From Sarah Palin’s run for vice president in 2008 to Donald Trump’s run for president in 2016, the relationship between these two extremists had already been symbolic for some time: the same rowdy personality, the same pronounced tendency for indelicacy. Everything contributed to these two coming together, starting with how loudly the anti-establishment outsiders play.
The marriage was apparently consummated in 2011 when Palin supported Trump in his crusade to get President Obama to make his birth certificate public, proving that he was indeed American. These two have always striven to reignite the debate.
Therefore, it was only to be expected that Palin would end up endorsing the candidacy of the bawling billionaire for the Republican Party in next November’s presidential election. In fact, she does not have any fewer ideological affinities with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump’s main rival. The extraordinary visibility that the latter enjoys must have been decisive for Palin, whose ego has suffered from not being in the limelight.
Trump continues to lead the Republican race nationally, but he is toe-to-toe with Cruz in the polls conducted in the state of Iowa, where on Feb. 1, the long primary and caucus cycle begins. While a victory in the caucus of the little state of Iowa is not fundamental to the survival of Trump’s candidacy, it would help him in sinking that of Cruz, who absolutely needs to win in Iowa. Hence, the timely appearance of Palin on the scene, who is always very popular among activists.
As it happens, the network of this muse of the tea party conservative movement is well-developed in Iowa, where in order for the Trump camp to win, it is essentially necessary to thwart Cruz’s rise among evangelical voters — that influential block of voters without whose support a Republican candidate cannot hope to claim victory. Everything is being played very, very far to the right.
How monstrous they are, these Republican honeymoons. For a part of the electorate, the support of Palin, the former governor of Alaska, brings legitimacy to Trump’s candidacy, as surreal as this might seem. And while the Republican convention does not take place until next summer, it has now become possible — something that is no less surreal — to imagine a Trump-Palin ticket for the presidential election in November. What becomes of the Republican Party in these circumstances? It becomes an institution whose machine no longer controls anything.
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