Taranto writes the primer on Palinoia
I’ve probably written at least 100,000 words trying to explain Palin-hatred. The rest of the right side of the blogosphere has babbled on and on in the same attempt. But James Taranto explains it all, elegantly and succinctly, here.
Absolutely brilliant.
[Hat tip: commenter “Bill West.”]
I’ve quietly come to mostly the same conclusion as to the progressive left’s hatred of Palin.
For instance, one of the two main bloggers at Talk Left is a woman named of Jeralyn. Oh, she’s a standard lefty in some ways, but she has her moments, like she supports second amendment rights and didn’t think this Loughner thing should result in more restrictions.
On most issues (the other exception being immigration, she HATES the term “illegal”) she’s reasonable and balanced even if you disagree with her.
But, so far since Palin has burst upon the scene she’s made a post about her on average about every 2 months. And all these posts have been very vindictive, often highly personal, half-hysterical. Not like her at all. With her, I don’t know what it is, really. She doesn’t mention abortion much (though of course she is pro-choice) she’s maybe ten years older than Palin, but even ten years ago she was almost as pretty as Palin for her age, plus she has a grown up kid, so I don’t think its age or looks jealousy, and Jeralyn isn’t one of those liberal women who “waited too long” and thus never had the chance to have a sprat.
It might just be the fact that Palin does not represent her vision of what a woman should be if she enters politics – that she does not appropriately represent “Team Woman”.
I suspect its like that for the vast majority of feminists and leftist women.
Brad: for many liberal women, it’s not about envy (although I suppose for some it is). The equation goes like this:
(1) Feminists are on the left.
(2) A feminist (or any successful woman) on the right is a traitor to feminism, a pretender of sorts.
The worst rage is reserved for traitors. That’s why a lot of feminist Palin-haters had to say Palin was a pretender as a woman, a very odd thought. They had to both sexualize her and de-feminize her, all at the same time.
Plus, there’s all the other baggage Palin carries—of class differences, education, diction, lifestyle, and flaunting her feminine wiles (the wink, for example).
James Taranto, and those who help do research to contribute to his columns, has been on fire since the Tucson shootings.
I sent him an email telling him so.
The last time I emailed a pundit was after Obama’s West Point speech. That speech prompted Chris Matthews to say Obama was delivering the speech in “enemy territory”. That was such a vile insult to the cadets who are being prepared to go into battle on the President’s orders, I could not let Matthews get away with making such an outrageous remark without giving him a piece of my mind.
Perhaps Palin is recognized as the alpha female to end all alpha females. She is top dog. The other females snap and hiss at her, reveling in the fact they are attacking the alpha.
“”I’ve probably written at least 100,000 words trying to explain Palin-hatred.””
Neo
I’ve probably read 200,000 words on it and still find the subject elusive. Part of me thinks it is so elusive because the full explanation will reveal itself to be more like a unified theory of what happened to liberals, rather than just their hatred for one hockey mom.
Rush, today, mentioned the latest blog on Palin by “Legal Insurrection.” The idea is that the last smear campaign was a test run. If it works against Palin, this tactic will be employed again and again.
However, I don’t think it is a test run, since we saw that the smear tactic was so well used during the last elections. Rather, it is a tactic used by the Left whenever it works.
The warning goes out to all those who will not stand up and defend those under attack now. This is a test of our character and principle. The battle is now, right now. If we leave Sarah to twist in the wind, we will lose our will to defend.
I’m a fan of Palin because she seems to truly say what she means and means what she says. That is my litmus test for authenticity. She drives the left around the bend because she is authentic. What you see is what you get.
I see her as the republican equivalent of Harry Truman. Harry took a lot of flack in his day. Now we look back and realize he was a politician who had real, honestly held principals.
Go Sarah Barracuda!
From my (possibly monomaniacal) perspective, this intense, deranged hatred of Palin mirrors and is therefore of the same source as the intense and deranged hatred of the Left toward Israel and Zionism. That source is: A perceived reversing agent of the Marxist plan.
