Posted on 09/09/2008 2:15:32 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I assume it is unnecessary to answer the logically prior question of whether or not they hate Sarah Palin. The level of vitriol flung at her over the past week and a half by critics in every liberal outlet ranging from The New York Times to Air America is particularly awe-inspiring given that this is all the longer they’ve even known her name. Ordinarily, such hatred takes years to cultivate. The force and acceleration of their vehemence virtually demands psychoanalysis. Since this sport is in vogue, I’ll give my diagnostic skills a shot at the trophy.
Preface: There Is a Pathology
The natural first reaction of a Palin-hater to this column is to deny the hatred. They will say it’s her politics, her religion, or possibly the whiff of scandal some have managed to ladle upon her. But if they’re honest with themselves, they’ll have to admit three simple facts.
First, the reasons they give aren’t the reasons they hate. If they didn’t have these, they’d manufacture others. There’s an old story about a man asking to borrow his neighbor’s lawn mower and being told, “No, I’m making potato soup.” “What does that have to do with me borrowing your lawn mower?” the incredulous man replies. “Nothing, but if I don’t want to loan you my lawn mower, one excuse is just as good as another.” Likewise, Governor Palin is not hated because of whatever reasons they offer. These are afterthoughts to an animosity which is embarrassed to admit it was born prior to reason. Hence, refuting them will prove futile.
Second, even those who persist in asserting such reasons as their motive will have to admit that all of them put together still can’t justify the disproportionate vigor of their attacks upon her. To use an aging phrase, this is the politics of personal destruction; a nuclear response to what their own arguments admit is a merely conventional threat.
Third, no one can hate this deeply this quickly. Conservatives generally despise certain political figures such as Bill Clinton, Teddy Kennedy and John Paul Stevens. But it’s taken us years, sometimes decades to detest these people. Similarly for liberals, contempt only begins to describe their feelings toward George W. Bush, Rick Santorum, and Antonin Scalia. But, again, at least such a sentiment has developed over time. It took Sarah Palin less than a week to receive treatment these men have taken years to earn. Such an immediate mauling of someone’s character says far more about the predators than about their prey.
So, what explains this pathology? I have two mutually compatible theories.
Theory 1: The Cult of Personality
Barack Obama is the left’s messiah. Their hopes, their dreams and even their patriotism are at this point invested in him. He cannot be criticized. He cannot be joked about. And he most certainly cannot be mocked. All such response to him (perfectly normal with any other politician) is viewed as blasphemy rather than politics. Not only is the left salvifically invested in him, they secretly fear they have been too rash to the altar call. Calm reflection proves Barack Obama isn’t ready to be president yet, but who can resist the hope beyond hope that he’s more than just a golden voice reading a teleprompter?
So when little Sarah Palin comes along and castigates him with condescending satire, they react as any devastated schoolgirl with a crush would. Her speech stated every major flaw with his candidacy. Not just honestly, but with a Reagenesque comedic flair. And since their deepest fear is that everything she said about him is right, the only option to reconsidering their betrothal was to destroy her.
It’s pretty simple. If we disagree, you correct me. If I am silly, you ignore me. But if I articulate your own fears in attacking something you cherish irrationally, you excoriate me … as cover. As Robert Pirsig explained in his lovely novel on motorcycle maintenance, no one jumps up and down screaming that the sun will rise tomorrow. Highly emotional responses indicate fear and uncertainty, not the opposite.
Sarah Palin’s on-target reductio of Barack Obama turned their messiah into a joke, earning the very predictable treatment a heretic deserves. Disabusing people of a savored fantasy always does.
Theory 2: Her Non-Feminist Feminism
I used to marvel at the rudeness so often publicly shown to parents with many children. But then I saw how the very existence of such families exposes the guilt and self-doubt others feel about their own decisions to stop having children. The surest way to avoid dealing with these stifled concerns is to assault the character or intelligence of parents who dare to expose them with their large families.
So, too with Sarah Palin and the left. Her very life rebukes them.
She has five children, two of them after the age of 40. When her infant son was diagnosed with Down syndrome, she chose life. And when her own daughter was discovered pregnant, she helped her choose life, too. Without ever saying a word about being pro-life (to say it would have been superfluous), she demolished all the common arguments used in favor of abortion and family planning, totemic doctrines of the left.
But it’s more than just doctrine. It’s that so many people on the left have condoned abortions, helped others obtain abortions, or even had abortions themselves in the very same circumstances under which Sarah Palin chose life. Honest people are an affront to liars. Law-abiders are an affront to criminals. And the woman who has made pro-life “choices” is a stinging affront to modern feminism, which has spent decades trying to convince women that an unwanted pregnancy is like a disease and the unborn child something like a parasite.
They must demonize her because her choices so clearly condemn their own. Make no mistake, when your example disproves someone else’s deeply internalized rationalizations, they will try to destroy you. After all, the only other option would be to repent.
Conclusion
In “Beyond Good and Evil,” Nietzsche said, “Anyone who has looked deeply into the world may guess how much wisdom lies in the superficiality of men … let nobody doubt that whoever stands that much in need of the cult of surfaces must at some time have reached beneath them with disastrous results.” His critique of religion so perfectly fits probamaism that one is forced to conclude the latter is but a new flavor of the former.
There may be other pathologies at play here, but these explain both the left’s tsunamic response and why it struck last Thursday morning. It was the speech, stupid.
