Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed middle-American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.
Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power.
4 comments:
I admittedly don't know alot about Ms. Palin, but I don't totally agree with your assessment of her. I think middle America sees a brave woman, willing to stand up in a man's world - for the things she strongly believes in, such as sanctity of life. Nope, to be sure, she's not perfect, but shares being in that same boat with all others in the presidential/vp race. This year is definitely a bad crop of choices. There are so many flaws on both sides, I shutter to think what our nation is facing in the next several years. But I pray alot - and I think the American people still have the hootspa to stand up for their beliefs, so hopefully that will keep whatever politician that leads our country next - in check.
I didn't write that, but I certainly agree with it. I find her to be far too intellectually vapid to be considered for that position. I'm sure she's a "nice person" and all and brave perhaps for having the guts to be out there, though that might just be ambition. I find her to be seriously lacking the intellectual capacity to be even mildy in consideration for that type of position.
Reptilian villainy. Wow Jeff, that's pretty harsh. I don't know much about how well or ill equipped she was, but she didn't strike me as vice presidential material either. Reptilian villainy. I'll have to remember that phrase.
I don't think he's talking about her so much as the cynical process of inserting a lightweight like here into this serious process.
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