You cannot be betrayed by a stranger. Only an intimate can break that bond. You’re only disappointed by those you love.
The current populism being fanned by the right wing bloc is not, at heart, a fear of the other but a resentment of their own. A feeling of betrayal.
Here’s one tell: they don’t accuse the left of ignorance or incompetence but of arrogance – of arrogant deception.
Former governor Sarah Palin addressing a crowd a few months ago:
“They talk down to us. Especially here in the heartland. Oh, man. They think that, if we were just smart enough, we’d be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell ’em, and I do tell ’em, Oh, we’re plenty smart, oh yeah—we know what’s goin’ on. And we don’t like what’s goin’ on. And we’re not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up.”
Palin’s most die-hard fans appreciate Palin the woman more than they do her specific proposals. (She doesn’t talk much about policy these days nor could she in 140 character Tweets, her preferred mode of public address other than the fundraising script and the Facebook update.)
So what positions does Palin support? Those suggested to her by luminaries like William Kristol.
Here is William Kristol endorsing Palin as McCain’s better half in their 2008 campaign:
Palin also made clear that she was eager for the McCain-Palin campaign to be more aggressive in helping the American people understand “who the real Barack Obama is.” Part of who Obama is, she said, has to do with his past associations, such as with the former bomber Bill Ayers. Palin had raised the topic of Ayers Saturday on the campaign trail, and she maintained to me that Obama, who’s minimized his relationship with Ayers, “hasn’t been wholly truthful” about this.
…And maybe I’d add, Hockey Mom knows best.
Did William Kristol believe President Obama was aligned with terrorists? Nope:
So McCain has to tie the economic crisis to Obama’s character and judgment and say who you want in charge in difficult years, who is up to the job, liberal democrats who has hung out with characters, do you want him to run the country. That’s got to be the core of McCain’s message.
Kristol, who was born into the elite of New York City and spent his formative years in Cambridge, Mass, knows all too well just who the questionable characters are in the drama that unfolded on Wall Street during the great unwinding. If there were any dubious associations for McCain to tie to Obama’s character, it would be Obama’s ties to the upper class.
But Kristol would never point the spotlight at his own people. Instead, Kristol supported Palin’s tactics of innuendo and character assassination in order to amass power by any means necessary. The real radical, it turns out, is Kristol.
So who is deceiving whom? Who is so arrogant as to believe they can cover their tracks by telling white lies?
Again, the feeling of betrayal being stoked by the right wing movement is of their own creation. It is a masterful act of misdirection that they, by repeatedly betraying the very people they claim to represent, can thus heighten the contradictions.