The former Alaska governor captured the incoherence that's driving Trump's campaign.
Sarah Palin’s bizarre, rambling speech last night endorsing Donald Trump didn’t make much sense (it’s already been describedas “post-apocalyptic poetry,” which may not be entirely fair to either poetry or the apocalypse). Here, for example, is a representative passage:
A good, heated, and very competitive primary is where we are. And now though, to be lectured that, “Well, you guys are all sounding kind of angry,” is what we’re hearing from the establishment. Doggone right we’re angry! Justifiably so! Yes! You know, they stomp on our neck, and then they tell us, “Just chill, okay just relax.” Well, look, we are mad, and we’ve been had. They need to get used to it.
The speech name-checks a variety of conservative issues, from immigration to national defense to the build-up of debt, but not in any coherent context. They are not political issues in the traditional sense but free-associative decorations loosely affixed to Palin’s freewheeling resentment. At times the speech, with its whiplash-rhythms and word juxtapositions, became downright hypnotic.
(...)
In part this is because making sense isn’t really Palin’s style. But it’s also because there is no coherent defense of Donald Trump’s candidacy. His own argument is little more than a simple boast that he will make the country great, like it used to be, followed by a series of insults and a discussion of his poll numbers.
To the extent that he proposes anything resembling actual policies, they tend to be implausible fantasies, designed more as insults and power plays than ideas for governance. His speeches go long on personal boasting, and he dismisses most questions of governance by appealing to his own innate ability to overcome obstaces. You cannot make a reasoned case for Trump, because there is no such case to be made.
Palin’s support was incoherent, then, in part because that’s how she is, and part because it could be no other way. Support for Trump is not based on reason or argument or logic or even a sense of what Trump would actually do as president, but on his personal appeal as a businessman and political entertainer, and a related sense of how and what the country would be. It is not really a political campaign at all, so much as an extended act of fantasy and wish-fulfillment for both him and his supporters. Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is Donald Trump fanfic, with Donald Trump as the Mary Sue.
In a way, then, Palin’s speech was the perfect endorsement for Donald Trump’s campaign: an incoherent mess of angry, resentful sentiment, delivered in a way designed to provide the maximum in media spectacle. Palin effectively—and, okay, somewhat poetically—captured and amplified the identity-politics-driven nonsense that feeds both the candidate and his supporters.
"Populism (the rejection of political elites in favor of the people) has always had two faces. One is progressive populism, based on democratic renewal and widening inclusion. The other is authoritarian populism, based on strongmen who promise fundamental change because they're so powerful, and also scapegoat minorities. America's populist upsurges to date have been progressive (in the 1830s, between 1901 and 1916, in the 1930s, and, briefly in the 1960s). But populist upsurges in other nations and at other times have been authoritarian (think of Spain, Italy, and Germany in the 1930s).
Right now America is at the early stages of another populist upsurge. Bernie Sanders exemplifies progressive populism; Donald Trump, authoritarian populism. The question isn't just whether populism will prevail over political elites in 2016, but which face of populism — progressive or authoritarian? What do you think and why?"
The answer is simple if by prevail you mean win the Presidency. Neither and they will fail quite epically as well. Clinton will crush all attempts at populism by appealing to it. By pitting them against one another, it insures the status quo. We are still years away if ever from bringing them down. Good question though.
"Populism (the rejection of political elites in favor of the people) has always had two faces. One is progressive populism, based on democratic renewal and widening inclusion. The other is authoritarian populism, based on strongmen who promise fundamental change because they're so powerful, and also scapegoat minorities. America's populist upsurges to date have been progressive (in the 1830s, between 1901 and 1916, in the 1930s, and, briefly in the 1960s). But populist upsurges in other nations and at other times have been authoritarian (think of Spain, Italy, and Germany in the 1930s).
Right now America is at the early stages of another populist upsurge. Bernie Sanders exemplifies progressive populism; Donald Trump, authoritarian populism. The question isn't just whether populism will prevail over political elites in 2016, but which face of populism — progressive or authoritarian? What do you think and why?"
He’s hardly alone in wanting to use government force to control others.
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not that i agree with everything in it but this also reminded me of something i read long ago... The Ominous Parallels
Each of the philosophic principles essential to the rise of Nazism in Germany has a counterpart in present-day America.
Is the freest country on earth moving toward totalitarian dictatorship? What were the factors that enabled the Nazis to seize power in pre-war Germany? Do those same conditions exist in America today? These are the questions raised — and answered, with frightening clarity — by Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand's intellectual heir, in his powerful book The Ominous Parallels. "We are drifting to the future, not moving purposefully," Peikoff warns. "But we are drifting as Germany moved, in the same direction, for the same kind of reason."Some of the "ominous parallels" between pre-Hitler Germany and the United States that Peikoff identifies are:
Liberals who demand public control over the use and disposal of private property — social security, more taxes, more government control over the energy industry, medicine, broadcasting, etc.
Conservatives who demand government control over our intellectual and moral life — prayer in the schools, literary censorship, government intervention in the teaching of biology, the anti-abortion movement, etc.
