The aspect of the Palin phenomenon I find most baffling, and most frustrating, is the refusal of some intelligent, well-informed commentators on the right to acknowledge her utter vacuity. This was almost forgivable during the heat of the election campaign when she seemed, briefly, to offer a shred of hope to the Republican campaign (though she turned to represent an unprecedented disaster for the ticket). If you really, really want your side to win you can convince yourself of some things you'd regard as fairly absurd under normal circumstances. But I mean, that's not really an excuse. And it certainly doesn't apply now.
Of course, following Friday's car crash of a resignation speech, many of her already-dwindling band of supporters in the media have retreated, aghast. But how could they be surprised? Did they really think this woman was Margaret Thatcher? Did they still dream that she might disappear to Alaska, have a Robert Johnson-style meeting at the crossroads, and return as a compound of Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger? Hadn't they been listening to her?
Some, unbelievably, hold on to the dream even now - whether out of pride or mischief, I don't know. William Kristol thinks it's all a cunning plan (if so it's of the Baldrick variety). Others - and here we must single out Ross Douthat - wave goodbye to the Sarah they had such hopes for with a yearning, regretful tone, as if penning a letter to a lover they must leave behind:
And now, seemingly, it’s over. Oh, maybe not forever: she’s only 45,
young enough (and, yes, talented enough) to have a second act. But last
Friday’s bizarre, rambling resignation speech should take her off the
political map for the duration of the Obama era.
Douthat goes on to draw a moral that Palin would approve of: it's the elites what done it. The demise of Palin, hounded by a media that hasn''t been as tough on anyone, ever (he doesn't mention Hillary Clinton, but then, the contrast wouldn't flatter the Alaskan) just shows what happens when a working-class woman of doughty good sense tries to break into the cosy and well-guarded world of America's elites. I'm elaborating slightly, but that's the gist of it. Myself, I suspect this is enormously unfair to working-class Americans. Admittedly, I don't know many, but the ones I've met had at least a basic grasp of reality, something Palin clearly lacks.
How to explain this mush from one so clever? As ever, the French have a handy phrase that captures what I think may be going on here: nostalgie de la boue. It means, literally, hunger for the mud, and it's used to describe the way the way that some middle-class people idealise the lower classes, longing to be at one with what they suppose to be a more primitive and more truthful way of being. Douthat has a big brain, is well-educated, terribly middle-class and
rather donnish - and he's irresistibly drawn, even now, to the idea of
Palin as a kind of noble savage. It used to be the province of the left, this sentiment, but it's been adopted by the American right. It explains a lot about the Palin Delusion.