If you consider that Marxism has in its plan the eradication of all national differences and the nation-states that hold them, then the greatest affront is a particular nationalist movement that not only stands against that Marxist plan, but actually reverses it. That a nation should “go back” (according to the Marxist narrative) from being scattered around the world to residing in a nation-state of its own is an outrage a Marxist could never bring himself to tolerate. It’s a wrench in the works of the Marxist narrative of inevitable progression, and as such is the target of constant execration.
Now Palin and the Tea Party are the same regarding the Marxist plan as it applies to the United States of America: Their plan to have the U.S.A. degodded, defamilied, degunned and ultimately decountrified is confronted with the Tea Party as its potential reversing agent, and Sarah Palin as the epitome of all those values. She represents everything the Marxists want gone: Faith in God, family values (especially on the anti-baby-murder front), love of country, the idea of entitlement to self-defense. Plus, being a woman, she is like the black Tea Partier in not getting with the Marxist categorization as “oppressed by The Man and needing to resist.” But I argue that it is primarily her being a living image of the threat of the reversal of Marxism’s master plan that draws the Left’s ire, just as it is the case for the Jewish State.
Just my 2 agorot’s worth.
Robin of Berkeley also wrote on this topic yesterday. She approaches it from more of a spiritual/religious viewpoint, but her conclusions are not far different from Taranto’s.
Neither of them directly addresses why conservative women are cool to her as well, although they don’t seem to express the rabid hatred we see on the left. I’ve read that there is an 11-point gap in her approval ratings between Republican men and Republican women. That’s pretty large.
Neo:
What you said is probably 90 percent of it as far as liberal or feminist women are concerned. There’s the class biases of the left to deal with, and yes, she is considered a traitor by most feminist leaders (since most are on the left that is not much of a surprise).
Posted the following at Just One Minute: One commenter said it was envy.
Ideas?
When in high school and college, at an occasonal pool party, or a wild night of mass snowball fights during a blizzard, there was a curious phenomenon:
A guy would attack a woman, shoving her head underwater, or into the snow, depending, putting real, angry effort into it.
Without exception, all of those guys were wimps. Really, really wussy wimps. Two, I later found out, were gay.
And when the rules were out the window, or seemed so, something came out of them toward women, especially the better looking ones.
I don’t have an explanation for it, but if you look around at the men who make a big deal out of hating Palin–not simply reasoned disagreement with a policy–see whether you see what I saw all those years ago.
neo, imagine that as a young woman you bought into the idea that the only way you could compete and succeed in the world was to shed the feminine attributes of your character, give up family, marriage, motherhood, etc. You end up working and working and end up as a mid-level pea-pusher, good salary, but no family life to speak of. Then along comes this ex-beauty queen who’s refused to give up a damn thing. Sure, she went to a podunk school out in Idaho, but she was governor, for goodness sake, and she might have been vice president. And she’s got a loving husband and a bunch of kids who all seem to get along pretty well. And she’s happy–there’s no denying it. My God, it’s enough to drive you Olbermann! And she kept her figure and you’re eating plain yogurt and salad and your partner is a little squeamish at killing a spider let alone clubbing a halibut… I get it. And I’m not even a feminist.
What the feminists know: They can’t rely on men. What they fear: They can’t rely on themselves. What they demand: The state support them. Who is the state in this case? Men. So, basically, feminist fear is stronger than feminist knowledge.
Liberal women hate Sarah Palin because she cuts deeply into their bulls**t and makes them understand how silly and superficial they are…and how selfish.
The comparison to Harry Truman is apt.
This only seems new because the alternative media is reporting it. The left had it so easy, for so many years, that they themselves don’t recognize how silly they sound. It is amazing how so many “smart” people in the MSM can’t see beyond their own bubble. The American people have seen through this for years. It is only when things get screwed up beyond recognition that they act. I personally think this is good for our democracy. The Senate is a place where nothing gets done. That is the great check on our government.
