On Sarah Palin's Effectiveness
Is Sarah Palin as "Dangerous" as Some Liberals Think She Is?
My uncle recently related an anecdote about watching the news with my great-grandmother during the 2008 election. They had just seen Sarah Palin give her speech at the Republican National Convention and my grandma, who was 97 at the time, turned to my uncle and said, "She's dangerous." While that may have been an appropriate appraisal in the Fall of 2008, when she was the third most likely person to become the President of the United States, it is no longer an accurate description of her potential impact.
A number of my liberal friends and family still consider Palin to be a powerful, dangerous political entity. They fear both the extreme, conservative beliefs she represents and her potential to motivate and organize large groups who share those same views. And while those concerns are valid, I feel that my friends (and others) are overestimating her. I don't think she is a significant political figure but is rather a very high-profile political celebrity.
Since resigning as the governor of Alaska, Palin has primarily become a media figure and a conservative activist. With her occasional appearances on Fox News, her public speaking appearances, and her carefully managed Twitter and Facebook accounts, Sarah Palin has crafted an image of herself as the feisty, independent new face of the Republican Party. She's mad, she's outside the mainstream, she's a mama grizzly, and she has a legion of followers ready to raise hell against the Liberal Elite Machine! But there's a problem (ok, many problems) with this image that she's crafted for herself: she is, in actuality, little more than a glorified mascot for an extreme wing of the Republican Party.
After her disastrous experiences dealing with the public and the media on the terms that a public figure of her stature usually faces, Palin has retreated from any situation that forces her to face real public scrutiny. She constantly uses the desrisive term "lamestream media", which apparently refers to every public outlet for information that isn't Fox News or her own Facebook page (maybe she likes the Drudge Report, too. I don't know). She doesn't give many interviews. Most, if not all of her public appearances are carefully choreographed in order to minimize the appearance of dissent (though it doesn't always work). Her primary means of communication with the public is through her Twitter and Facebook pages (and even those are very carefully controlled). This strict management of her public communications is a double edged sword: on the one hand, it allows her to have complete control over the messages she sends out to her followers and the world at large (while also protecting her from revealing, embarrassing moments like the Couric and Gibson interviews); on the other hand, its insular, exclusionary, borderline-paranoid nature makes it difficult for her to connect with anyone outside of her base. By making the world come to her and deal with her exclusively on her own terms, she furthers the "Us vs. Them" mentality that is such an essential part of her overall message and persona.
She is protecting herself and, by extension, her friends and supporters from what she views as the hostile, elitist mainstream that is out to deceive honest, hardworking people with lies and tricks and "gotcha" questions. It's an extremely effective way to strengthen her connection with her base of supporters. The people who already love her, love her even more because they feel as if she is speaking directly to them and their situation without a filter (which is kind of true; there's a filter, but it's her own filter). Of course, it also works the other way by giving more fuel to the people that hate her. To her opponents, she is a coward hiding from well deserved scrutiny and refusing to face the same challenges and obstacles nearly every other public figure faces. This divisive quality is inherent to these means of communication, and I think Palin partially thrives on it, creating a self-perpetuating system in which she creates more criticism against which she can rail. But the deeper problem to her overall effectiveness is the way in which her modes of communication affects the majority of people who fall in between the two extremes of hardcore supporters and hardcore opponents.
If Sarah Palin is to be truly effective, and truly dangerous, she needs to be able to reach a significant number of people who have unformed or semi-formed opinions of her. Just as every election and campaign seems to come down to which candidate can win over 'moderate voters', any political figure worthy of fear from the opposition needs to be able to appeal to to the vast swaths of the politically-active (or at least somewhat-politically-active) populace that fall somewhere between the liberal and conservative extremes. By segregating herself from the mainstream media, Sarah Palin is in danger of isolating herself from the mainstream of the U.S. population, the very people to whom she needs to appeal in order to become a powerful and effective political figure. These people don't visit her Facebook page, they don't go to her speeches, they either don't watch Fox News or watch it with a more critical eye than Palin's supporters on the extreme right. For many of these people, the lasting image of Sarah Palin is from her failed vice presidential campaign in 2008. For others it's her unusual decision to resign as governor last summer. And for the rest, it's probably some secondhand description of her social media declarations as interpreted by the "lamestream media." None of these are likely to win Palin many supporters from the moderate population. And by forcing the public and the media to come to her, she is further alienating these people, essentially relegating herself to the fringe.
