Palin the Phenomenon

Sarah Palin fascinates both media and ordinary Americans more than ever. Two and a half years before the next election she does not only look like a pet of the right wing, but also a figure of destiny for the Republican party.

Fears run deep in the Republican Party concerning the ruthless ambition and the total lack of self-awareness of the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee. At the same time she is energizing a right wing which was discharged and lifeless after the election of Barack Obama in November 2008.

In the beginning of February, Palin gave the keynote speech at the national convention of the Tea Party movement. The name stems from the Boston Tea Party, which sparked the American rebellion against British colonial rule. The new movement is aiming to defeat Barack Obama’s health care reform. It has gathered support from hundreds of thousands in a grass roots campaign of sorts, and in Sarah Palin, the Tea Party has found its ideological head.

Both the Tea Party movement and Palin want a political cleansing within the Republican Party. Before the mid-term elections this fall they will fight any moderate candidate. On this political death list we can find former Hewlett Packard-boss of California, Carly Fiorina and Charlie Crist of Florida, both of whom are seeking Senate election. A moderate female candidate from New York State had her entire campaign ruined when the right ran an opposing candidate that split the Republican votes during a run-off election last fall. Democrats won a district dominated by Republicans for as long as anyone could remember. Sarah Palin was behind the right wing action.

With her biography “Going Rogue,” Palin is trying to build herself up as the average American’s political ideal, a person who trusts her own instincts, goes against experts and intellectuals and who always carries her son Trig, who has Down’s syndrome, and her prettiest daughter, Piper, around America to promote the book.

In Europe, Palin’s candidacy would have been considered a joke. It is unthinkable that Germany’s skillful but anti-charismatic chancellor Angela Merkel would have any chance in an American campaign, and equally unthinkable that the charismatic, but almost completely ignorant Palin would become chancellor of Germany. Still, in America it is not improbable that Palin in a given situation would be president, but I have my doubts.

The main problem with Palin is not that she lacks knowledge, but that she despises knowledge. She leads a continuous war on anything complex contextually, while merging her conspiracy theories into the most simple of phenomena. Recently she attacked the one dollar coin, where the words “In God We Trust” were moved from the center of the coin to the edge. She saw this as a sign of the de-Christianizing of American society and in all seriousness raised the question: Who has the authority to commit such an act? Implied, Obama. But even the anchorman of conservative Fox News had problems keeping a straight face when they found out that the coin was approved by the ideal of the Christian right, George W. Bush.

More serious, but just as silly to say the least, are her attacks on health care reform. One of her claims is that Obama and the Democrats are planning to make death lists of patients who should be murdered by the new health regime. Sarah Palin is hardly able to deliver a single piece of information that is a reflection of reality. Her entire political career is built on populist simplification and lies, interwoven with an amazing ability to reach her audience. Anti-abortion, free sale of weapons and evangelism are considered the litmus test of the American right. Truth means less in this context.

Her political brutality is legendary. As mayor of her home town of Wasilla, she fired the city planner, chief of police, the director of the museum and the librarian. She had to re-instate the last one after public protest. She also abolished all building codes, so that warehouses could build what they wanted, where they wanted. Which they did. Her foremost goal is to remove the influence of authority in society, so that citizens — read: private companies — can operate freely and without annoying interference from elected offices.

Sarah Palin is doing surprisingly well in duels she is prepared for, like the one she had against vice presidential candidate Joe Biden. It is dangerous to underestimate her ability to remain afloat with superficial knowledge. But every time she is tested when she is unprepared, she fails dramatically. Moderate Republics fear her ambition. The rest of America should do the same.