Political parties devoid of principles or direction and moved at random by pressure groups, each demanding still more controls.
A "progressive," anti-intellectual educational system that, from kindergarten to graduate school, creates students who can't read or write — students brainwashed into the feeling that their minds are helpless and they must adapt to "society," that there is no absolute truth and that morality is whatever society says it is.
A student radical movement (from the 1960's through the violent anti-nukers and ecology fanatics of today) who are, Peikoff maintains, the "pre-Hitler youth movement resurrected." The radicals are nature worshippers who attack the middle class, science, technology, and business.
The rise of defiant old-world racial hatreds disguised as "ethnic-identity" movements and "affirmative action."
A pervasive atmosphere of decadence, moral bankruptcy, and nihilist art accompanied by the rise of escapist mystic cults of every kind — astrology, "alternative medicine," Orientalists, extrasensory perception, etc.
In an introduction to Peikoff's book, Ayn Rand describes The Ominous Parallels as, "the first book by an Objectivist philosopher other than myself" and goes on to say that, "If you do not wish to be a victim of today's philosophical bankruptcy, I recommend The Ominous Parallels as protection and ammunition. It will protect you from supporting, unwittingly, the ideas that are destroying you and the world."In brilliantly reasoned prose, Peikoff argues that the deepest roots of German Nazism lie not in existential crises, but in ideas — not in Germany's military defeat in World War I or the economic disasters of the Weimar Republic that followed, but in the philosophy that dominated pre-Nazi Germany. Although it was mediated by crises, Peikoff demonstrates that German Nazism was the inevitable climax of a centuries-long philosophic development, preaching three fundamental ideas: the worship of unreason, the demand for self-sacrifice and the elevation of society or the state above the individual."These ideas," Peikoff says, "are the essence of Nazism and they are exactly what our leading universities are now spreading throughout this country. This is the basic cause of all the other parallels."
Just finished watching. I would say she made a very compelling argument for Trump. I've seen a lot of speeches and a few endorsement speech's in my day and what she just got done there was one of the best I've ever witnessed.
The take away line from her is the status quo has got to go.
In the 2D world of traditional politics, Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump looks like a yawn because she’s seen by many as a policy lightweight. But in the 3D world of persuasion, where Trump lives, it is probably a home-run.
Trump’s biggest obstacle is his perceived lack of empathy, along with voter suspicions about his motives. Palin’s endorsement says, in effect, that she doesn’t see anything dark in his soul. You can dislike Palin’s politics, but she is ridiculously likable on a personal level. And that likability probably translates into some sort of irrational trust about her people-judging skills.
This keeps all the media attention focused on Trump – on a safe and fluffy topic – and guarantees that no one will ask him to name the heads of state in the Middle East for at least one week.
Palin’s history with Cruz gives this story legs at least until every pundit has said every obvious thing you can say on the topic.
Getting the Palin endorsement is a perfect play for the Master Persuader. It touches all the right bases.
Live listen ... starts @ 6.00 EST or about 5 minutes from now. Palin is supposed to be there to announce her support. Palin supported Cruz in his Senate campaign in Texas.
Just last night I heard Clinton adviser and supporter, Democrat Doug Schon say that he could vote for Trump, especially since Hillary just declared that she would be Obama's 3rd term. Something big is happening.
I think she is conspiring to get Cruz nominated. Her support for Trump isn't exactly a compelling argument for him.
Just finished watching. I would say she made a very compelling argument for Trump. I've seen a lot of speeches and a few endorsement speech's in my day and what she just got done there was one of the best I've ever witnessed.
The take away line from her is the status quo has got to go.
If because you as in y'all are a political junkie, it needs to be seen. Considering that timing is everything, I would say that it is bigger than Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, which I saw and was blown away just like everyone else. ymmv ...
Live listen ... starts @ 6.00 EST or about 5 minutes from now. Palin is supposed to be there to announce her support. Palin supported Cruz in his Senate campaign in Texas.
Just last night I heard Clinton adviser and supporter, Democrat Doug Schon say that he could vote for Trump, especially since Hillary just declared that she would be Obama's 3rd term. Something big is happening.
I think she is conspiring to get Cruz nominated. Her support for Trump isn't exactly a compelling argument for him.
Live listen ... starts @ 6.00 EST or about 5 minutes from now. Palin is supposed to be there to announce her support. Palin supported Cruz in his Senate campaign in Texas.
Live listen ... starts @ 6.00 EST or about 5 minutes from now. Palin is supposed to be there to announce her support. Palin supported Cruz in his Senate campaign in Texas.
Just last night I heard Clinton adviser and supporter, Democrat Doug Schon say that he could vote for Trump, especially since Hillary just declared that she would be Obama's 3rd term. Something big is happening.
Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Vice Presidential candidate, is endorsing Donald Trump as the Republican White House nominee, US media report.
"I'm proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for president," Mrs Palin said in a statement provided by Mr Trump's campaign, according to the New York Times.
She is expected to announce her endorsement in person on stage alongside Mr Trump at a rally in Ames, Iowa, on Tuesday afternoon.
