http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/02/one-last-word.html
If you are one of those people who think this person cannot become president of the United States, think again.
Two lines stood out for me. The first is a sign that she believes and her followers believe that she has a divine destiny. She is Esther, with a touch of martyrdom:
"I will live, I will die for the people of America."
The second was the Dolchstoss attack on the duly elected president of the United States:
"We need a commander-in-chief not a professor of law."
These two potent messages - delegitimizing Obama as "the other" and as a weak-kneed traitor to the troops, and casting herself as the avatar of the real America, ready to die for its survival - are political gold. Most politicians in liberal democracies she somewhat from stating them so obviously, because they clearly invoke certain, shall we say, non-democratic forms. Not she.
The media, too scared be tarred as elitists, will never demand policy specifics from her; there is a huge constituency out there (rightly) outraged by Washington corruption and she now has the critical mantle of the rogue outsider; she can channel Christianism and fuse it with the slogans of phony "fiscal conservatism"; she will blame every lost job on Obama; and she will accuse him of betraying the troops and befriending America's enemies. Behind her are the Cheneyites.
Above all, she is capable of generating a personality cult - much, much more so than Obama, because she can harness Christianism to her divine destiny. The power of this kind of appeal - of a charismatic, beautiful woman, an icon of the pro-life cause, persecuted by the evil elites, demonized by libruls, and commanding the biggest military on earth - should not in my view be under-estimated.
Know fear.
If you are one of those people who think this person cannot become president of the United States, think again.
Two lines stood out for me. The first is a sign that she believes and her followers believe that she has a divine destiny. She is Esther, with a touch of martyrdom:
"I will live, I will die for the people of America."
The second was the Dolchstoss attack on the duly elected president of the United States:
"We need a commander-in-chief not a professor of law."
These two potent messages - delegitimizing Obama as "the other" and as a weak-kneed traitor to the troops, and casting herself as the avatar of the real America, ready to die for its survival - are political gold. Most politicians in liberal democracies she somewhat from stating them so obviously, because they clearly invoke certain, shall we say, non-democratic forms. Not she.
The media, too scared be tarred as elitists, will never demand policy specifics from her; there is a huge constituency out there (rightly) outraged by Washington corruption and she now has the critical mantle of the rogue outsider; she can channel Christianism and fuse it with the slogans of phony "fiscal conservatism"; she will blame every lost job on Obama; and she will accuse him of betraying the troops and befriending America's enemies. Behind her are the Cheneyites.
Above all, she is capable of generating a personality cult - much, much more so than Obama, because she can harness Christianism to her divine destiny. The power of this kind of appeal - of a charismatic, beautiful woman, an icon of the pro-life cause, persecuted by the evil elites, demonized by libruls, and commanding the biggest military on earth - should not in my view be under-estimated.
Know fear.
, and I am a conservative.
