don’t wake up and vote for Obama…….. if this woman somehow gets to the presidency­........it will not be good. The last eight years will seem like a picnic. She will seek the counsel of people like her pastor and like Andy said - she will not hesitate to pull the trigger. She will fully believe that God told her too. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but I seriously believe we are living in perilous times, and this election is critical to our country and my children’s future.

[bolingo]

John Seery..thi­s is a well written article, great job.

[Carol54]

Excellent comments. She is truly dangerous, pompous and sickly self-righteous. I need anti-nausea medication every time I see her speak.