If we are being honest, we can all agree on at least this about Sarah Palin: Never in recent memory has the entrance of a single figure into the political discussion driven so many people to lose their minds so completely*. We see otherwise intelligent people spreading deliberate lies, we see those who claim tolerance speaking with unaccustomed hatred and we see reporters and media organizations not even trying to hide their bias. Amusingly the crazier they get, the more reasoned and cool Palin is.
“Well, I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago. But I’m not going to pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrelful. I’m going to take those shots and those pop quizzes and just say that’s okay, those are good testing grounds. And they can continue on in that mode. That’s good. That makes somebody work even harder. It makes somebody be even clearer and more articulate in their positions. So really I don’t fight it. I invite it.” Palin again refuses to play the victim
I had a long article planned about the flat out panic, hatred and anger that has been directed at Governor Palin but what I didn’t have was a narrative hook, a way into the story. As I surfed Flickr looking for Creative Commons licensed images to use in the header I came across a perfect example of the problem and what I wanted to say came clear.
Elements of the left hate Sarah Palin because she is the living antithesis of the narrative they have tried to make us all believe was a fact. Palin is many things, some good and some bad but above all she is not ashamed of the United States and she does not consider herself a victim. These twin attributes remover from the control of the left. The left needs one, or both of those things as levers.
- The left demands that you believe yourself morally flawed for not wanting to live as a slave to the needs of others so that you will allow them to use punishment and reward to control you.
- The left demands that you believe yourself a victim so that you will beg them to protect you in your fear.
This is the paradox of the victim culture and the manipulators who use it for power. You must believe yourself simultaneously victim and criminal. Coming and going they control you by being the only force that can save and forgive you. Whatever else you may feel about Palin, whether you find her suited for office or not it is clear that she rejects the core tenets of the victim culture ideology. She is beyond their control and serves as a icon for that defiance: not only must she be defeated by them, she must be destroyed. Anything less and she serves as another crack in the wall of their already faltering control.
When I say “they” I don’t mean that there is a concerted conspiracy or central place giving orders it is the sort of collective action you see from a mob or a herd. These are people who feel that this election is theirs by right and that their chosen messiah in the form of Obama is not to be questions and absolutely must not be denied. Some of them have dreams of retribution, others dream of atonement and forgiveness (by whom, and for what varies) and others need to deliver a victory while the lies of their philosophy hold. They all feel it is now or never.
These people are all over the web, and you seem them in meatspace as well. Every setback, any bit of reality that threatens their perfect Obama illusion makes them angry beyond belief. The slightest hint that he might lose, the merest challenge to his fiction sets them to growling like dogs who fear the loss of their food.
Make no mistake they are slipping, and that is making them desperate.
The victim herd may well pull this election off but that will not make them feel better. They had believed this would be a landslide: their masters had promised them a huge amount of support and it is not happening. They may win, but it will be by a narrow margin. For people who base their entire self image not by what they think themselves but what the crowd around them things such a narrow mandate shakes their self confidence. They are uneasy already and it will only get worse.
This open eruption of the victim front of the culture war works in the favor of those who don’t buy into the politics of parasitism. The malevolence and obvious bias being shown has turned many, many people back from buying into all the silliness that the far left has tried to slip into their minds with subtlety for decades now. The message is out in the open “you stupid hicks, when are you going to stop thinking for yourselves and just do what we tell you to do?”. While that tactic is exactly the one that has won them their supporters (the ones who crave such flagellation) it tends to fail on folks who don’t hate themselves.
Win or lose, this election is interesting in how openly Obama and the more overzealous of his followers have invoked class and culture warfare. This openly divisive, insulting and dismissive set of tactics may yield a temporary victory but certainly hastens the downfall of victim culture.
* = that is not to say all Obama supporters or Palin detractors are like this. There are lots and lots of reasonable, well meaning and well informed folks who have decided Obama better represents their interests. I disagree but that’s ok. The folks who are the subject of this post are the strident edge who have become so prominent this election.
** = The image used for this post is courtesy “NewsHour“, and was released under a Creative Commons license.
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