This Saturday just gone, Sarah Palin made this speech at the National Tea Party convention in Tennessee. The Tea party protest (TEA conveniently also stands for "Taxed Enough Already." See what they did there?) if you haven't heard of it, is a grass roots; right wing lobbying movement devoted to lower taxation and less big government, the standard kind of fayre the U.S right gripe over Democrat administrations. We also have the fact that they are teed off about Obama's fiscal stimulus packages, and his attempts to pass the health care reforms or "socialised medicine" if you prefer. These health reforms look increasingly vulnerable since Scott Brown ; by a narrow margin defeated the Democrat contender for the Senate seat of the late senator Edward Kennedy. (A traditional Democrat given, a sort of Democrat Kensington and Chelsea constituency.) thus putting a Republican in the senate opposed to Obamas health plans.
Now conservatives in the U.S opposing top down government plans is nothing new, and I'm not at all surprised Palins sticking the boot in, it's what she's supposed to about in these kinds of affairs. Nor was the speech insightful or even very interesting to any degree. She made nothing but the most general of observations about future conservative policies, to right what she perceived were Democrat wrongs. She was obviously trying to pad out a bland and diffuse speech with pauses to take in the frenzied enthusiasm of her "fans". It was littered with cliched soundbites, and peppered with your common or garden right wing sentiment designed to please her friendly audience, who duly lapped it up, cheered; and whooping like groupies at some right wing rock concert. They even laughed uproriously at her unfunny jokes. No my beef with it was the way she used the speech and folksy accent to portray herself and the tea party as "ordinary folk" posed against a disinterested, academically naive and out of touch elite. We had "real people" here, and "beltway politicos" there. "common sense and conservative principles" against an "establishment." Now I'm not saying commonsense and being "in touch" don't have a place in modern politics, they obviously do. No I'm talking about this strange obsession that being a "real person" is somehow the gold standard of leadership. Now don't get me wrong, If politicians are going out of their way to make themselves aware of the people that elected them I'm all for that. There have been way to many big cheeses treating their electorates like an annoying bit of baggage in the hallway of the ivory towers, and by all means, these people deserve to be booted out of office for thinking of the people who voted for them, like this. But we as an electorate have to assess whether this is always a default line to take with those who govern. Governing a large society is difficult, and society has so many parts and facets that make up its structure, that it is highly difficult to initiate policies that will have even a good chance of reaching a desired result. These are hard issues to get around and we need smart, intelligent people (whether we have them is another matter.) at these levels. I'm not saying every politician should have a top class degree from the best universities, but they should be as well prepared for the enormous public service they have bestowed on them by voters. We have to realise (but I don't think it likely) that societal change, and combating social issues require a lot more, and are much more complex than cookie cutter rhetoric, and sticking plaster, knee jerk solutions that are dressed up as " good old common sense". I don't hold my breath but there we are.
But forgive me for perhaps being a bit cynical, but I can't help but think that some of these tea party folks like to play this "elite" line themselves, back at their voters, because on one level it has the added benefit of bolstering their philosophy of conservative individualism. Let God and the dollar look after those who are worthy of them, rather than the nasty old big government propping up all those wasters who are just lazy and deserve to have no money, all the time.
God I'll be believing in the illuminati at this rate.
*Given what we've heard about Palins alleged " knowledge shortcomings" in her field by inside biographers, I assume the folks who cheered "Run! Sarah Run!" weren't being ironic!!??
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