My summing-up of Palin-hatred for today
I’ve noticed and noticed in the comments here and elsewhere that many people ascribe a lot of the hatred of Palin among women—especially liberal women—to envy. Palins beautiful, Palin’s got it all, her husband’s a hottie, and so forth.
I may not know a lot about some things, but I know liberal women. And my sample is rather large, too. Although I suppose that some sort of envy must enter into the equation for some, I think it’s very very low on the list and not anywhere near as common as one might think.
I’ll tell you the emotion most of the liberal women I know feel towards Palin: contempt. She embodies everything they despise about conservatives.
That is the overriding attitude, and it’s real and it goes deep. It’s not feigned, and it doesn’t seem to come from secret envy denied, although it does appear to be a woman-on-woman thing. It comes more from a sense of superiority, and shock that someone so (fill in the blank—stupid, uneducated, ignorant, declasse, trailer trashy) has managed to achieve the level of political prominence and influence Palin has.
If you want to conceptualize it another way, it’s as though Dolly Parton (or some simulacrum of Dolly) were in her forties, had reduced the size of her breast implants, dyed her hair brown, put on some glasses, and decided to go into politics.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
And yet Dolly has proven herself to be a successful businesswoman with a love for her origin in Tennessee. I guess that doesn’t count unless one has the correct pedigree.
T, I think you’ve hit on it-pedigree seems to matter. To the rest of us mongrels who don’t have one, all the discussion of credentials, proper school, time-serving, etc, etc, just doesn’t matter so much as what you DO.
It’s measurable substance over vaporous pretense and puffery.
We could certainly do worse than President Parton.
Oh wait, we already have.
I offer you this. If Palin is successful, famous, effective, respected, and even happy, then the liberal female’s definition of the “correct pedigree” is demonstrably WRONG.
She under cuts their liberal world view of superiority on a very personal level.
It’s a class/tribal thing. They want their group to have all the power because… because that’s the way people are. They think People Like Us are virtuous and likable and People Like Them are scary and mean.
You know when lefties insist, with insane persistence, that tea partiers are just white males who think their “privileges” are threatened? That’s projection.
Lefties think Sarah Palin threatens their group’s privileges.
She breaks allusions that has to be in place for a great number of beliefs to be in place – one of the ways to deal with that is that visceral hatred and is probably the most common.
I know of at least a few liberals who do that over a number of things – they are usually rather intelligent but for some reason or other (typically their whole community around them would not accept them being anything other than liberal) when they see something that would normally cause them to question they ignore or attack. If it is someone they otherwise like the ignore and change the subject, if not they attack.
Both Bush and Palin break molds that have to be true for a great deal of modern liberalism to hold true. They force an introspection on beliefs that they do not want to loose and they did it in a fairly aggressive manner.
It’s got to be tribal. There were recently some stories about Erin Brockovitch (remember her) where the issue that was her claim to fame of possible contamination of her town by toxic chemicals has be debunked.
She was truly “uncredentialed” with a Dolly parton figure, but she was accepted by the Left (and Hollywood). Once again if you are a (woman, black, fill in the blank…) and not liberal you are not really a (woman, black, fill in the blank.
Sarah not only is not a liberal, but she doesn’t worry that they don’t accept her.
I suspect Dolly understands economics 101 better than Obama.
Though I don’t have any quotes from her as evidence – it’s just BASIC COMMON SENSE !!!
… well to me anyways.
One interesting, and possibly relevant, comparison: One of the big objections to the Tunisian dictator who was just thrown out was that his wife had gotten above herself. (She was also stealing the country blind, but that’s nothing new in Arab countries.)
As I recall, she started out as a hair dresser.
I don’t think this is very complicated. Liberals hated Reagan with a passion. They hated Gingrich with a passion. They hate Rush with a passion. They hate W with a passion. And they hate Palin with a passion. Any conservative who is successful is going to be hated passionately by liberals.
Start with that baseline for hatred. Now add all the cultural, educational, geographical, class, speaking accent, beauty, etc. reasons you want. They just add some extra spice to the base hatred.
Anyone who is successful at gaining significant support from conservatives is going to be hated by liberals. Period. If Palin came from a rich New England family and had degrees from Yale and Harvard (see e.g. W), they’d hate her just as passionately. Because they hate and despise her conservative supporters.
For the sake of a scientific test that holds unimportant variables steady, can anyone point out a single counter-balancing example, i.e. is there anywhere to be found a conservative woman with all the right (Ivy League education, etc) credentials who is or isn’t despised?
Let’s have some alternatives that don’t depend on her conservatism and see if stan’s proposition is correct. (Dolly is ‘just’ another Palin in this experiment, so maybe it is tribalism.)
Neo I suggest then that their contempt is akin to the feelings that British upper classes held for the “under classes”. If you want to see it portrayed, watch any episode of Masterpiece Theater. Most Americans watch and laugh.
I don’t think it too harsh to say that the attitudes you describe are profoundly anti-American. Your report simply disgusts me more than words can express.
Most Americans read the Heath-Palin story and admire the spirit, intelligence and devotion it reveals. If your friends have bothered to learn about Sarah Palin, her roots and her life, and I am confident that they have not, and still refer to her family as “trailer trash”, then they are beneath contempt.
You may wish to find a new social circle.
To stray a bit. I wonder what your acquaintances thought about Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman or Dwight Eisenhower. I presume the only 20th century Presidents who would pass their muster would be FDR and John F. Kennedy. FDR because of his patrician family; and JFK because of his (media manufactured) glamor. His Nazi loving, anti-semitic, rum running, election buying father certainly could not be the reason.
I can’t imagine how Obama fits their template. True, he did pass through good schools, even if his academic record is conspicuously undocumented. But, other than that…?
Well, as you can see, you struck a nerve. Time to move on.
Oldflyer: no, my friends most assuredly do not use the words “trailer trash.” They would not do that. That is my shorter version of what I think is going on, however. Some of the people I’m referring to are not my friends, either. They are just acquaintances, or just people I’ve read or overheard.
Friends are friends, and if I cut people out of my life because of their politics I would have virtually no friends whatsoever.
stan is possibly right. Just compare Palin with Michelle Bachmann. Lots of common traits: a degree from a third-rate school, five children, Lutheran upbringing, uncompromissed Christian beliefs, stated in public, a successful political career. If she had the same political clout at national level, liberals would react just the same. Just snobbery of Boston brahmins? This explains contempt, but not hatred. What I see at Daily Kos, Huffington Post, etc., especially in comment sections, is iron-hot hatred, not just contempt.
