Posted on 01/20/2016 7:16:26 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Where there are open flames, there will always be curious moths. Tonight, at a little after six o'clock, Sarah Palin will succumb at last to overwhelming temptation and sign up for Donald Trump's ever-glistering light show. And in that remarkable moment, the mask will fall off completely.
If you are surprised by this development, you shouldn't be. Ours is an age in which politics and entertainment are melted together without opposition or disfavor; a silly, self-indulgent, shallow age in which Kanye West thinks he can be the president of the United States and the president of the United States thinks he can be Kanye West. That Palin and Trump are together at last is no accident of ideology or timing; rather, it is the inevitable and rational confluence of two ghastly cults of personality -- a fat-cutting, cash-saving merger that will serve to increase overall market share. Under their own steam, both figures have convinced a significant portion of the American population that their personal advancement is the key to the country's success. Together, just think how great America can be!
Talk to a Palin fan and you will be told in a matter of moments that to oppose her is to oppose "real America." Talk to a Trump fan, and you will be told that to knock him is to knock "We the people" -- of which, it is made abundantly clear, you are no longer a valued part. All told, this symmetry makes sense, for the pair have of late become mirror images. Sarah Palin started in politics and moved seamlessly into television and entrepreneurship; Donald Trump started in business and, after a quick foray onto the small screen, readied himself for the ballot box. Now their most effective cudgels can be wielded as one: You're not so effete that you're against the both of them, are you?
They will pretend otherwise, of course -- and their screaming acolytes will mewl their way into acquiescence -- but, by uniting, the pair has shown the way toward a new sort of conservative establishment. Last year, long before Trump made his ambitions clear, I submitted that if one "wanted to find a figure to which Palin can be reasonably compared . . . it's not Ronald Reagan. . . . It's Donald Trump." And so it has come to pass. Like Palin, Trump has mastered the art of the interminable ramble, the purpose of which is not to convey meaning or to advance a useful argument but to stun the audience into dumb submission. Like Palin, Trump has embraced his ignorance and wielded it as a sign of strength and normality against the ever-protean "elite." And, like Palin, Trump has betrayed his desire to fix the political system not by mastering or replacing it, but by becoming it. This isn't an insurgency, it's a shakedown. And the conmen are moving in packs.
Alas, there is no grand principle on display here. There is nothing but opportunism and ego. For a long time now, Sarah Palin has been apt to say anything and everything to keep the cameras buzzing around her hive. This rotten endorsement completes the decline. What, we might ask, has become of Palin's beloved Tea Party? What, too, of her purported admiration for limited government, and of her ostensible hatred of heretics and fakers? The prospect of a mass movement that was earnestly committed to libertarianism was always a little too good to be true, but even I didn't imagine it ending like this. All that talk of the Constitution and the Declaration; all that energy expended against the cronies and the rent-seekers; all those purifying voter drives -- and for what? So that Sarah Palin could add a few zeroes to her bank balance and Donald Trump could go from the purchaser to the bought? Today was the day that Rick Santelli's famous yelp finally melted into populism and avarice. Today, at about ten minutes past six, P. T. Barnum beat out Hayek for the soul of the insurgent Right. Today, the rebels became the charlatans they had set out to depose. What comes next will be anybody's guess.
-- Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff writer at National Review.
And here as well. :-)
ok, I understand your request, but I’m still curious what CW stands for in Charles CW Cooke? Certified Weenie?
Kanye is more like Obama.
His father was a black panther and he grew up in China.
This article reads like it is right out of 1980. As if the country at this time can handle a debate about Hayek...
Cooke seems to miss the entire point of his own essay. Entertainment and politics have merged. Obama is regularly a guest on “reality” shows (a laugher because he lives in a fantasy world).
Despite this, we are fortunate to have a very popular candidate who actually talks about the serious issues we are facing: immigrations, Islamic invasion, and a dead economy. And it is a tremendous ASSET that he has a background as an entertainer. (Hmm, haven’t we seen that before?)
Donald trump LED on these issues. They are being debated because HE BROUGHT THEM UP and put them in prime time.
You’d think the woe-is-me, sky-has-fallen Cooke would get on board with this. Instead, for whatever reason, he chooses to write defeatist ‘essays’ that lecture his readers.
Thankfully, not all of us are ready to roll over and die like Cooke. Some of us would rather have a fighting chance to save the country. Right now, the only candidate who sees the election in those terms is Donald Trump. And, more importantly, he has the attention of the public, who sees is that way, too.
Cooke is symptomatic of National Review in general. Lost, adrift, flagging, unsteady, cowardly, and pompous without a requisite intellect to pull it off tastefully.
So now you call Palin a liberal. Lord you are going crazy. I swear you Cruzies are off the rails.
Sour grapes, lots of sour grapes in that whine. Oh and tears.
Fair enough on Nikki. We voters face the same challenge selecting candidates that won’t be co-opted by the political machine. It’s a crap shoot. Same with scotus candidates..who really knows how someone will act later? We make educated assumptions at best.
Probably straight key, certainly pre-SSB.
The DNC is comprised almost entirely of lawyers. If conservatives are more likely to come from different walks of life, I think that says something positive. JMHO.
Stopped reading where author calls Palin dumb.
I’ve suspected similarly that they’re play fighting to some degree. All the other candidates have basically disappeared from media coverage, including the democrats, which makes me happy.
Good gravy you are an idiot.
See my tagline. If someone endorses a flaming liberal like Trump I can only be left with one conclusion.
I am also not a Cruz supporter, not while he runs as Republican. I do not vote for Rs in federal elections because I do not want to be an accessory to their crimes, stupidity and cowardice. That said, Cruz is the only Republican conservative in the race.
American citizens over the age of 35?
Yup.
Because I don’t think Sarah is a liberal. Well I don’t. I that makes me an idiot, I wear it proudly. And once again you bring NOTHING to the discussion. You are a waste of a person. I hope you aren’t this pathetic in real life.
Sarah Palin, brought to you by John McCain.
Narrative? What narrative?
There's nothing but spite and invective. There's no there, there.
This screed reflects much more poorly on the writer than the subjects of the article.
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