By
Walter Brasch
She’s back and tightly holding Donald
Trump’s coattails.
That’s right, Sarah Palin, having again
found the media spotlight, is casting her shadow across the more thoughtful
conservatives.
This past week she declared her undying
love and support of Trump’s attempt to seize the presidency from the more
experienced and knowledgeable candidates in the Democratic, Republican, and
Green parties, and is blathering her way throughout Iowa, New Hampshire, and
several early primary states to stir up Trump’s far-right base.
At a media circus press conference this
past week in Ames, Iowa, Palin gave the far-right wing goose bumps of
excitement with her opening declaration, “Looking
around at all of you, you hard working Iowa families, you farm families and
teachers and teamsters and cops and cooks, you rock and rollers and holy
rollers!” And then she asked the crowd, “Are you ready for the leader to make
America great again?” Her question
echoed that of Trump, and brought a flushed frenzy to the target audience. The
question also had undertones of stating that the United States was not great,
was not the world leader in numerous areas and, to the far-right’s belief, not
a world leader in waging war, something the Republicans have become adept at
and known for.
Palin’s
20-minute endorsement, filled with a “you betcha” here and a “Hallelujah!” there,
rambled on, attacking President Obama, who isn’t running, while avoiding
anything about those who are climbing in the polls and about to catch the man
who, until he declared his candidacy for president, liked being known as The
Donald.
Palin’s
endorsement may have been because she was looking to cement an irrational
possibility to be a part of a Trump administration. Several months earlier, she
had declared, to the amusement of anyone who ever studied science and energy, “I think a lot about the Department of Energy, because
energy is my baby, oil and gas and minerals, those things that God has dumped
on this part of the earth for mankind’s use, instead of relying on unfriendly
foreign nations for us to import their resource.” Why she wanted to run the Department of
Energy was clear—she wanted to be the one to ride it into extinction.
But
the Tea Party darling may have endorsed Trump not because of any ideological
similarities, as both proclaimed, but because she needs media exposure. Sen.
John McCain and some delusional advisors had plucked Palin out of Alaskan
obscurity to be the Republicans’ vice-presidential candidate in 2008. On a
full-time campaign, she had become a part-time governor. After the McCain-Palin
combination failed to land many blows on the Obama-Biden ticket, and was
soundly defeated, Palin decided that Alaska wasn’t big enough for her. She
resigned the governorship half-way through her first term, wrote a best-selling
book that only the extreme right-wing thought was well-written, began
commanding $100,000 for speaking fees, and was courted by, and signed by, Fox
News as a commentator.
However,
even Fox News, which has corralled most of the conservative loons to be
commentators, tired of having to deal with Palin’s errors, outrageous
observations, and falling ratings. Palin’s and Fox’s PR machines claimed the
divorce was amicable.
With her popularity fading, her
speaking engagements slowing down, and media coverage of her family’s problems
rising, Palin needed a platform to restore her reality show road show. That
media glow lays in the endorsement of the narcissistic and bombastic
billionaire front runner whose three marriages and four bankruptcies haven’t reduced
his appeal to the Republicans’ family values base.
It’s
important that Palin get off the stage so that the conservatives who actually
know what they’re talking about can command some of the media attention that
has been focused upon Trumpian rhetoric and not substance.
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