Watching the right's knee-jerk swooning at the announcement of Sarah Palin as John McCain's VP pick these past few weeks has really cemented the view I have that these people are truly nothing more than gullible, glassy-eyed cult followers, whose yearning for a rigid authoritarian, theological figurehead to lead them out of the wilderness and into the waiting arms of end times prophecy poses an imminent danger to representative democracy in this country.
Palin was a completely unknown political entity prior to August 29, 2008 when John McCain plucked her from relative obscurity to be his Vice Presidential running mate. She was an 18 month purportedly populist Governor of the nation's least populated state, who's rapid rise to executive power within Alaska mirrored that of Jesse Ventura's celebrity-fueled and unseemly rise to the Governorship of Minnesota in 1998.
What's disturbingly striking about Palin's lightning fast ascension though is the swiftness with which conservatives sublimated her to goddess-like stature once her religious views and stances on conservative hot button social issues like abortion, gay marriage and guns were known. It's almost as if those few views alone, in conservative's minds, were automatic and unquestionable qualifications for election to the 2nd highest leadership post in the country and a heartbeat away from the ultimate executive position.
There was no desire or curiosity by the right to know whether Palin knew anything about foreign affairs or the complexities of economic policies or even general knowledge of the world beyond the borders of Wasilla, Alaska (pop. 7,025). Nothing else mattered to her instantly star-struck disciples other than knowing she was an evangelical Christian, opposed all abortion, opposed gay marriage and supported the NRA.
The media was also caught up in the whirlwind of Hurricane Sarah. There was some Enquirer-like attention devoted to a bizarre story of her suddenly announced, pregnant teen-aged daughter. And also some tepid interest in an on-going, in-state scandal involving her firing of Alaska's top public safety official over a tiff involving a state trooper and his messy divorce with Palin's sister. Aside from that though, the media also appeared to be temporarily blinded by the explosive entry of this new super-nova personality onto the national political stage.
However, now that the initial novelty effect is starting to wear off, and combined with the recent news of the slow-motion collapse of America's financial empire, a lot of people, and the media, are starting to take a longer, harder look into who is Sarah Palin, what she stands for, and what truly are her qualifications for the job of Vice-President of the United States of America. And the harder people look, the scarier the reality of it all appears.
Here's another insightful article exposing the lie of the deceitfully crafted conservative myth that Sarah Palin is a legislative genius with ample executive governing experience to lead America forward into a complicated, dangerous 21st century. It's a sad and devastating look at how hype, personality marketing and preying on people's fears of the unknown, combined with religious and ideological manipulation, can elevate an entirely unworthy individual to a position of supreme power in the blink of an eye.
God help us all if these people succeed in their twisted ecclesiastical mission.
----k
