A lot of things about Palin offend me.
First thing that offended me was that after months of McCain talking about “experience” (and completely discounting what I see as perhaps the best experience a candidate could have in Obama’s background), he picked Palin, someone who was a mayor of a small town, and then became the governor of our 3rd least populous state, a state with a smaller population than Obama’s Illinois Congressional District. And it offended me that they still did not give up on the experience line, saying that because she had “executive” experience and because of Alaska’s geographic proximity to Russia, somehow she’d be qualified. Any time my intelligence is insulted, that offends me, so that is a common theme in my complaints here.
The fact that in her very first speech, she made a play for disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters, as if having a vagina was the only reason people supported Senator Clinton. Now I was definitely no fan of Hillary in the primaries, but that was because of how she behaved and her inability to accept reality, fair is fair and anyone who supported the things she supported would not find Palin palatable.
I’m offended that they choose to throw yet another Jesus Freak at us…as a nation we are 10% Evangelical, yet one of our two major parties seeks to inextricably link itself to an ideology that rejects thousands of years of scientific and cultural discovery is just unreal to me. As I found out about some of her worldviews, I was mightily offended that she would be put forth in a year when we for a while finally seemed free of dangrous and myopic ideology that is out of synch with the American culture.
Her stance on women’s reproductive rights appalls me, I’ve got no problem if she decides that life is sacred, begins at conception and lives her life accordingly, but the fact that she would deem herself worthy to force that ideology on America is just offensive to me. Tend to your own garden and we will do the same. As I found out that she would not support a woman’s right to choose even in the case of rape and/or incest. That was doubly offensive to me. When I found out that as Mayor of Wasilla, she was charging women for their own ($12,000) rape kits (meaning the poor couldn’t afford justice), I was triply offended. And when she revealed her teenage daugther was pregnant and made the statement about supporting her daughter’s “choice” to keep the baby, well that hypocrisy almomst made my head explode. And to find out that perhaps one reason her teenage daughter got knocked up in the first place is that, not only as a parent, but as a governor, she supports abstinence only based sex ed…not just for her kid for whom it OBVIOUSLY didn’t work, but for EVERYONE, I was downright hostile.
I am offended by her decision to shoot baby wolves from a helicopter.
I am offended by her inability to pronounce the word “nuclear”.
I am offended by her attempts to have books removed from the library if she doesn’t agree with their content.
I am offended by the fact that she knows NOTHING about the world as evidenced by the few interviews she has given. I’m offended that most of the interviews she has given have been with friendly sources like Sean Hannity. I am offended that when she actually did sit down for not live, but highly edited interviews, she made appalling gaffe after appalling gaffe. I’m offended that for 2 months, she pretty much said nothing that she didn’t say in her acceptance speech.
And as for her acceptance speech, I am offended by her presumption that we can all relate to her folksy, hockey mom, married to a snowmobile racer, pitbull with lipstick snarky charm. I’m offended that they had to spend $150,000 on clothing to make her look like a “regular person”. And I was highly offended at how she openly MOCKED community organizing. I’m offended that she had nothing of substance to say, yet kept repeating it, and offering up nothing new. I’m offended that much of her appeal has to do with how she looks or acts, or how she’s just like someone we all know.
Which is another thing that offended me. After running so many ads that said Obama was nothing more than a celebrity like Paris Hilton, suddenly Palin is this celebrity overnight, famous for her glamour, not her mind. The hypocrisy was appalling.
I am offended by her setting the bar so impossibly low in advance of her debate that there were no expectations, so that she could ask Joe Biden “can I call you Joe?” just so later she could throw out the tired old “say it ain’t so, Joe” line that she THOUGHT would be her gotcha moment…in her mistaken belief that we’re all fucking easily led morons.
And I’m deeply offended by her “just a regular Joe Sixpack” wink wink thinly veiled divisive, racist rhetoric. She has been portraying this us vs. them, painting Obama as an “other” saying he “pals around with terrorists”, this whole “regular Joe” (first Sixpack, now Plumber) is nothing more than code for “good old boy” i.e. redneck, peckerwood, racist moron….or as she’d call it, salt of the earth. I’m offended by her assumption that there is a “real America” in the small towns that just doesn’t exist in the larger cities…that somehow if you’re an uncultured, backwater hick who is easily led into being afraid of someone because of their “otherness”, then you’re more worthy, more patriotic, more “American”.
All of this trying to suck up to the small town, uneducated, rural, regular, “white, working class” regular Joe Sixpack hunters, fishermen, snowmobiliers…the folks that work hard and resent any kind of person who thinks differently than they do is typical in politics on the right, but by exploiting that to imbue a sense of “otherness” about their black opponent (who might be a terrorist, might be a muslim, might be anti-white, wink…) is the most offensive and beyond the pale thing I’ve ever seen in politics. And her going out there and saying one thing to one crowd and another to the press to try to spin her dangerous rhetoric, while the campaign makes mean, ugly, nasty, racist robocalls and sends out hate mail every day…it all divides us further and the folks it works on, it works on them because of a deep seated resentment.
So, she is complicit in playing on this resentment of “Average Joe”, and it’s leading to all manner of hate speech at her rallies, and violence against Obama supporters. Read the following article if you have time:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dawn-teo/mccain-palin-and-the-luci_b_136572.html
It discusses the psychology behind painting one’s opponent as an “other”, and gives a day by day account of the violence it has spurred, such as:
- The Obama supporter whose shopping cart, with his infant son sitting inside, was rammed by an angry McCain supporter
– The reporter who was beaten to the ground, kicked and stomped for daring to interview Obama supporters
– The people who received death threats in their mailboxes for having Obama signs in their yards
– The female Obama canvaser who was punched in the face by a McCain supporter
The list in the article goes on. And it doesn’t even mention the violence, death threats and vanadalism that has befallen ACORN, a community organization which has done EVERYTHING legally and above the board and which is being targeted by Republicans who want to use the allegations (which even the Supreme Court has said are baseless) to challenge thousands of Obama voters at the polls and suppress the vote. As if it’s not bad enough that Palin is complicit in trying to override the will of the people (because she says it’s God’s will what happens on Nov 4, ANOTHER THING that offends me), neither she nor McCain seems to care that good people who volunteer their time to make this world a better place are being harmed because their organization has been misportrayed out of the need for political gain.
She has no conscience, she has no experience, she has a dangerous worldview which is governed by a superstitious ideology, she deems herself to be an agent of her God and feels this gives her the right to dictate how people live their lives. I’m offended by her lack of intelligence, her hubris, her hypocrisy, her lack of integrity, and her divisiveness. I’m not only offended by her, but I’m petrified of her, and the fact that there are so many people out there just like her. I’m saddened by the fact that the damage she and McCain have been willing to do just to try to win this election are going to long outlive their campaign, and are going to make Obama’s job as President very perilous. Personally, I think inspiring deep seated hatred in the man who will be our next President is nothing short of treason, and honestly, if I had my druthers, they’d hold a tribunal and hang the bitch.
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