It's the post-abortion trigger for liberals. So many of them have had abortions. Seeing a mother witha FIVE children, a newborn, and a pregnant daughter with another on the way, flips them out. They fly into a rage. It may also be , "Oh, damn, we didn't pick Hillary! Now the Republicans might get the first woman VP." It's too much for them. They were already whooped up in hysteria with the Obama messiah cult worship stuff. Not likely they would act rationally.
They were totally caught off-guard and unprepared and played absolutely no role in the choice. They were shocked by the fact that they weren’t consulted or needed. McCain did an end run around them and scored a touchdown.
Secondly they were absolutely shocked that the choice was met with such enthusiasm and overnight their choice was shoved off to the sidelines after he had put on such an elaborate show fit for a king. After 19 months of hard work and careful planning it became obvious to them that Obama was finished, beaten by an Alaskan hick mayor/govenor, NRA member, Christian and a church going unpretentious gal who knows how to be a mother, a wife, a woman and a leader at the same time and do it without a law degree or having DC experience on her resume. They lost big and resent it.
Amazing isnt it ? She has taken the country by storm and the left has to tear her down ,cant say ONE good thing about her. Reminds me of the Democrat Party as a Whole , They cant suceed unless the Country is going to Hell ,they wish for disaster everywhere just to gain power . So they have to tear a Good woman down .
Here is to hoping the Good Lord looks after her and the American People see through all this and sweep her into the office of Vice President
I think it’s simple. Sarah Palin blows apart their standard conservative stereotype “racist-sexist-homophobe” mantra.
They sure-as-hell can’t dismiss us as “sexist” anymore and it pisses them off.
Very insightful.
The left disdains reason for feelings. When Obama loses, there will be mayhem, possibly on a grand scale.
Good article..
Leftists are mentally ill by definition.
They don’t hate, the emotion is fear. Pure unadultrated fear.
By extrapolation of fear they quickly come to a stat eof mental death. They fear death.
Pretending that you are a victim is more emotionally comfortable than being lazy or stupid.
Being a victim means you don’t have the power to do anything about your situation.
Recognizing that your “failure to accomplish” anything is your own fault is deeply painful. It requires for you to get up and do something about it.
The hypocrite must hate the radical.
They sure-as-hell can’t dismiss us as “sexist” anymore and it pisses them off.
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Reality doesn’t enter into their thought process ,, we will continue to be sexist , racist , homophobes etc. etc. in their thoughts.
The more the moonbats attack and hate Sarah Palin, the more I like her. She is doing a good job pissing them off. This will be the moonbats road to perdition.
They are addicted to hate. They feed off of hate, like Fred Phelps and Osama bin Laden.
She is a conservative cultural icon arising from the middle class and the working class. They tried to ridicule and marginalize her. When the numbers rallied to her, they were confronted with the fact that she resonates with a large cultural majority that has not yet been tapped in this race. It alarms them when they realize that they culturally occupy only a small corner of the fabric of the country and the sleeping giant is awakening and will soon marginalize them.
They hate Sarah because she is the antidote to the poison the far left has been dishing out.
They hate her because she is the wake op coffee to the sleeping America that the far left has drugged and hypnotized.
They fear her because she threatens the ultimate plan of introducing Islam into the culture, lifestyle and laws of the United States of America.
The could care less about McCain.
I wish there were some way Palin could expose that. Probably can't safely happen until after the election (too bad, since it'd be nice to have a Republican sweep in Congress) but I would like to see a woman with the bully pulpit say something like:
"I know that millions of women look at my children and think I want them to be consumed by guilt, or that I'm going to stick my bible in their face. I want no such thing, and I will do no such thing.I'm probably not much of a speech writer, and I don't know if someone like Gov. Palin could manage the right tone to make the speech work, but a speech of that sort, properly delivered, could destroy the pro-choice movement."Any woman who thinks Barack Obama will offer fodder for her guilt, and it will leave her alone, is half right. Barack Obama will be more than happy to feed the guilt, but it as sure as night follows day it will be back meaner and hungrier than ever.
"I offer something better: instead of feeding the guilt, expose it. Tell anyone who's considering an abortion of the pain and anguish you've suffered for your own. Help them find an adoption referral agency. Exposing your guilt will negate its power over you, and as the children you save grow and thrive, the guilt that once controlled you will wither and die.
"I won't pretend it's easy to vanquish guilt. It's not. But I hope you will recognize who wants to cure your guilt, and who wants to exploit it to perpetuate their cause.
(nb: Yes, I know there's a somewhat awkward shift from third-person to second-person. I think the lure really needs to be third person, to avoid prematurely triggering people's guilt defenses, but the hook really needs to be second person. Third-person language would sound incredibly flat ("By exposing their guilt, women can negate its power over them.")
Can anyone think of any scenarios where such a speech might work?
See my #76. The visceral reaction in some cases is so strong, 'guilt trigger' seems the most reasonable explanation.
There are many rational reasons for liberals to fear Obama, but I think the real issue is abortion, an issue which unfortunately conservatives have consistently bungled. Many people think that the only way to avoid being consumed by guilt over the slaughter of innocents is to feed the guilt with ever-growing blood. As the supply of blood looks to be dwindling, the people are getting desperate.
See #76 for my proposed solution.
Seeing post-abortion rage in person is quite amazing and a little frightening. Sad.
They have to try to destroy her because she represents a direct challenge to all of the pro-abortion propaganda of the liberal feminist movement. Guilt, rage, hysteria. There is a bit of that in the attempts to demonize and smear Palin.
The feminazis don’t get even a whiff of man-hating from Sarah. She doesn’t envy and resent men as the feminazis do. 5 children - it’s kind of obvious that she doesn’t spend a lot of time wishing she was a man...
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