Sarah Palin, the wannabe populist

Let me start by saying that Sarah Palin is so blatantly un-populist that it is both insulting and amuzing. I don’t know whether to be pissed off that her and her party actually believe Americans are dumb enough to fall for the fake, down-home Minnesota accent (has she read Garrison Keilor the whole way through?) and the family-friendly gestures or to laugh uncrontrollably because she thinks this fake populism will achieve anything. In this age of mass culture, you should learn that just because you’re popular, doesn’t make you a populist. If you are larger-than-life and are trying to paint yourself as one of us, it ain’t happenin’, toots. First, you won a beauty pagent. Most families these days send their girls to work or to college to find a better life. Where’s your tax return, hun? You think you’re one of us. Do average families have over a million to their name? $1.2 million and no credit card debt sounds like a real workin’-class salary ta me! A party that feeds your fat, golden-calf family of populism $150,000 in clothing. But at least you share our struggles with family. A daughter carrying a high-school boyfriend’s baby and a child with Down’s syndrome. And it should serve to remind you about the delusional pursuit of traditional family in this dog-eat-dog world.

I must remind you that populism is about being one of the people. Populism is an active stirring of people against the elites. It cannot be made by elites themselves. Sarah Palin is an elite. In fact, all current politicians are elites. We live in a Plutocracy, as quoted by Kevin Phillips, Nixon political strategist. And her man, John McCain has the audacity to say he is a man of country. He is a man of nation, not country. Country first, like when he blocked a move on the senate to recover POWs in Southeast Asia? That there could have been compromising evidence exposed about the nature of his time as a POW? Maverick… hmm… what does that word mean? According to Webster’s this is “an unbranded calf,” “an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party.” Does anyone else see a contradiction or am I just overanalysing?

This brand of populism is sick. It’s like saying Hitler was a populist that understood the needs and anger of the German people. And we can see the parallels to the extent that it is disgusting that people are okay with it. “Terrorist,” “Anti-American,” “Muslim,” “one of them.” To suggest, as the right is good at, that it knows the hearts of American people. And this manipulation of language and culture has even the conservatives (the -real- conservatives) of the Republican party shaking their head in disgust. Are these populists? That still believe that white “Christian” families are being shattered by the necessary changes for justice in our society? That classism does not exist, only racism and people who refuse to conform to the “moral majority” are the real problem?

Be afraid, dear candidates, because class is no longer able to be pushed under the rug. The real elites are those who have the power and money. We ain’t stupid. Just because you talk like us, don’t mean that you are us. This system “clothes the rascals in robes and honesty in rags” but I think now, we see the Emperor naked as a Jaybird. And it is embarassing that a political party is so blatantly and tansparantly running on the demagogue platform. Calling to whatever middle class voters that still don’t question the way the system is running that still are fed their vote from the pulpit and still are either surviving or have the fool belief that God is in control. If this is populism, it’s as meaningless as the great experience of this gal and the superior policies that the two have claimed from the beginning to have (until they disclose their policies, we won’t be able to decide if that’s true or not). A little advice, don’t say “gosh darnit,” Ms. Palin. Working class people say “Goddammit.” We don’t gasp or giggle when someone says “shit,” “sonofabitch,” or “damn.” Because you know what? It ain’t easy for real Americans and we just don’t give a damn about who you’re pretending to be.

But if you really want populism, I’ll show you a real populist: Huey Long, Louisiana senator.  This man is not afraid at all to speak his mind, like a real American should. “Not a single thin dime of concentrated, bloated, pompous wealth, massed in the hands of a few people, has been raked down to relieve the masses.” This is how the senator described the New Deal.

What about his opinion of the KKK? “Quote me as saying that that Imperial bastard will never set foot in Louisiana, and that when I call him a sonofabitch I am not using profanity, but am referring to the circumstances of his birth.”

And Hitler: “Don’t liken me to that sonofabitch. Anybody that lets his public policies be mixed up with religious prejudice is a plain God-damned fool!”

Populism is about raisin’ Hell to protect the interests of the people, whether that be from the people or from a politician. But gosh darnit, we just like to sound like everything is peachy in small town America and our friends big business haven’t caused any problems.

We should just look our leaders in the eyes and say “yessir, we trust you”? This campaign is embarrassingly full of bullshit and its both funny and sad that y’all believe we are stupid enough to buy this.