We are looking for a logical explanation where none exist. Hate is just what leftist do best. They hate all Republicans and conservatives. But their worst vehemence is reserved for whoever is the most prominent conservative of the moment.
Obvious signs of BDS have greatly diminished in the last two years because GWB is no longer on-stage. Just so, PDS will slowly die away when the left perceives that she is no longer a threat.
LAG – Condi Rice is probably a good test-case. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina might have been, but they’s gone now.
But I like the thrust of your challenge, because I too think it has a bit more to it than Palin’s conservatism, as I think BDS had more to it than Bush’s conservatism.
I think neo is probably right on the main substance – the feeling is likely not envy but contempt. But still, don’t the polls show a disproportionate amount of women disposed that way to Palin? Why exactly is it women?
Neo suggested that it relates to the shibboleths of feminism – there has become something reflexive about associating anti-feminist women (in the contemporary, socialist, anti-Western, pro-abortion sense) with anti-women women.
I confess I still don’t know why that would be so. Do women really feel the shibboleths of contemporary feminism that deeply in their sinews? Is abortion really that important to them? I realize that relatively speaking women tend to lean left politically, but they don’t lean as far left as contemporary feminism does, by and large. I still find it mysterious.
So I wonder this: Is it only liberal women? Because it would certainly show something more if conservative women found Palin more objectionable than conservative men – it would suggest that it was more of a woman thing and less of a political thing (with politics, as usual, functioning as a veneer for more, shall we say, primal goings-on).
Lets stipulate that it is more of a woman thing and less of a political thing – and I pose this to neo, who I think knows the data better than I do: What would it be, from a intra-female perspective, that caused even a noticeable disproportion of conservative women to object to Palin? Again, I’m not sure that the premise of that question is even true, but I suspect it is.
For the record, I have an interest in this because I’m working on a study right now relating to intra-female attitudes. In reading neo’s remarks, it occurred to me that a perfect opening point for speculation would be PDS. And then from there to, as LAG suggested, women’s attitudes toward other powerful women – liberal, conservative, ugly, beautiful, credentialed or not, etc.
oldflyer…”their contempt is akin to the feelings that British upper classes held for the “under classes”. If you want to see it portrayed, watch any episode of Masterpiece Theater”
Maybe it’s not a coincidence that so many liberals like to watch shows on this type on PBS (which used to be known as Petroleum’s British Subsidiary)
“Friends are friends, and if I cut people out of my life because of their politics I would have virtually no friends whatsoever.”
One of the things that sealed my drift rightwards was the realization that it’s by far the conservative thinkers and believers who tend to take this stance.
I’ve never seen a progressivist or leftist work hard to stay friends with a conservative. Most of them tend to react like, “Screw you — we must never really have been friends anyway, if *that’s* what you think! I can always get new friends!”
Liberal women, in declaring their autonomy, refudiated the biblical declaration that man plus women is one unit. If this declaration had really been manifested, there would have been no feminism. What women were really rebelling against was the perversion that saw the man assuming a role which devalued the woman. This, of course, had gone on for centuries in various ways and cycles. This perversion was, however, preferable to the universal contempt the ancient world had for women.
It would have been better had reform come to the Christian world without the Marxists and progressives co-opting the issue to bring their gospel. And it is this socialist gospel which declares man, paradoxically, as both an automaton and a collective. Palin threatens this foundation and she is a threat–a complete refudiation of the progressive gospel. Further, Palin is a champion example of the Christian gospel: that man and woman are a unit wherein the potentiality of each is most fully expressed.
Feminism denies man any part or role in fulfilling the destiny of a woman. This is strict orthodoxy and without this plank, the whole platform falls. Any example which challenges the ideology that a woman is an island challenges the choices the feminist woman has made and the insufferable suggestion that she might have wasted her life. The Palins live successfully and happily and consequently as an open rebuke to the lie.
Feminists hate Sarah Palin because they fear judgment.
I’ll tell you the emotion most of the liberal women I know feel towards Palin: contempt.
Of course. They see themselves as our betters: intellectually, morally, and politically. Fortunately, looking down their nose means they don’t take us seriously, so when they’re agenda gets rejected they’re shocked and surprised.
Neo, MY liberal friends would certainly use the words “trailer trash” to describe Palin. They would use “redneck” to describe GWB. And none of the females would ever admit to being jealous or envious of Sarah (how many people would admit to being jealous of anyone?); that doesn’t mean it doesn’t play a role in their hatred. And if you tell them that Dolly Parton is brilliant (which she is), they will have none of it. They’ll just laugh and wave their hands at the very idea. I often ask them about their criteria for “intelligence.” Is it success? Is it riches? Schooling? In their world, Obama is intelligent because he went to Harvard (despite the complete lack of proof that he was an exceptional student). Point out that GWB went to Harvard, and the instantaneous explanation is that his father pulled the proper strings. Sarah is more successful than they will ever dream of being, and they truly believe that it’s because of her looks, or because EVERYONE around her was even stupider than she was, or some other cockamamie reason. And like I said, the reaction is instantaneous – no proof or thought necessary. Liberal success is well-earned; conservative success is due to sex appeal, nepotism, ignorance, or just plain dumb luck. This elitism is burned into their DNA.
Strangely, most of my female friends, republican and democrat, have at least some level of respect and admiration for Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. I believe that though they are accomplished and intelligent people, neither one of them would be nearly as prominent as they are now if not for their husbands. Sarah takes a backseat to NOBODY, and yet many women on both sides have no admiration for her as a strong female. Truly ironic, and in my opinion, strongly rooted in envy.
“What would it be, from a intra-female perspective, that caused even a noticeable disproportion of conservative women to object to Palin?”
My wife and I often discussed differences between men and women, and one interesting conclusion we came to was something regarding violence: While we both agreed that women could be as violent and destructive and aggressive as men, we noted one key difference — women don’t fight for *fun*, for the most part. If a woman throws down, it’s because she either wants to destroy her opponent or is convinced *she’ll* be destroyed if she doesn’t. To use the most cliched image possible, men may laugh during a brawl; women *never* laugh during a catfight.
(We postulated, in a rather just-so manner, that this went back to evolutionary instinct: if the women had to fight in the tribe’s defense, then it was almost certainly the last-ditch-stand, no-escape death fight for the entire tribe, and so there was no survival value in any kind of hold-back response. But like all Just-So stories that needs much salt to taste.)
