We are ramping up to one heck of an angry political season - and it really pisses me off.
I don't mind a little emotion and enthusiasm in a national election. Silly and immature as it may be, it's the American way to idealize candidates and then to devalue them once they have to start making real decisions.
Gov. Palin has been a lightning rod for several reasons. 1. She's the new breed - the "new feminist" - who seems happy 2. She's prettier than Madeleine Albright or Hillary Clinton. 3. It's difficult to attack McCain himself. 4. She's not a representative of the "elite" 5. She's a serious political threat and the other side wants to damage her as fast as possible.
In The Metaphysics of Envy and Revenge Gagdad Bob offers another perspective. One quote:
...hell hath no fury like a leftist who encounters a female or African-American who doesn't need him. Thus, the high-tech lowbrow lynching of Clarence Thomas and the current unseemly attacks on Sarah Palin. How else to account for the shroud of discreet silence over the John Edwards affair vs. the airing of every possible rumor and smear about Palin and her children?
James Lewis at RCP similarly has Palin and the Narcissistic Left. I do not approve of using shrink terms to put people down, but he does have a point.
Indeed, politics can become a playground for the acting out of our most immature and primitive selves if we aren't careful, or a stage on which we project our internal issues and dynamics. Perspective and reason fly out the window and are replaced by hatred or love or whatever. That's why it can get so sick. In the process, reality, dignity, and even relationships can be lost.
It's a pity, really.
