The Curse of Sarah Palin

     A milestone of contemporary American politics was hit on September 24 and 25, 2008, when CBS aired Katie Couric's interviews with Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP candidate for Vice President.  At the time, many people were appalled by the Alaskan governor's superficial knowledge of American domestic and foreign issues.  They should not have been.  The curse of Sarah Palin was that it was not what you knew or how much experience you had but rather what you believed in that counted most.  She expressed a feeling of frustration and indignation that reflected the mood of many Americans who would later support Donald Trump.  And still do.
     The idea that candidates for public office should be well informed is now seen as elitist.  It reflects the values of well-educated Americans who dominate the professions, high skilled occupations, and most middle management in manufacturing and services.  They are the American urban upper middle class.  They place the accent on proven competency for any position of responsibility, regardless of race, gender, ethnic origins, religion,or personal orientation.  They respect preparation, analysis, and rational problem-solving.  These same people get denounced as liberals, do-gooders, and snobs.  By 2018 they might even be accused of constituting the Resistance.    
      Gov. Palin called Barack Obama a socialist.  Name calling was certainly not new.  What was new was the deliberate use of disinformation and blatant lies to attack political opponents.  For example, Palin popularized the wrong idea that Obamacare would create medical review panels that might deny coverage to the chronically ill and dying.  She called them the death panels, and her followers believed her.
     Her beliefs morphed into the Tea Party movement that merged with the alt right to support Donald Trump.  In 2016 they captured the Republican Party.  Today, President Trump consistently exploits disinformation to shore up his base of supporters, which might be as large as one-third of the American active electorate.  This base includes white men of the Baby Boomer Generation who are still fighting the battles of the 1960s, unrelenting Republican partisans, anti-regulation vested interests, the very rich who hate income taxes, people with lesser education and skills who have lost once well-paying jobs due to  technological changes and industry restructuring, deeply religious people who adhere to a rigid reading of the Bible, and rural populations in decline who have nowhere else to go.  They are anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-Muslim, anti-free trade, anti-immigration, and pro-military.  They worry about the Iranians, ISIS, and the North Koreans, but not the Russians.  They blame their own troubles on the snobbish urban elite that looks down on them, assertive minorities, Hispanic immigrants, and social deviants.  They greatly fear violence in the forms of crime, riots, and acts of terrorism (but not so much school shootings).  They see conspiracies everywhere and dread social upheaval.  And yet, if the U. S. were to have a violent revolution or a new kind of civil war, wound it not come from the Trump supporters after the eventual political fall of their hero?  After all, they are the people who are armed to the teeth and warn "Don't Tread on Me"

(C) 2018 Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved)