On Palin

I have avoided saying too much about Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin because (a) there is hardly a shortage of discussion and debate about her, (b) it is difficult to make any observations without sounding like a partisan, which I've no interest in, and most importantly, (c) I've had a hard time making sense for myself of what her nomination "means." I'm still working on it, but some formative thoughts:

Palin, on the one hand, is an almost logical product of the post-1964 political history Rick Perlsetin recounts in Nixonland -- a politics that builds an electoral majority through the division of parts of the electorate against each other, and that seeks to do so by tapping into social and class-based resentment; envy; bitterness over slights real and perceived; and, most saliently, through fear: fear of exclusion (of not being among the "in" crowd) on the one hand, and the cultivation of fear among the public to gain adherents, on the other.

That so much of Nixon's rise (and Reagan's, importantly) can be traced to the successful tapping of racial fear and resentment seems of note as we live through the first contest in which the possibility of a black President is real, if perhaps still not addressed in any direct or forthright manner. (Who would have thought that with Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee, we would talk so very little about race in America -- that's, of course, in part because the Obama campaign is itself afraid to discuss it).

This is often talked about in language of a "culture war," but it's almost always more than that, and at least as much about economics -- and about class -- as it is about "hot-button" social issues. More broadly, Palin's nomination has once again sought to frame the election as a battle between "average" Americans and out-of-touch "elites."

But there's something that extends beyond the merely tactical here, and seems to tap into something deeper and more enduring. Perhaps inevitably, Richard Hofstadter's great book, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, has been much on my mind. For with Palin, what seems to me most salient is not -- let us be frank -- her rather profound ignorance of American history, political institutions, or matters of public policy, both foreign and domestic; much more interesting to me is the (implied?) claim that this is, in contemporary parlance, a feature, not a bug. Her ignorance, her inexperience, her insularity, her lack of nuance and intellectual sophistication, her failure to travel broad, all of this is a virtue -- for thereby can she see that there is "a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street there, brought to Washington, DC." It's time, she has suggested, that an ordinary American finally have a shot at the Vice Presidency.

As Hofstadter writes of the larger phenomenon, and the denigration of expertise:

Intellectuals, it may be held, are pretentious, conceited, effeminate, and snobbish; and very likely immoral, dangerous, and subversive. The plain sense of the common man [sic], especially if tested by success in some demanding line of practical work, is an altogether adequate substitute for, if not actually much superior to, formal knowledge and expertise acquired in the schools.

But, he continues a few pages later:

It seems clear that those who have some quarrel with intellect are almost always ambivalent about it: they mix respect and awe with suspicion and resentment.

And still later, I think getting to the nub:

Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege.

For Hofstadter, who was writing in the wake of McCarthyism, that period of anti-intellectualism was a reaction to the government-by-experts of FDR's New Deal and, to a lesser extent, JFK. It's an anger and bitterness born of frustration and the fear of exclusion. As with Nixon, it's both real (as a personal reaction to exclusion) and then turned into a tool -- resentment used to cultivate resentment, and to build allegiance.

It is, we might even venture to say, akin to other Fundamentalisms -- a reaction to a host of forces we associate with Modernity. In this way it is not, I suspect, mere coincidence that the least intellectually curious (or playful, in Hofstadter's language) of contemporary politicians -- Palin and President George W. Bush, most notably -- are also among the most radical in their public recourse to religion. It's part of what Hofstadter calls "The Evangelical Spirit." It helps, in part, make some sense of the certitude of Bush, even (or especially?) in the face of contrary evidence, and of Palin, too. When asked to join the ticket, Palin told Charlie Gibson that she didn't hesitate, didn't even blink. To have paused, to have weighed the pros and cons, to have contemplated the sheer enormity of it, would have been, in the anti-intellectual wordlview, weak and effeminate. Reflection and contemplation are themselves suspect.

I'm not sure this is hanging together, but I'll forge on for a bit more before surrender. There's one more piece to this puzzle, and I want to talk about it as cynicism. Not your run-of-the-mill cynicism (oh, all politicians are corrupt in their own way), but something deeper and more dangerous, something that's revealed as increasing numbers of Republicans/conservatives distance themselves from Palin: whether Palin (or Bush) is aware of the depth of her own ignorance is an open question, but it is surely known by leaders in the McCain campaign. Do they truly believe that she is capable of stepping in to function as President? They can't. But they choose not to care in order to achieve political power. She is merely a tool, in that regard, a means toward an end. But a willing accomplice.

What creates conditions of cognitive dissonance so great, however, that such an effort may potentially fail is this: Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson, whatever their partisan affiliation or their policy preferences, have demonstrated themselves to be intellectuals; they are technocrats, they are experts, they are, let it be said, elites. And if ever there were circumstances in which people seem to appreciate the value of pointy-headed intellectuals, it would seem to be now. Who would like to make the argument that because, say, they are raising a passel of children, can manage a complex household budget, and are able to see Wall Street from their apartment that they are, therefore, suitably qualified to replace the Chairman of the Federal Reserve or the Secretary of the Treasury? It's silly, of course, not to mention dangerous. But this is, after all, the argument that Palin is making in respect to assuming the role of Vice President of the United States.

Surely it need not be partisan to also acknowledge the sheer silliness of that claim? And what does it say about the state of American politics that the reaction to Palin is not more along the lines of this classic reaction to another Vice Presidential candidate, Sprio Agnew? (But, of course, Nixon and Agnew won. . . . .)