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

[DMSmith]

I can't really understand any of this. My head exploded about three minutes after I first heard her name and realized what was happening.

[thenextquagmire]

How fitting that the Republicans would nominate a woman, that combines the self-assured provincialism of Anita Bryant with the conservative political self righteousness and pious attitude of Phyllis Schlafly. Ofcourse, Sarah Palin is both these women in spirit, but unlike these women, Palin is without the curiousity of issues and events. Palin share's there values but doesn't know "why" she share's their values.

I wonder of she even, knows who these women are, considering that it takes a run for the Vice Presidency to get her to finally pay attention to ONE issues beside, a big old Alaska pipeline, that issue being foreign policy.

Ofcouse, there are plenty of other issues out there, she appears to show no curiousity about. Drip, Drip, Drip. The Republican establishment deserved Sarah Palin, not the American people, so far.

[cia1018]

EXCELLENT!!!

[ngladden1]

I am sad and sick, this is what our country has come to. Last night between Rudy and Palin I saw some of the most degrating attacks on a man I'v ever seen, it left hurt and hopeless. I really felf that they were not only attacking Barack but all of us. I fear if McCain/Palin win this november it will be the usher in the end of this democracy as we know it. Bush put this country in the toilet. Either Barack will pull it out or McCain will flush it.

Bright side - Gallup poll 9/4 Barack +7
There been no bounce since Palin joined, maybe the Repub base being fired up is just hype.

[GoCards1978]

Arrogance + ignorance = today's GOP. Sarah Palin exemplifies this to the Nth degree.

[ptillen]

I've been thinking all along that the only way SP could be not quaking in her boots at the magnitude of her prospects is that she's both naive and arrogant.

[Findley]

Pretty face. Ugly heart. Snide Sarah shows who she really is.

[justjojo]

Mr. Seery: WORD!

[MarkInEugene]

Very well spoken!

"her admirers heartily approve of her perversely willful ignorance"

This is what so disappoints me about the American public. What is it going to take to wake people out of their partisan slumber? I sometimes wonder if Americans are even aware of what it is that they are basing their vote on? At times I think the RNC spinmiesters could put Elmer Fud in the White House if they really wanted to!

Provinciality is such a bore and stifling to boot. To think oneself as uniquely deserving of providence and the position of Vice President with hardly the credentials to be a governor says more about the lack of sophistication and the unfortunate ignorance in the American voter than about Sara Palin's hubris and nationalistic fervor!

[Bobrobert]

Cold blooded killers never think twice about pulling the trigger or butchering their kill.

It always comes natural.

Politicians that go all out to destroy their opponents are cold blooded killers that have only one objective in sight - to win.

The cannot negotiate peace - they can only fight wars.

[rwe]

no , what you and yur ilk exude is the defeatism and shame that liberals feel for being successful, for being American... The same as Michelle not being proud until America is subverted to the lowest common denominator .Achievement and ambition are is not wrong guys

[TooGoodTooBeTrue]

See what Alaskans think about Palin. Be sure to read the letter from the brave woman who wrote about her -- the truth about Sarah, her family and career.

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[Intelligentia]

What Palin speech proved is her small mindedness. Had she half Michelle or Barak Obama's academic credentials, she would have made all the delegates bow to her before her speech. Palin's and Guiliani's (sp?) performances were what Shakespeare meant when he lamented:

"O' it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of groundlines, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inesplicable dumb-shows and noise...." Hamlet, Act III, Scene II.

The Republicans are the groundlines Shakespeare spoke of centuries ago. Their bufoons(sp?)-Palin and Guiliani- fed them with "dumb-shows and noise", which solidified the characterization of their ilk dregs of our country. I am ashamed that the world watched the spectacle last night. Could you imagine what will happen if these bozos (sp?) actually win this election-GOD FORBID! They have further reduced the office of the presidency to a mere gateway to comic stardom!

[CAKell]

Ms. Palin was critical of her opponent's work as a community organizer in Chicago. Without having an official job description for community organizer, I imagine the role to be one of team leadership. You are the head of a think-tank, coming up with ideas and rallying others to work together. You are the leader of a team and a team player. Like a coach?

Compared to being a governor--which Palin describes as the where the buck stops. That doesn't sound so much like a team player. It sounds authoritarian. SHE sounds authoritarian. Not even authoritative, but authoritarian.

I want to hear from both sides about the major issues, and how each side would analyze, problem-solve, critically untangle the issues. I want them to sound like a think-tank, with emphasis on problem solving and analysis--not name-calling and mud-slinging.

At the RNC this week, we have seen new levels of negative campaigning. What a turn-off! I, for one, turn my back on this nastiness.

When the Republican party asserts that we do not know Obama, as some have done, I assume that they have not read his two books. Does that mean they do not read? Obama has told us what he stands for, many times over. His unwillingness to mud-sling in the same way that the Republicans do tells me a great deal about what he stands for . . . It is an easy choice for me

[thinker2]

This post really nailed it on the head. It is a very scarry thing to watch. I am a n African American evangelical and I find this representation by Palinadn the GOP very offensive. That comment about community organizers pierced me to the core. Not because I am one but because I do know those who have spent their lives and spilled their blood, Yes in the counrty we call the USA. People who truly belive in country first. Palin was so smug and denegrating that I am surprised that the media didn'tcall her on it. And then for her to wrap this stuff up in some kinda God story makes it all thw worst She does however typify the prolblem with this country. To many people who gather, though without hodds today, to mock and ridicule those who are not like them. I do believe that she will sink the GOP in this election, become the scapegoat and return to Alaska to face the results of her actions there. America is tired of this mess and let's hope tired enough to vote for real change. Obama/Biden