Frank Rich on Palinism Phase II

Never count out the loud oafish minority.

It’s more likely that she will never get anywhere near the White House, and not just because of her own limitations. The Palinist “real America” is demographically doomed to keep shrinking. But the emotion it represents is disproportionately powerful for its numbers. It’s an anger that Palin enjoyed stoking during her “palling around with terrorists” crusade against Obama on the campaign trail. It’s an anger that’s curdled into self-martyrdom since Inauguration Day.

Its voice can be found in the postings at a Web site maintained by the fans of Mark Levin, the Obama hater who is, at this writing, the No.2 best-selling hardcover nonfiction writer in America. (Glenn Beck is No.1 in paperback nonfiction.) Politico surveyed them last week. “Bottomline, do you know of any way we can remove these idiots before this country goes down the crapper?” wrote one Levin fan. “I WILL HELP!!! Should I buy a gun?” Another called for a new American revolution, promising “there will be blood.”

These are the cries of a constituency that feels disenfranchised — by the powerful and the well-educated who gamed the housing bubble, by a news media it keeps being told is hateful, by the immigrants who have taken some of their jobs, by the African-American who has ended a white monopoly on the White House. Palin is their born avatar. She puts a happy, sexy face on ugly emotions, and she can solidify her followers’ hold on a G.O.P. that has no leaders with the guts or alternative vision to stand up to them or to her.

Comments

[donna]

There are always angry disaffected people. It doesn't mean we have to cater to them and give them talk shows and television networks to fuel their hatred. It especially doesn't mean we have to put up with idiots like Palin. She should never have been on the national stage, and she's made a joke of the Republican party to a lot of people. I know more people who left the Republican party because of her than for any other reason.

[Sarita]

Can we talk about global warming, the two wars in the Middle East, the over population of humans and the demise of other species - or how about the economy, how terrible our schools are, our failing infrastructure, or the health care crisis? Anything, but please stop talking about this woman. I preferred 24/7 coverge of Michael Jackson to this.

[Hoffmania]

Sorry, Sarita. Like her or not, she's one of the top three people jockeying to be the standard-bearer of the Republican party...a little more safety-and-security threatening than Michael Jackson.