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Sarah Palin, Savior of the Two-Party System
They want you stupid. They want you trivial. They want you numbed with a counterpoint of apathy, denial and transient, unsustainable enthusiasm and/or resentment. That's the only way the bipartisan imperium that controls us-"governs" is too honorable a word-can keep the racket going.
It has been said, correctly, that Sarah Palin's nomination was tactically brilliant. It was. We haven't had a candidate like this since 1968, when Richard Nixon sucked in Maryland Governor Spiro T. Agnew as his running mate. Agnew, a man of modest attainments perhaps best known for his apparently unconsummated infatuation with Blaze Starr, a stripper of significant accomplishment in her own profession, was perfect for his assigned role. Nixon loved to intone that "We can't start talking to each other until we stop shouting at each other." He didn't mean it, of course, but his "bums who're burning the books" tirades would come later. To win election and deflect subsequent attention, he needed an attack dog. Agnew was perfect.
Indeed, Agnew's "nattering nabobs of negativism" and "pusillanimous pussyfooters" screeds against the liberals have gone in lore as plenipotent paradigms of political pugnacity. Perhaps Governor Palin might borrow them, along with "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history" and "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals". It was Agnew's job to appeal to the bigots and unreconstructed segregationists the Republican Party of the 60s and 70s openly courted, as well as the stupid of all persuasions. Back then, they were called the "Silent Majority," a phrase apparently originated by Edmund Burke to decribe the dead. And ever since, the Silent Majority has been anything but.
So now, once again, it is a Republican vice presidential nominee's job to appeal (read here "motivate") the lesser lights of the Republican Party: the crabbed fundamentalists, warmongering ideologues, financial wastrels, and those who regard an all-purpose hatred of modernity as fun. These are the people who want a "regular person" in whom they can see themselves, the people who claim to hate elitism. As New York Times blogger Judith Warner quotes Republican businessman Scott Maclean on the Democratic Party, "Their attitude is: you don't get it and they don't expect you to get it because they're smarter than you - and I hate that."
So let us all pretend that the last eight years didn't happen, and that Senator McCain doesn't offer more of the same, and vote Republican because the Democrats offend the national penchant for mediocrity.
Would that it were so simple.
Much has been made of Governor Palin's qualifications, or lack thereof. An important issue, given Senator McCain's age and the fact that whomever is elected, is likely to be a one-termer.
But the concept of "opportunity cost" applies to political discourse as well. As the economists remind us, the true cost of anything is all the alternatives foregone. This campaign season will end soon enough. Until then, every hour, every word, every electron wasted discussing Governor Palin's absurd lack of qualification-would a man of her attainments have been nominated?-or her foibles or granny glasses, represents opportunity lost. Opportunity lost to look long and hard at the ideas of both candidates.
And that's exactly how both parties want it. From the Republican perspective, the more people focus on Governor Palin, the less chance they have to remember which party got us into this mess. From the Democrat perspective, the more people focus on Governor Palin, the less chance they have to realize just how brain-dead liberalism has become.
Now, a campaign is not a place for long, detailed policy explanations, although well-written, coherent policy explanations should be readily available on the candidates' websites. Currently, they are not. Republican and Democrat sites contain long, wonkish wish lists, mostly written by people looking for jobs, that have about as much relationship to Beltway (much less American) reality as polar bear scat.
But a campaign is and should be treated as, a place for candidates to talk seriously-no thirty second sound bites, no treacle, no drivel-to Americans about the larger issues that shape all our lives. Here's how I intend to finance this. Here is what I think military force structure should look like and why. This is how I think America should live in the world. This is how I think Americans should live and how our economic policy would support that goal.
And most importantly, Here's how I intend to get all this great stuff through a Congress that, no matter who wins this election, will remain as self-interested,