Sarah Palin is an expert at self-promotion, maybe one of the best in the world. She and her PR team are incredibly savvy at managing her public persona and communicating it to her supporters (and everyone else, for that matter). She is excellent at motivating her particular corner of the Republican base with her proclamations and endorsements (usually). But she is also excellent at creating a backlash that motivates her opponents' supporters, as well. And as she becomes more isolated, combative, and weird, she makes it more difficult for the majority of people in this country to take her seriously as a politician. She has yet to show herself to be an articulate, competent, intelligent political figure on the national stage. Instead, she's been the political equivalent of a vacuous Hollywood celebrity; demanding respect yet doing nothing nothing to deserve it; parading her family around on the public stage then feigning outrage when people mention how dysfunctional they seem to be; blaming the mainstream media for misrepresenting her while failing to properly clarify her positions or refute(iate) those supposed misrepresentations. Sarah Palin is a cartoon character. And as she's become more entrenched in her current status as a political celebrity, she's become even more cartoonish. She is now closer to Tina Fey's impersonation than she ever was back when Fey was performing the impersonation. Hell, she's done a better job of embodying Fey's impersonation than Fey has. And for all of Palin's demonization of the media, she utterly depends on it to feed her celebrity. I've told a number of people I know that if people stopped paying attention to all of the ridiculous things Sarah Palin does and says, she would essentially disappear. She has no substance, only style, and that doesn't make her dangerous. It makes her fascinating and, to some people, disgusting. But there is nothing to fear about Sarah Palin.
My uncle recently related an anecdote about watching the news with my great-grandmother during the 2008 election. They had just seen Sarah Palin give her speech at the Republican National Convention and my grandma, who was 97 at the time, turned to my uncle and said, "She's dangerous." While that may have been an appropriate appraisal in the Fall of 2008, when she was the third most likely person to become the President of the United States, it is no longer an accurate description of her potential impact.
A number of my liberal friends and family still consider Palin to be a powerful, dangerous political entity. They fear both the extreme, conservative beliefs she represents and her potential to motivate and organize large groups who share those same views. And while those concerns are valid, I feel that my friends (and others) are overestimating her. I don't think she is a significant political figure but is rather a very high-profile political celebrity.
Since resigning as the governor of Alaska, Palin has primarily become a media figure and a conservative activist. With her occasional appearances on Fox News, her public speaking appearances, and her carefully managed Twitter and Facebook accounts, Sarah Palin has crafted an image of herself as the feisty, independent new face of the Republican Party. She's mad, she's outside the mainstream, she's a mama grizzly, and she has a legion of followers ready to raise hell against the Liberal Elite Machine! But there's a problem (ok, many problems) with this image that she's crafted for herself: she is, in actuality, little more than a glorified mascot for an extreme wing of the Republican Party.
After her disastrous experiences dealing with the public and the media on the terms that a public figure of her stature usually faces, Palin has retreated from any situation that forces her to face real public scrutiny. She constantly uses the desrisive term "lamestream media", which apparently refers to every public outlet for information that isn't Fox News or her own Facebook page (maybe she likes the Drudge Report, too. I don't know). She doesn't give many interviews. Most, if not all of her public appearances are carefully choreographed in order to minimize the appearance of dissent (though it doesn't always work). Her primary means of communication with the public is through her Twitter and Facebook pages (and even those are very carefully controlled). This strict management of her public communications is a double edged sword: on the one hand, it allows her to have complete control over the messages she sends out to her followers and the world at large (while also protecting her from revealing, embarrassing moments like the Couric and Gibson interviews); on the other hand, its insular, exclusionary, borderline-paranoid nature makes it difficult for her to connect with anyone outside of her base. By making the world come to her and deal with her exclusively on her own terms, she furthers the "Us vs. Them" mentality that is such an essential part of her overall message and persona.