I think this can be seen somewhat in a more generalized, though not universal, reaction: Women do not generally enjoy competition for its own sake unless they can be convinced nothing genuinely important is at stake. If something vital *is* perceived to be riding on the outcome, I’ve noticed that a lot of women immediately stop having any fun or enjoying themselves until the competition is either won or lost, and they can get *very* hostile to their opponents — they may be polite enough to behave civilly, but there is almost none of the mutual joshing disguising mutual respect that male sports teams, for example, tend to show. (Ironically, female sports teams are much better at this: there *is* social value to those old saws about “sportsmanship” after all.)
So if conservative women dislike Mrs. Palin for her success, it may go back to this reflex reaction — if they subconsciously classify Mrs. Palin as a competitor for any kind of resource or prestige, the immediate instinct is for unleavened hostility, only retroactively rationalized.
I don’t think Palin should retreat from the Mean Girls. Mockery and ridicule are the best weapons against the Dowdy crowd.
Liberals have one area that can be construed as standards and principles. Attack anyone who has standards and principles.
Stephen J – Wow… that is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.
Would you mind if I tossed some of those notions around with my co-author?
(I’m jealous of my idea because it is a generally ignored aspect of evolutionary psychology – and our paper is going to break new ground. Believe it or not – you sound like you have studied the area somewhat, so you probably know what I’m going to say – pretty much zero work in EP deals with intra-female competitiveness, or the roots of female competitiveness at all. Our playful, but not entirely playful, guess at the reason for this is the old cunning of reason – men mostly write EP stuff, and they more than anyone should be aware that they’re just competing for mates, like everyone else, but they manifest a bias toward trying to explain why women sleep with men. There is something oddly masturbatory about evolutionary psychology. But it’s the rage, so I’m trying to “get noticed.” Ah well, we’re far afield now…)
You’re hypotheses are fascinating and, as you noted, EP is really mostly “just so” speculation with a TEENSY bit of data sprinkled atop to give it a veneer of delicious hard science. So the point – and this is the dirty secret – is more to tell a good story with a coherent plot then to get anything like “The Science” right. And your story is very good indeed.
Just tell me, however, if you need it for your own work or don’t want me to steal it and build on it. I try to be intellectually honorable, so I’d be disgusted with myself if I claimed an idea as original to me that wasn’t, or borrowed it without permission.
Anyhow – that was a bracing post. Much appreciated!
Here is another facet, taken from my personal experience. “Redneck” women get TRASHED by everyone under the sun, including each other. I am from a town that has a reputation for being “the wrong side of the tracks” and I can’t tell you how much crap I have taken for being a redneck woman, and I am not even a redneck. A lot of people don’t even start to characterize me as a redneck until they find out where I am from.
It definitely has to do with them thinking that you are rising above your station. Like I am only fit to be a welfare tramp or whatever.
Redneck women get treated like black people used to be treated.
Sometime I dare anyone to pay attention to the cultural attitude towards redneck women such as myself and Palin. A lot of times, we don’t even notice such things because we are so used to being immersed in it.
Wait a minute. Dolly Parton has breast implants? My world has lost its meaning. Nothing is making sense anymore…
I think there is one particular reason that Liberal women hate Palin so much. Their own insecurity and self loathing. When it come to things like abortion, family etc, she walks the walk. Its as simple as that. Most liberals and probably a chunk of conservatives would have aborted her son Trig. At some level they know abortion is wrong (no matter how hard they champion it). The fact when confronted with such a choice and seeing someone with the moral strength to do the right thing at great personal cost. It angers them greatly. It also make it impossible to demonize someone who has shown the ability to stick to their beliefs. This pattern continues in many area with Palin because she is an actual genuine person. They know this that is why they have tried so hard to make her appear phony and insincere. Remember clothsgate after the election. People on both sides seem to love to project their own insecurities on her to deflect from personal insecurities about ones own actions.
Kolnai — Not at all, feel free to purloin as necessary; though neither I nor my wife are scientists of any sort, just writers and observers of human behaviour. Which may explain why I talk more like I’m telling a story than constructing a falsifiable hypothesis.
I’ll backpedal somewhat and comment that I do believe that what I’ve called “sportsmanship” — the ability to simultaneously feel both heartfelt desire for victory in a competition, *and* thorough enjoyment for its own sake of the competition itself and respect for your opponents, even if you lose — *is* something that can be learned/taught whatever your sex. And there are plenty of women who know how to compete without it getting personal or vicious.
Nonetheless, I do think that boys, far more often than girls, tend to have an emphasis placed on “being good sports” in their upbringing, and that this may explain some of the observed differences between male and female attitudes to competition, against both their own sex and the other.
Someone above mentioned that Hillary or Mrs Obama were respected more by conservative women they knew than Palin is by liberal women. I think a lot of this is due to the different media treatment. Women are far more likely to be influenced by others’ attitudes. They respond to fashion, not just in clothes but in everything. [In my opinion, this explains the gender gap in voting far better than the mommy/daddy party stuff. Women are just less likely to hold out from what they perceive is the popular opinion. Men are more likely to be contrary.] Finally, tv shows and magazines directed toward women are far more left-wing than the media that men read and watch. Women are just inundated with more soft core left-wing spin.
Isn’t it strange that the left which is so concerned about the masses doesn’t like them as individuals?
To acknowledge a point some distaff readers might fairly raise: Most women have very good reasons not to find fighting fun, especially if their opponent’s male; and it’s very easy for a man to find fighting fun when he deliberately picks opponents smaller and weaker than he is.
There’s a line from the movie Shadowlands which has always stuck with me; C.S. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) says to Joy Gresham (Debra Winger), when she warns him that she may argue with him a lot, “Not to worry; I like a good fight,” and Joy looks at him shrewdly and says, “Maybe so; but when was the last time you lost?”
Friends are friends, and if I cut people out of my life because of their politics I would have virtually no friends whatsoever.
Why do you think I spend so much time online? 😉
Stephen J –
Thanks, and I agree with all of your qualifications of your original statement. I’m not a scientist either – just a political scientist (i.e., not a scientist), but for better or worse, poly sci cross-cuts increasingly with EP these days, and it pays to cut your cross into that sector.
I don’t actually take much of this EP stuff seriously; I find the literature highly entertaining and sporadically enlightening, but nothing more. I guess you could say I’m being Machiavellian. The job market is as dry as a desert, so unfortunately a guy’s gotta act like he’s the purest water.
Well, I just had a conversation with my co-author, and we already extracted a bunch of ancillary hypotheses from your original idea, so we are going to mileage out of this.
Being a writer, you must know that feeling when a seemingly random comment or remark you hear or read “jars something loose,” and the floodgates open. That’s basically what your observations did – it got the motors turning, after I’d been stalled for some time.
