I think I just figured out Sarah Palin
A problem I’ve seen in politics for a long time now is that it’s no longer about why one should vote for Candidate A, and what he will bring to the table, or Candidate B, and what she will do. It’s become a huge popularity contest, and it’s hardly even a nationwide vote anymore. Ideally, a voter should approach the facts, and decide, based only upon the merits and deeds of a candidate, who he or she thinks should lead the country. This decision should be unique and individual to each voter. But it isn’t. Modern American voting occurs between three parties: Conservative, Liberal, and Undecided. (There is a fourth, the Brilliantly Talented and Photogenic, but our percentage of the population is so small, it becomes trivial and irrelevant. We exist not to decide, but to comment upon and judge. And look incredible.)
The parties are not all that different. The one big thing that separates them is that they’re not each other. The Conservatives are no longer Conservatives because they’re Conservatives, they’re Conservatives because they’re sure not some kind of Liberal. The Liberals are exactly the same, for the opposite reason. Every year, no matter what, they vote for their party because that can’t bear to think of those other people running the country. And every year, they turn out the same numbers.
The third party is what every election comes down to. The Undecideds. Now, you might think they’re simply waiting till they have all the facts to make up their mind, or that they’re still weighing pros and cons to decide the right choice. They’re not. They just haven’t decided who will change the country less.
This third group is the trickiest of all to snare because they are a cripplingly prideful and insecure people. Above all, they can’t bear to think of egg on their face, or being proven wrong in front of their peers. Essentially, they want a leader who will allow them to go right on acting like jerks and feeling great about it.
In our most recent presidential election, I found myself quite Undecided at first. After everything, it had finally come down to McCain vs Obama. To be honest, I was undecided because I didn’t know whose America I’d rather live in less. In the end, I began to side with Obama, but wouldn’t have been too upset if McCain won. Then the Vice-Presidents were announced, and absolutely everything changed. I know why they picked Biden. They had an amazing thing going with Obama- by himself, he was a rock star. Amazing as he was, the men in suits commiserating in the shadows (both sides have them), knew that he wasn’t so big he couldn’t be derailed. A Vice President that just didn’t mesh right with Obama could have easily knocked him off his game. Biden was chosen because there was nothing bad, and nothing too good, about him. In fact, there wasn’t much you could take issue with him about at all. He was a perfect, blank, smiling piece of paper, a beautiful pick to do absolutely nothing to Obama’s momentum.
Then, dark clouds covered the sky, a small rift appeared in them, and a thick, deep red light spilled down through. Karl Rove looked his mutatated, reptilian Outer God in the eye, as no mortal man can do, and saw the one who he must pick.
The Republicans had picked well with McCain, as he fulfilled the first requirement of the Undecided: he’d let them do whatever they wanted. But they still weren’t sure that he’d let them feel good about it. That’s where Sarah Palin came in. Here was just a regular ol’ soccer mom who jest perferred doin’ things the ol’ fashiond way, an’ if you got a problem with that, well gee why don’t you go werry about it somewhere else, there, OK? The idiots finally had their speaker. They could go right on acting like gas-huffing farm animals and still got to feel superior to everyone else simply because they knew so.
When they originally picked Palin, I was scared as hell, but I was also incredibly curious. Why did they pick her? There had to be a reason they looked at all the possibilities and eventually thought she was their best bet to keep them in power. It obviously wasn’t her reasoning or ability, that’s for sure. But there was a reason, somewhere in there. The Republicans knew they were going to lose if they didn’t fulfill that second requirement, so they took a gamble with Palin, hoping her down-homey, good ol’ fashioned corny whiteness would derail Obama’s Awesome Train. They had hoped a tough but friendly soccer mom from the Real America who knew what it was to get her hands dirty would be able to charm her way past Obama’s steel, invincible cool all the way into America’s white, Anglo-Saxon hearts.
It turned out that all that home cookin’ and moose-slayin’ goodness also came with entire Testaments of batshit crazy that they never took into account. But Palin continues on today, as a banner holder for stupid, wildly egotistical people to gather and proudly march behind. Because in Palin’s America, you can be a big, fat idiot if you want to, regardless of reason, fact, or reality.
In the end, Sarah Palin was clearly the end of the 2008 Republican presidential hopes, and thank god she was. I couldn’t possibly have had those people running the country for four years, no thank you.