Victor Davis Hanson writes fabulous articles. He must keep a database of all the dumb things leading liberals have said and things they have done to be able to so thoroughly skewer them.
You’ll love this one about the hatred of Sarah Palin:
http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson012011.html
Curtis Says:
January 20th, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Men used to support women, but the feminists demonized men. Changes in the divorce and child custody laws have made marriage a losing proposition for most men. Many men have been financially ruined by women who suddenly decided that they “fell out of love” with them. Some men have been forced to support children they didn’t even father. It shouldn’t be a surprise that many men have become extremely skittish about getting married unless they really, really, really trust the woman.
Those single women find solace in the protection of the State. Artfldgr has spoken about this phenomenon before. It’s not an accident.
And let’s not even go into the fact than men used to be role models for young boys, but nowadays are afraid to go near them for fear that some busybody will accuse them of being child molesters; while simultaneously children are taught to fear adult men. It’s all part of breaking the bonds of generations and communities and substituting the State as the role model. Meanwhile, real child molesters are defended by groups like NAMBLA.
I’m convinced that they are so incredibly angry because she refuses to be cowed or surrender. They are used to attacking people they consider to be their inferiors (they do consider Palin to be low class) and driving them into seclusion or surrender. Some here have compared her to Truman, but IMO, she reminds many of the progressives of Reagan. He of the second rate mind and a “B” list actor. They called him an amiable dunce. He never backed down and he did it all with a fine Irish sense of humor, a twinkle in his eye, and plain language. Drove them nuts, he did. So does she. Some may say she doesn’t have Reagan’s communication skills, but she’s working on that, and, as Taranto says, she ranks up there with many of our current crop of pols. It pleases me that she gets under their skin the way she does. The way she takes their best shots and comes back laughing, winking, and unbowed. All I can say is, “You go girl!!”
Surely there is a gold mine of opportunity in this knee jerk reaction of liberals toward the likes of Palin. The narrative of liberal good/conservative bad can be dealt a severe blow by drawing the snobs out at a fever pitch. They are ripe for the picking.
Seems to me all that’s needed are some creative political thinkers that understand the liberal brand will best be diminished by taking advantage of this reflexive bigotry of liberals themselves. It is the achilles heel of all bigots, that their irrational opposition to certain persons or groups, really comes from a very ugly emotion at its core.
for more on Palinphobia see http://www.keshertalk.com/. The January 14, 2010 entry is both amusing and explanatory.
While reading Taranto’s article, which is good, it occurred to me a broader point is being missed. The Left needs and thrives on resentment. While sexism, racism and a host of other “isms” were very real, they are generally fairly minor issues today (at least in the Western world). Yet to listen to the rhetoric, the these problems are bigger now (in the West) than in past generations, yet the Left excuses an increasingly worsening state of affairs in much of the third world.
Sarah Palin is proof positive that life has never been better. She is not an elite, she did not marry an elite, and further, her husband is an indigenous American. She did not go to elite university. She and Todd have worked hard, had lots of kids, including a down-syndrome child. Challenging? Of course, but they take it in their stride, and enjoy the ride.
According to the left, the Palins should be struggling, and hopefully receiving some sort of government aid. Instead she is thriving. Todd, far from being a troubled native is some cool super-dude who liberal woman would probabaly love to trade for their house-trained partners (“husbands” is a dirty word for them).
And Palin seems happy. She is rocking the world and appears to be thriving.
The left hates Palin, not just because she is everything they are not (especially happy), but because she proves people can thrive and succeed on their own. She is proof their big-brother state isn’t necessary, and that rankles.
But there is also a flip-side to this. I went to an ordinary university, have four kids, and come from a solid immigrant, working class background. I’ve done well enough in life, and I’m reasonably content and happy. So who do I indentify with? When the left slams Palin, they are also slamming me. Their put-downs of Sarah and Todd would be just as scornfully directed at me if I wandered into their sights.
More than any politician I can remember, I can identify with Sarah Palin. So can many other people, and the left fears and envies that as well.
Go Sarah!