It’s a great feeling – like being liberated from burden. Well, I’ll stop there, as I’m taking up too much comment space with effusions.
Thanks again – and I hope you can comment more in the future.
Stephen J:
Those are interesting observations about sportsmanship. Palin was a high school basketball player.
It might be interesting to determine the percentages of Palin haters who played sports vs. Palin non-haters.
(I’m a non-hater who attempted to play when I was a child, but was lousy at it. I remain a baseball fan, though.)
> It comes more from a sense of superiority, and shock
The liberal Palin-hating women are furious because Palin doesn’t envy them, as someone of her station should.
It’s a lot simpler than most think. Contempt. It’s what leftists do.
The back and forth on Psychology and attitude got me to thinking. I suggest reflecting back on your own experience and recall folks who at first you thought were “looking down” on those around them. Often as you got to know them, you learned that they weren’t manifesting superiority. They were desperately trying to cover their own insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. Some outgrew it; some never did.
Now, that does not explain the attitudes of Neo’s associates. Not unless they were so intensely insecure for so long, that their behavior is irreversibly ingrained. That is to the point that the compulsion to disparage those who outperform themselves has become uncontrollable.
Just thinking.
(As an aside. Sarah Palin was something of a plain Jane throughout her youth. She was a relatively late bloomer. Before her “coming out” she was a bit of a loner, who spent most of her time reading. She was a voracious reader. One more point; it was her spiritual mentor (youth pastor) who convinced her that she, like all of us, had a purpose in the world. She now truly believes that we are each here for a purpose, and that her purpose is political activism. If her haters ever bothered to learn that, it would really drive them batty. Woman on a mission.
Regarding spirituality. Sarah’s mother was a main- stream Catholic until well into her married life, but found herself looking for a spiritual life that did not require intermediaries. She came fairly late to her present faith. Her father is not formally religious.)
Liberals are so bizarre, they just think it’s okay to bring up how much they hate Sarah Palin with someone who is almost a perfect stranger. Yesterday I had a job interview and the interviewer and I were talking about whatever, things got a little loose in the conversation, and then he started going on about how stupid Sarah Palin was. I didn’t really say anything, because I wanted him to hire me, (it’s a really great company, and I would like to work for this fellow, really talented person) but geez, what is it about liberals and Palin? Then today lunch with an old friend hadn’t seen in 20 years, I barely know him now, and he started in about how horrible Sarah Palin is. Neither of these guys know what I think about politics, it’s like they just couldnt help themselves. And in both instances we weren’t speaking politics. And you are right, liberal women are far more venomous. They practically levitate in their hatred of her. Wow. Bizarre.
An earlier commenter pointed out that the leftists hated George W. Bush, even though, unlike Palin, he came from a prominent and wealthy Northeastern family and graduated from an Ivy League college.
What he and Palin have in common is an outspoken and unapologetic belief in Christianity. Hard-core leftists and practitioners of “alternative lifestyles” are the most rabid Christian-haters on the planet. They leave the most radical Muslim jihadis in the dust.
That is a sad commentary on your friends. They are really shallow people.
I also had two friends who told me (just before and just after the election of 2008) of their utter contempt for palin. They were personally insulted that McCain had picked her. The big insult then was her lack of “experience”. If you remember, that was the numero uno charge against her. That was the first thing people said.
When I pointed out that she had more “experience” than Obama they literally got furious and we had to change the subject.
I was privately shocked. I don’t talk to those two anymore. I lost some level of trust in them. I don’t respect their judgment.
Palin is like a test. She is so obviously “good” that anyone who “hates” her has something wrong with them; something deeply and seriously wrong.
Palin hatred is not a “quirk”. It’s a sign of some deep spiritual pathology. I would not hang with those people. You become an “enabler” if you do. They should be publicly named, shamed, and even ridiculed for their own benefit.
Think I mentioned once, that I haven’t worn my Palin ball cap in public much because I did not look for confrontation. But, with the incessantly vicious attacks on her lately, I wear it most every where I go now. I feel obligated.
If you have one, wear it.
Get a few “looks”, but no comments. The “lookers” are probably afraid that I am one of those “crazies” they hear so much about. I would wear my revolver if it didn’t drag my belt down below my belly so badly. Maybe I will anyway. Palin ball cap, gunbelt below the belly, driving my 4×4 pick-up with the “Naval Aviator” license plates and the Palin sticker in the rear window. Send Neo’s acquaintances around the bend if they could see me. Not so much here in dear old Fauquier County, Va actually. Grand mixture of hicks, fox hunting blue bloods, and DC suburban yuppies.
The way I look at it, they really hate us. Palin is just someone who personifies us.
Palin derangement has just fascinated me from the outset. At first I could not believe it. “OK, you don’t want her for VP, but why do you hate her so much?”, I would inquire over and over of my mostly liberal friends in the Bay Area. I always get some incoherent answer. When pressed, I would get the classic, “that’s just the way I feel”. And it is the women who hate her. And the opinions were almost instantaneous.
I don’t think it is snobbishness – some of these liberal women have no education, and nobody in their families went to any college. And some professional women are not really sporting credentials superior to Palin’s anyway. (Really, how many Americans are?) The first time I tried to defend her I instinctively went right for the Stephen J line – I sensed it was her competitiveness that was putting the women off. I talked about the video of her playing basketball in high school – SaraCuda. Its OK to be competitive, I protested. But I think he’s right – it really isn’t.
On the other hand, Palin derangement might be the flipside of me – extreme irrational Palin affection, brought on almost immediately, so maybe thats a tool of inquiry. I am a guy, she is pretty . . but its more than that. She is radiant, happy, gives the impression she never needed any psychotherapy. She’s physical, outdoorsy, fun, so comfortable in her own skin. And when I found out that she kept Trig I had the most amazing reaction – I was completely humbled. “She is better than I am” I so clearly remembered thinking. I cannot remember another time I thought something like that.
So, my current working theory (using the opposite of me as a guide) is that liberal women are very put off by her competitiveness, and her religion, and the giant fact that she is true to her religion. Also working against her IMHO is that she appears so happy, radiant, and seems to have it all – family, career, power, and now money. I think jealously is a factor.
The hater I always ponder is a friend of mine who collects books about and artifacts of pioneering women, which of course celebrate their hunting, fishing, hardscrabble ways. How could this person hate Palin?
Books will be written, and I hope I live long enough to understand it.
That is an interesting comparison with Dolly Parton. Both are self made women. I never listened much to Dolly Parton’s music, but I gained a lot of respect for her after seeing her on a TV interview years ago.
