The P-Factor
Sarah Palin has officially become the mirror image of Barack Obama. That is, a charismatic, physically attractive, all-American member of an underrepresented group who speaks directly to the soul of the ideological movement and mostly lacks real substance or accomplishment.
Note that “all-American” takes a different meaning for liberals versus conservatives. For liberals, Obama qualifies as all-American because he is racially mixed, has a heritage marked by ethnic and cultural diversity, and rose from humble and poor origins to the very top of the Ivy League, and subsequently sought to “give back” by becoming a community organizer–a very American story. For conservatives, Palin qualifies as all-American because she is a gun-loving, god-fearing “rogue” former beauty queen who is down-to-earth, a frontierswoman, and has precisely not graced the halls of the Ivy League, also rising from obscurity to the national limelight–again, a very American story.
In the case of Obama, the underrepresented group is of course blacks (or ethnic minorities generally), and in the case of Palin, it is women. Either way, their status as members of such a group is just icing on the cake for their respective ideological families. Regarding accomplishment, or lack thereof, remember that both are hardly “career” politicians, having a very short life in politics before becoming national phenomena. They are also both young, by politicians’ standards.
We see in Palin and Obama an interesting development in modern American politics, and I’m not sure it’s a good one. For liberals, Obama represents everything that is good about America–diversity, tolerance, progress. For conservatives, Palin represents everything that is good about America–faith, family, independent spirit. Thus we see that both politicians, inasmuch as they are powerful and commanding figures, are primarily the projection of the values and ideals of their political tribe.
They speak directly to the soul of their party because they are the embodiment of that soul. And insofar as they are primarily a personification–a caricature, even–of modern conservatism or modern liberalism, substance need not apply. Superficial philosophical beauty displaces concrete talent or accomplishment. I don’t know if ever this has happened in American politics, where both major political ideologies have a demigod, a living idol, which they can worship, and onto which they can endlessly project their hopes and dreams. It is certainly fantastic for the political movements of America, but it remains to be seen if it is good for America.
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Man there is a lot of manure psycho babble to wade through of demigod worship for liberals and conservatives. She is popular, but I don’t worship my wife, and I sure won’t worship Sarah Palin. It seems the liberals are more susceptible to find any kind of replacement to organized religion.
[...] and attractiveness stemmed from his personality and charisma. Is anyone reminded of a certain right-wing political star? And now we see the result, as Westen points out so [...]
[...] and attractiveness stemmed from his personality and charisma. Is anyone reminded of a certain right-wing political star? And now we see the result, as Westen points out so [...]