She is protecting herself and, by extension, her friends and supporters from what she views as the hostile, elitist mainstream that is out to deceive honest, hardworking people with lies and tricks and "gotcha" questions. It's an extremely effective way to strengthen her connection with her base of supporters. The people who already love her, love her even more because they feel as if she is speaking directly to them and their situation without a filter (which is kind of true; there's a filter, but it's her own filter). Of course, it also works the other way by giving more fuel to the people that hate her. To her opponents, she is a coward hiding from well deserved scrutiny and refusing to face the same challenges and obstacles nearly every other public figure faces. This divisive quality is inherent to these means of communication, and I think Palin partially thrives on it, creating a self-perpetuating system in which she creates more criticism against which she can rail. But the deeper problem to her overall effectiveness is the way in which her modes of communication affects the majority of people who fall in between the two extremes of hardcore supporters and hardcore opponents.
If Sarah Palin is to be truly effective, and truly dangerous, she needs to be able to reach a significant number of people who have unformed or semi-formed opinions of her. Just as every election and campaign seems to come down to which candidate can win over 'moderate voters', any political figure worthy of fear from the opposition needs to be able to appeal to to the vast swaths of the politically-active (or at least somewhat-politically-active) populace that fall somewhere between the liberal and conservative extremes. By segregating herself from the mainstream media, Sarah Palin is in danger of isolating herself from the mainstream of the U.S. population, the very people to whom she needs to appeal in order to become a powerful and effective political figure. These people don't visit her Facebook page, they don't go to her speeches, they either don't watch Fox News or watch it with a more critical eye than Palin's supporters on the extreme right. For many of these people, the lasting image of Sarah Palin is from her failed vice presidential campaign in 2008. For others it's her unusual decision to resign as governor last summer. And for the rest, it's probably some secondhand description of her social media declarations as interpreted by the "lamestream media." None of these are likely to win Palin many supporters from the moderate population. And by forcing the public and the media to come to her, she is further alienating these people, essentially relegating herself to the fringe.
Sarah Palin is an expert at self-promotion, maybe one of the best in the world. She and her PR team are incredibly savvy at managing her public persona and communicating it to her supporters (and everyone else, for that matter). She is excellent at motivating her particular corner of the Republican base with her proclamations and endorsements (usually). But she is also excellent at creating a backlash that motivates her opponents' supporters, as well. And as she becomes more isolated, combative, and weird, she makes it more difficult for the majority of people in this country to take her seriously as a politician. She has yet to show herself to be an articulate, competent, intelligent political figure on the national stage. Instead, she's been the political equivalent of a vacuous Hollywood celebrity; demanding respect yet doing nothing nothing to deserve it; parading her family around on the public stage then feigning outrage when people mention how dysfunctional they seem to be; blaming the mainstream media for misrepresenting her while failing to properly clarify her positions or refute(iate) those supposed misrepresentations. Sarah Palin is a cartoon character. And as she's become more entrenched in her current status as a political celebrity, she's become even more cartoonish. She is now closer to Tina Fey's impersonation than she ever was back when Fey was performing the impersonation. Hell, she's done a better job of embodying Fey's impersonation than Fey has. And for all of Palin's demonization of the media, she utterly depends on it to feed her celebrity. I've told a number of people I know that if people stopped paying attention to all of the ridiculous things Sarah Palin does and says, she would essentially disappear. She has no substance, only style, and that doesn't make her dangerous. It makes her fascinating and, to some people, disgusting. But there is nothing to fear about Sarah Palin.
Labels: politics, Sarah Palin
posted by Carlos Animals at 8:36 PM
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