In stead of taking the “Aw gee little ol’ me I’m so lucky to be where I am” attitude towards her success, Dolly said that from an early age, she was determined to be a star, and here she was. I admired her frankness and determination.
Many years later I worked with an accountant who had also worked in the music biz. She had had some contact with Dolly Parton.She said that Dolly was kind towards those below her- anything but a prima donna.
I see Palinoia as an example of group bonding. My experience is that libs are more conscious of group identity than wingnuts are. Libs see themselves as better educated, brighter, more enlightened, less bigoted etc. than the wingnuts.This is very important for them. By contrast, I and perhaps most wingnuts are not as concerned with group identity. I know there are people brighter than me on both sides of the aisle, just as there are people dumber than me on both sides of the aisle. I don’t see the point of trying to figure out the average IQ or SAT score of each side of the aisle.Etc.
When I think of libs and their group identity issues, I am reminded of cooties in elementary school. Libs see wingnuts as people with cooties. Wingnuts see libs as people who don’t think straight.
Sarah Palin doesn’t fit the identity markers of the libs. Small town hick. Bible thumper. Hunter. Doesn’t abort a Downs Syndrome child. Yet she haas the gall to be prominent in politics. She isn’t one of them, and the circle her like pirhanas in a bathtub.
I’m rather late to this discussion, but I think people have made many good points. I did have a few thoughts about questions posed above, though, so I thought I’d chime in.
First, in response to LAG’s question: “is there anywhere to be found a conservative woman with all the right (Ivy League education, etc) credentials who is or isn’t despised?” The initial thought I had was that conservative women with those credentials are also despised. The two I thought of at first are media personalities with Ivy League credentials who are despised by the left in a manner similar to Palin: Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. Kolnai suggested Condi Rice, but Rice is a special case. They can’t denigrate her intellect because of her position as not just a faculty member, but a former provost at Stanford–so they call her evil and a liar instead.
Rickl follows up on Stephen J’s comments and asks rhetorically about the number of Palin haters who played sports, theorizing that perhaps they were less likely to hate her. Anecdotally, I think it depends on other characteristics. I have a friend from high school who played a lot of sports and was very athletic, but now she’s an academic and very far left, and i infer (though i haven’t asked) a big Palin hater.
Regarding the question about friends, I find myself in a position similar to Rickl most of the time–i.e. looking for kindred spirits online because I have a pretty hard time finding them in real life. Most of the folks I know from college and graduate school are far left and intolerant of other views. Most of the folks I know at work fit a similar profile–and because I work in the academic world, I’m reluctant to be very outspoken about these sorts of matters. Even those few I khow who openly identify as Republicans at work feel obliged to trash Palin (the only exception I know at work is my admin assistant who is a pro-life Catholic).
Now that I finally hit “submit comment,” I see that I neglected one point which I meant to address. Like turfman, I never thought Dolly Parton had implants. I seem to recall reading remarks about how she complained about back pain or that she had once considered breast reduction surgery or something. Perhaps I will try to find a link later.
OK, a quick search turned up this article and others like it about breast reduction surgery that Parton had in 2004. That suggests to me that she didn’t have implants. She’s plainspoken enough that if she’d had implants, she would have said that they were coming out, not that she was undergoing breast reduction surgery.
I think there’s one simple reason liberals hate Palin…she’s effective. Would liberals have as much rabid, screeching, apoplectic hatred of her if she wasn’t?
I also noticed that “Hatin’ on Palin” is a lefty calling card, shibboleth, tribal marker. They do it as a bonding exercise. “See? I’m one of the cool kids!”
Jimmy Kimmel aired the Sarah Palin song that’s gone viral on Youtube and made merciless fun of it. (The minute I saw that thing on Youtube, with a couple of stereotypical rednecks singing a pro-Palin song to the tune of “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” I wondered, “Who sent you — the enemy?” The Left couldn’t have done a better job lampooning the Palin faction on purely snotty grounds.
My sister, who was a moderate Dem (voted for Bob Dole), said about Sarah, “I just don’t like her.” I asked her why, and she said dismissively, “I just don’t.”
They hate seeing a conservative, Christian female who’s a Happy Warrior.
Oh, and Miss Dolly is a Very Shrewd Businesswoman, and a real down gal. And anyone who can get along with that raving diva Porter Wagoner is practically a saint.
She’s talked about sharing a bed with her siblings when she was a kid. Her family really was “white trash.”
“”The hater I always ponder is a friend of mine who collects books about and artifacts of pioneering women, which of course celebrate their hunting, fishing, hardscrabble ways. How could this person hate Palin?””
cyclerider
For some reason dead conservatives of note get mythologised by liberals. Like they have some urge to remake them so the oddities of their own beliefs seem more palatable. A devout parishoner in the church of liberalism is fairly certain pioneers were really just like them, except for being victims of Christianity that wouldn’t allow them to express it.
I’m not exactly sure what’s supposed to be wrong with “white trash.” “White trash” didn’t invent eugenics, socialism, communism, fascism, nazism, etc. it took our self-proclaimed betters to do that.
It’s interesting that the phrases “white trash” and “trailer trash” are acceptable in polite conversation while no similar phrases to denigrate members of other races are allowed.
I once used the phrase “ghetto trash” in a conversation (in the same sense and meaning) and my listener was taken aback. We’re both white, and he wouldn’t have batted an eye if I had used either of the other phrases.
It comes more from a sense of superiority
The left always despises anyone who threatens their control over the masses. They’ve been trained to believe they’re the “chosen ones”.
In a way, it’s a replay of the Garden of Eden. Evil has once again filled man with arrogance … “you are better than God, you are gods”.
When Sarah Palin appears on the scene, it is like the priest walking into the bedroom of the possessed. At the mere sight of her or mention of her name, the Liberals go Linda Blair, twisting their heads, spewing forth filth and shamrock shakes in wild abandon.
I’m not sure that I want to dig too deeply into what goes on inside their Liberal heads. Their problem is spiritual and impermeable to facts, logic and meds.
Perhaps exorcism?
“It comes more from a sense of superiority, and shock that someone so (fill in the blank–stupid, uneducated, ignorant, declasse, trailer trashy) has managed to achieve the level of political prominence and influence Palin has. ”
Yup, this sums up my wife’s feelings that’s for sure. She would find the idea of herself being envious hilarious.
I take issue with the Dolly Parton analogy, she has always struck me a very intelligent well meaning classy lady, quite the opposite of the impression I get from Palin. President Dolly has a nice ring to it as well.
kolnai and Stephen J,
I think that there is less evolution, and more caution, in the difference in sportsmanship between men and women. Men fight and compete for fun, but, if we get much beyond the fun stage, we can inflict serious injury. Not many women, even in their prime, can break bones with a barehanded blow. Many men could. A good deal of PDS on the Left, both male and female, is at the feminine level, including academia. Verbal viciousness is nasty enough, but can break no bones. There are no limits because none are needed.
