Blogs For Victory

John Hawkins comments on the level of elite conservative vitriol directed at Sarah Palin:

…But why would the right have it in for Palin? The excessively vicious attacks on Palin from some quarters on the right make people scratch their heads — particularly since her critics claim to agree with her on the issues and so much of their criticism seems to be, at least on its face, completely irrational.

They said Sarah Palin wasn’t experienced enough — but, despite the fact that Obama has been in the White House for six months, he still has less executive experience than Palin. They said Palin spent too much time talking in platitudes — after America elected a man whose campaign primarily consisted of repeating the words “change” and “hope” over and over again. They got upset because Palin was parodied on Saturday Night Live — but what candidate isn’t going to be ripped to pieces on that show?

To many conservatives, those complaints didn’t seem to make sense when the people making them often seemed to give Obama a free pass for the very flaws they seemed to hate so much in Palin. Where did these strange complaints come from? …

…An unspoken assumption was made by many conservatives: Palin is like me and the real problem that Palin’s enemies on the right have with her is that they’re snobs and they don’t accept common people like me in their leadership.

Given the way that conservatives are regularly betrayed and the contempt for them that some Republicans have shown over the last few years, that assessment is probably correct more often than not.

Palin is, indeed, just like me. Just like most of the people I know. Quite honestly, whom do you want coming over for dinner – Sarah Palin, or John Kerry? The former has “American” on her like a crown; the later is barely identifiable as an American, at all. There are two Americas – that part which is proud to be American and that part which is not, or at least not so proud of being American that it trumps an Ivy League degree or the knowledge that the oyster fork is placed to the right of the plate. Palin is hated because she’s one of us who also has a chance of governing the elite – and they can’t stand it.

We are to sit down and shut up. Pay our taxes. Serve in the military/police/fire department. And leave governing to those who know better than us – and, sad to say, there is a substantial conservative elite who also feel this way. Even if they would agree to policies which allow the common man more leeway, they still don’t want that common man barging in and breaking wind in the palaces of the great (10 points to whomever can identify where I took that last bit from). This is why I characterize the real political battle of 2010 forward as “people vs powerful”.

The left is going to be excluded from this – they think that with Obama in charge they’ve got a seat at the table. They haven’t learned that their seat is in the corner where fund raising and volunteering is done…not where decisions are made. Conservatism may be excluded – to a degree – if the GOP leadership listens to the DC/NYC conservative elite and tries to shut out things like the TEA Party movement. The changes which are sought in the populace are revolutionary – no more tinkering about the edges and trying to figure out who gets what government subsidy. The desire is for a complete house cleaning and a re-emphasis on the rights of the people.

Scared to death of Palin and what she represents, the powerful are essentially closing ranks – preferring, to a certain extent, even the continuation of the Obama disaster if that is the only means of keeping the people out of power. Anything is better than some yokel like Palin (backed by a legion of House members and Senators elected first elected in 2010) actually ripping the government to shreds and insisting upon honesty and results. She must be stopped – and so they go after her thinking that if they get her, the danger is over (they forget people like Jindal – after his excruciating national debut, he’s discounted…but, he’s also of the people and, if you take any random 1,000 Americans, you’ll probably find he’s smarter than any of them…even if that 1,000 people were made up of Harvard and Yale PhD’s). Of course, she can be stopped – but what she stands for, can’t be. At best, the powerful will win a temporary reprieve – but the political executioner is not to be denied.