Being from Texas, I have lived my sixty years with the awareness that “intellectualism is for girls”, so it is with considerable caution that I even raise the point. However, I have known so many male academics who have occasionally turned away in disgust from the “girlish” sniping among academics. Understanding that this is how things work, and why, can take a good deal of the “sexist” sting out of something that we can barely bring ourselves to acknowledge.
If anyone is interested in the historical origins of the feminization of American education, it goes back to the protective tariff., which was designed to create economic disparity between agriculture and manufacturing. This meant that, while a man might make a living in farming or later, in ranching, even in a good year, there would never be so much cash money in the family pot. So, a school teacher in the family was a serious economic asset, who made it possible for a family to keep their land in a bad crop or bad price year. So, Bubba took over the farm or ranch, while Sissy went to teachers’ college. This idea persists among many families of African descent, even to this day, causing no end of inexplicable problems for schools in the urban north. Many good and noble attempts, like athletic programs and mentoring, are made to overcome this problem, by people who have absolutely no clue about its its origins.
I quite like Palin and Parton but, say, Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck give me the screaming heebie-jeebies. Am I just strange…?
“”Palin is like a test. She is so obviously “good” that anyone who “hates” her has something wrong with them; something deeply and seriously wrong.””
Mike Mc
Yep. That and peer pressure ridicule could make them hate puppies in just a few weeks.
I agree wholeheartedly with what Mythx said above. In fact, part it bears repeating:
“I think there is one particular reason that Liberal women hate Palin so much. Their own insecurity and self loathing. When it come to things like abortion, family etc, she walks the walk. Its as simple as that. Most liberals and probably a chunk of conservatives would have aborted her son Trig. At some level they know abortion is wrong (no matter how hard they champion it). The fact when confronted with such a choice and seeing someone with the moral strength to do the right thing at great personal cost. It angers them greatly.”
By the way, I LIKE Masterpiece Theater…always have…and I am VERY conservative. Am I really a closet liberal? (Actually, I like the quality of the production values and the excellent acting. I find the uppity attitude of the English upper class interesting historically.)
I am lucky about having friends. I live in the Texas Hill Country in a community consisting mostly of retired oil business executives, engineers, lawyers, teachers, etc. Here, the “weirdos” are our token liberals and I have no difficulty in making and keeping friends 🙂
The Palin beat goes on. My understanding harmonizes with some of the psychology postulated above: a variant on the self-loathing POV.
Like Neo-Neo, I am a former Democrat. When Clinton was elected in ’92, part of me, sitting with my husband, went: “Dang, we could have done that. Look at them – are they better than we are? I went to Yale . . . I can pick pop-rock music to play when I come on stage . . . We’re cute . . . ” In other words, even when it was one ‘on my side’, it angered me that I COULDA DONE THAT. They did not seem much different or “better than” I was. Heh. But that’s another topic.
I did not feel that way when Bush came onto the scene. I did not feel that “I could-a been him.” I had BDS, and he was from another universe. (Funny, I kind of like him and Laura now.)
By the time Hillary and Obama began thrashing around, I supported Hillary but didn’t envy her. I was more in the, “Why would anyone even WANT that job” frame of mind. I never got on the Obama bus. The Rev. Wright and Rezko scandals were deal breakers — plus, I am 15 years older and felt his speeches catered to those who do not have or crave much detail: the younger set.
When leaks began that McCain picked Sarah, I’d never heard of her. I looked her up and saw that she’d accomplished a lot. There was virtually no video of her available and few pictures–but I could see from a couple of snap shots that she was cute. That was fine with me because I was old enough that cuteness was not going to get me anywhere any more. One video clip was with her and Janet Napalitano at a Governor’s Convention: Effortlessly, Sarah out-shined JN on every dimension: energy, spunk, wit, confidence, specificity and vision. Her first two national-scene speeches were electrifying in simplicity and command. And then came the “You betcha’s.”
I think that the “You betcha” aspect of Sarah, which I did not mind, is what gave many women the feeling I had about the Clintons in ‘92: I could-a done that. I could say those things. I could call out the opponents on their obvious chicanery. I could look good if I lost that extra 15 pounds. I could call that Biden guy “Joe.” I could use a bunch-a common sense and talk to citizens. I could-a married someone and stuck with him and had a bunch-a kids. I could-a been a town Mayor – I could-a walked the precincts. I could-a cooked more dinners in the kitchen. I could-a been somebody. That’s what gets some women about Sarah. Dang! I could-a been a regular, good American and run for President, too.
Now a great thing has happened. Sarah has been so much targeted …. erm, maligned … that she has dropped the you-betchas. The seriousness of her vulnerability, unlike Obama, caused her to avoid the commonalities of speech that link her with “folk.” This week the President actually said, “America’s going to make stuff and invent stuff.” Awww. Sarah, with even more death threats behind her, is beyond that. In the dignified presentation she gave on the Monday Hannity interview there was not one iota of “stuff” or “you betcha.” It was a stellar performance. Many on both “sides” did not see that interview because they already have their Palin mind set or feel that her detractors have ruined her. Most people who hate – one side or the other – do not follow the news much. Hate is a simple stance, born from ignorance.
The slings and arrows have catapulted Palin into a new stratum, a stratum of which we cannot say, “I could-a done that.” Though many would like to have her beauty, her fame, her money and the sexiness that one imagines in her marriage, no one would want to endure the contempt and threats that she has endured. Now we must wait to see if this movie of life will provide her — and us — the opportunity to have words to which a nation can listen without envy or “I could-a said that” moments. We might have a clear and dignified leader on our hands. Can the rest of us drop the sword and hear and respect a leader that is beyond us in courage, steadfastness and vision? We’ll see.
I agree that it’s mostly contempt held toward Palin among well-educated liberal women, but underneath all that I think there’s a subcurrent of envy and fear. For years they’ve been telling us that women can and should have it all (successful career, happy marriage and children) when life experience has taught many of us that it’s extremely difficult to have it all at the same time, anyway.
Now along comes Palin, who really DOES seem to have it all, and juggle it all, without breaking a sweat. She’s young, attractive, was elected governor of a huge “macho” state, talented athlete,(apparently happily) married, mother of five (including a special needs child), and a compelling political leader with nerves of steel (no matter what’s thrown at her she just seems to grow stronger).
IMO, although most would be loath to admit it, t’s her stand on the life issues (mainly abortion) that really freaks “pro-choice” women out. Not only did she make a choice (to have baby Trig) that many are uncomfortable about, she also supported her teenage daughter in making a similar choice.
Liberal women know that you simply can’t have a persuasive female political leader on the national stage speaking out on behalf of the “wrong” kind of choices. It threatens the status quo and poses a threat to the legality of abortion (the rights of unborn women never factor in here).
So instead of articulating that, instead we get the “stupid, trailer-trash” meme on Palin.
FWIW, this is my take on it and my own demographic I’m talking about here. I’m a middle-class, married mom with a graduate degree, raised in a liberal Dem household (but I’ve been a social conservative for the past decade or so).
I’ve always been convinced that the abortion issue lies at the heart of the rabid response to Palin. the reaction was swift and immediate when she burst onto the scene during the 2008 election and it will always be there, as long as she remains on the national stage.
On the important question of Dolly Parton and implants.
And I didn’t mean to imply that Dolly Parton is stupid. But most people would find it rather odd and inappropriate if she decided to run for president.
I think there’s a lot of loose use of the term “trailer trash” here. As a former TT-er (in the unsophisticated usage here, though my mama would bust my butt for using that term), ya’ll don’t get it.
‘Trailer trash’ refers to the folks that are happy to roll in their own garbage (think cinder blocks and rusty old Fords), have no ambition except a successful trip to the fishin’ hole, and KNOW they’re better’en you and happy to bust you in the nose to prove it. Your education don’t put squirrel on the table. And morals are situational and may depend on whether or not there’s any folding money or willing women left unguarded.
Neither Sarah nor Dolly are trailer trash. They are folks from economically ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds with a ton of ambition and a very concrete moral foundation. And actually that’s where my family started, too. We used to call them good Americans.
Get it right. And go watch a Randolph Scott western.
MT…I’m surprised that Obama didn’t say “America’s going to TOTALLY make stuff and TOTALLY invent stuff.”
I don’t like that “stuff” stuff either…nor the juvenile giving the finger to his opponents, sneakily, in political speeches….and other immature things he does. Can you imagine Reagan, FDR, Eisenhower, or even JFK saying and doing those kinds of things?
I recently had a conversation with my (probably liberal) brother-in-law about how certain words or phrases come into popular use. One example I used was “stuff”. I said I guessed it was OK to say it, but I really wish my president wouldn’t.
P.S. Palin’s “You betcha’s” and winks make me squirm too but I really do like and respect her.
I’m sure it’s been said somewhere that all negative emotional reaction is based upon fear (as contrastive to positive reaction based upon love). What then is it that liberals/leftists/Democrats fear? I believe it is the threat of being bettered and, more so, the threat of being revealed as functionally inadequate; in other words, it’s their issue of marked insecurity and/or self-loathing as life’s failures. Palin achieves (and inspires many dozens of like women); leftists live long hours of empty soap-suds dreams. Rather than deal with their inner demons, they project upon those unlike themselves. I would say that the liberal leftists I’ve known were not blindingly bright, nor were their lives exemplary. They seem in life to graduate from clueless adolescents directly into aged characters in the Wasteland of T.S. Eliot (wasted places, wasted lives, and wasted faces; “sad haunters of perhaps”). They have bypassed the stage of learning, growing, living large, and maturing.
It seems that the regulars I like on this and other sites _have_ lived those fuller, fulfilling lives, whatever their origins; with that goes some level of calm discrimination. What matters? What doesn’t matter? They have that well sorted out.
I tend to respond as an old bear with a sore ass to those stuck in leftist purgatory. Where there’s hope for one, I accept the irritating liberal memes; otherwise I drop them from my little circle. Like commenter Ricki, I prefer the compatible, invisible friends to be found on the Internet weblogs.
I think that it also has something to do with social climbing. Women tend to marry up. Then, they have to prove they are worthy of their position by dressing and decorating their house like their social betters. They become afraid to differ with the Joy Behars or Sally Quinns and rarely listen to other sources. No matter what they have achieved or what they have, there is always someone higher on the ladder they are afraid to cross. Forget Palin, these women are afraid of having too low a thread count in their sheets.
C’mon guys. I think it’s OK to admit it in this blog.
It’s those hips.
Oh. My. God.
Whatever the reason or reasons, it has to be admitted, Palin hate is an amazing phenomenon. Nothing like it, even BDS, in my lifetime.
My wife comes from a wealthy liberal family, though the wealth sure didn’t make it down to her. The rich side of her family were 100% for Obama. They still are. They are progressives through and through.
She fits the liberal profile of Palin-haters to a tee. Private Schools, pedigree, AIDS activist, Nuclear Freeze activist, atheist, active in the performing arts. I can select a random musical theater record or CD from our collection, play three notes, and she’ll start singing the opening number. That list includes “Sandhogs”.
Her passion is Shakespeare. She was published in the Review of English Studies and followed that up with a scholarly book.
On the other hand, she appreciates the service her father performed in skippering an LCT onto UTAH beach on D-Day, and the bravery of her uncle who flew fighter jets in Korea, served during the Berlin Air-lift, fought in Vietnam, and retired with honor. They were from the non-rich side of the family, needless to say.
Why did she break free of the progressive mold? Because she thought for herself.
When Glenn Beck announced his 9.12 project, she tried to go to a 9.12 meet-up. It was full, so she started her own. For the last two years she has worked full time for the 9.12 movement and the Tea Party Patriots. If Palin announces, she will work full-time for her.
My wife is not alone.
If you want to conceptualize it another way, it’s as though Dolly Parton (or some simulacrum of Dolly) were in her forties, had reduced the size of her breast implants, dyed her hair brown, put on some glasses, and decided to go into politics.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I was going to say “Careful, you’re going after our Dolly”, but you recovered quite gracefully.
As to your comment on Palin Derangement, I recall an Epic Rant from Rachel Lucas on the whole Sally Field “If women ran the world there wouldn’t be any wars” thing.
The blogger Aretae has a theory that “Monkey Brains” explains an awful lot of human behavior. We evolved on the plains, from monkeys (OK, Apes). Our behavior was formed there. Looking at Monkey/Ape status behaviors explains a lot of human behavior.
When I see smart, feminist women buying into the whole “Sarah Palin is an idiot” meme, I hear both Rachel and Aretae whispering in my ear.
It is a defense mechanism. No, they don’t want to be her. But they see a rival, a revert to Monkey Brains/Middle School defense mechanisms. It’s not pretty.
Good stuff Pat Dooley. I wish my girlfriend would break free.
She is hispanic and her family is wealthy.
She has an unwavering, no reason for it though, love for the Democrat party.
To this date she has not engaged in a reasoned or logical argument on any topic.
I try to get her to think about what California’s policies mean for our children, or what illegal immigration means for our children or national security, or the poor decisions that people all around us keep making and are rewarded for doing so.
On some level she understands that there should be personal responsibility and people should make good choices.
Then again – she had her beamer repo’d and her house foreclosed on and so she thinks it is just happening to everyone and therefore government should just step in.
When it came to Palin. She actually believed it was Palin who said, “I can see Russia from my house”.
When I said that was Tina Fey. She said I’ll believe what I want to believe. No joke.
“you betcha” and “stuff” are pretty common expressions in the North Central states, which is apparently from where many of the people in Wasilla came.
Also, in looking at Palin’s “Alaska” series, it is clear that many of her expressions come from her close family interactions with her kids. Happens to all of us parents. Those kids help you stay forever young.
Me? I like accents…they make language even more interesting. I don’t see why Sarah’s accent should be any more objectionable than a Kennedy or Barney Frank Massachusetts accent, a Chris Christie New Jersey accent or an Obama Chicago-street accent.
I love listening to you douchebags bitching about how hateful the left is and how they hate conservatives, and in the same sentence you morons do the same thing. You know why Palin is hated by so many liberals? It’s because she is an ignorant, close-minded, petty little person who couldn’t even finish one term as gov. Simple as that.
‘Ignorant’ and ‘close-minded’, eh, Larry? Got some EVIDENCE for those charges, or are ya jus flappin’ yer gums?
Did Palin resign? Yes. Did Palin quit? No. Palin is still fighting, so it should be obvious that she didn’t ‘quit’. General Lee didn’t quit after Gettysburg. He disengaged, and continued fighting. ‘Quitting’ is what General Lee did at Appomattox. Has she thrown in the towel? No! Palin disengaged from a losing battle, shifted her position, found the enemy flank, and renewed her attack. Her resignation of the governor’s office was brilliant strategy, very much like Admiral Spruance’s turn east the night after Midway.
What so many do not understand is that to her, the success of the mission is paramount. She isn’t in it for self-glorification, and the left just can’t understand that.
“”It’s because she is an ignorant, close-minded, petty little person who couldn’t even finish one term as gov. Simple as that””
Larry
I can see how a liberal could see that. She is ignorant of how to fall for groupthink dynamics just because some call it enlightenment.
So nice that Larry has come to show us the high level of discourse and critical thinking for which the left is known.
I thought this was an astute take on Palin-hatred, by a guy with (only) a GED… James Taranto, WSJ columnist. He notes that most of the disdain comes from women: Palinoia, the Destroyer.
To the extent that “feminism” remains controversial, it is because of the position it takes on abortion: not just that a woman should have the “right to choose,” but that this is a matter over which reasonable people cannot disagree–that to favor any limitations on the right to abortion, or even to acknowledge that abortion is morally problematic, is to deny the basic dignity of women.
To a woman who has internalized this point of view, Sarah Palin’s opposition to abortion rights is a personal affront, and a deep one. It doesn’t help that Palin lives by her beliefs. To the contrary, it intensifies the offense.
I’ve never called anyone a douchebag.
Larry does it in his first outing.
I’m so persuaded.
You just have to translate what Larry said in libspeak into English. What he means by “ignorant, close-minded petty little person” is, “She doesn’t agree with me.”
He must be right. After all, didn’t Palin say there are 57 states in the US? And that Austrians speak Austrian? And that a Navy medic assigned to the Marine Corps is a “corpse-man?” And that the Framers of the Constitution had a blind spot when it came to slavery?
What? What’s that you say? That wasn’t Sarah Palin? That was . . .Nevermiiiiiind!
Very late to this thread… but someone should point out that Dolly Parton has founded and supported one of the most striking examples of individual philanthropy. Sixteen years ago she made a commitment that every child born in her home county would receive a new children’s book in the mail every month, until they started kindergarten… 60 books (and a bookcase.)
Thousands of kids… a whole generation… have been read to by their parents, and have perhaps learned to read before starting school. I’m sure many have discovered a genuine love of reading.
In ensuing years, Dolly has expanded the program to other counties, and it has been adopted by municipalities, service groups, and institutions in many other states. Countless thousands of children have benefited, and Dolly has not sought, nor received, much publicity about her gifts. I discovered it only through the American Library Association.
“Liberal Women”.. and in fact, all of us, should give Dolly Parton the respect she deserves.
Late also to the thread…
One of the things that I believe really drive the liberals (and especially liberal women) up the wall is that Sarah doesn’t conform. She doesn’t accept the walls and boundaries that the left is attempting to push on her.
She just doesn’t care what they think, and that’s damn near intolerable. How dare she NOT?! Doesn’t she realize that THEY are important? That THEY arbitrate what the correct attitudes are? That she has to submit HER attitudes and thinking and actions to THEIR scruitiny and approval?
Of course, there’s no way they’d ever approve of her – and it makes it even the more galling that she doesn’t come to them and doesn’t give them the chance to reject her!
> If you want to conceptualize it another way, it’s as though Dolly Parton (or some simulacrum of Dolly) were in her forties, had reduced the size of her breast implants, dyed her hair brown, put on some glasses, and decided to go into politics.
Since hard-headed common sense, aka “wisdom”, is something Dolly was known for, along with integrity and outspoken-ness, I suspect she might’ve done a lot better job than 75% of the women in politics… And 99% of the “liberal” ones…
> She isn’t in it for self-glorification, and the left just can’t understand that.
WHAT? Palin’s not a self-serving narcissist, like pretty much all liberals?
No wonder she isn’t a Democrat.
Wisdom, Selflessness, Grace Under Fire… what qualities DOES she have for the liberal twit to admire?
I mean, really!?!?!
Jlawson has something there. I’d expand it by saying the so-called elites are annoyed by her refusal to conform and shocked since their approval or threat of disapproval has always been so effective.
They have nothing else.
Now what?
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This was an unusually insightful comment thread (or it was until a troll showed up and some people felt obliged to feed it.)
A summary of a great many comments: Many people perceive Palin as uppity and they do not much care for uppity women.
For lweftists, what they believe and who they really hate isn’t important in itself. It’s a matter of being able to have “unipeachable” issues and opinions: trying to find the issues to take up that any opponent of them would be made to appear hateful or cruel. Do you really think that they care about the fate of the poor, or about children than anyone else? Of course not!