Sarah Palin, her politics of victimization, and how they became a permanent part of the Republican party.

I have actually written some version of this several times myself, but it is really nice to see that others have also noticed Palin's lingering influence on the party once referred to as the "Grand Old Party."

One of those is Washington Monthly.  

Here are a few excerpts from their take on the situation: St. Joan of the Tundra’s distinctive contribution to the conservative cause was not simply to serve as a lightning rod for resentment of the “liberal elites” that supposedly run the country, but to invite ridicule that she then turned into a sense of victimization and self-pity and a hankering for vengeance. For a while there, she could do no wrong, since every misstep turned into an opportunity for a fresh grievance against the mockery of snooty elitists. 

Palin will hang around the periphery of conservative politics for some time (she’s a relatively young fifty). Her essential role of stimulating resentment and then promising vengeance, however, has been taken over by more conventional and respectable pols, much as George Wallace’s raw demagogic appeal in the 1960s was co-opted and refined by Richard Nixon. Indeed, one of the more notable developments of contemporary politics is the widespread preemption of Palin-style posturing against elites by other Republicans. These include potential 2016 presidential candidates ranging from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who has been seeking to brand himself as the champion of conservative Christians besieged by secularists and Muslims, to Mike Huckabee, whose new book, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, is a seething cauldron of resentment toward those who do not inhabit what Palin once memorably called “the real America.” But to a dangerous extent the whole party has absorbed some of the poison. 

The Monthly goes onto to point out how Palin's "poison" infected the newly formed Tea Party:

Though it did not “sell” well enough to elect McCain and Palin at a time when the bottom was falling out of the economy, the pure politics of resentment spilled over into the Tea Party movement, which from the very beginning drank deeply from the right-wing populist well of belief in an overclass-underclass alliance of financial elites and bureaucrats and looters seeking dependence on federal benefits and the destruction of middle-class mores and virtues. One of the Tea Party’s great conspiratorial myths became viral after a Palin Facebook post argued that Obamacare would introduce “death panels” that would determine the fate of people with disabilities like her son Trig. At the peak of Tea Party influence, millions of conservatives had a tightly integrated view of Obamacare as representing an effort to cut “earned” Medicare benefits in order to vastly expand “welfare” and “socialized medicine” while attacking the sanctity of life from two directions through guaranteed, subsidized insurance for abortion services and (of course) death panels. 

 By the time of the 2012 campaign, Obamacare’s contraception coverage mandate became the target of a particular cultural resentment epidemic that embroiled the entire GOP: the religious liberty campaign, based on the idea that conservative Christians who viewed (against the scientific consensus) certain contraceptives (e.g., IUDs and Plan B pills) as abortifacients were being forced to subsidize homicide, and were thus being “persecuted for their faith.” The religious liberty campaign also became a pity party for those opposing same-sex marriage, with the victims being conservative elements of the wedding industry and a few TV personalities. At about the same time, a “scandal” swept the conservative media making the alleged slow walking by the IRS of applications for tax-exempt status by conservative groups who wanted to run election ads without disclosing donors into a frightful totalitarian specter of doors being kicked down and assets seized. And a remarkably large group of respectable Republicans—including new national GOP star Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa—embraced the John Birch Society’s “Agenda 21” conspiracy theory holding that local land-use regulations are part of a United Nations plot to kill private property rights.

Which brings us to the newest politician to apply a spray tan of the Palin-like camouflage of victimization in order fit in with the under educated fringe that now makes up the most rabid base of the Republican party.

Mike Huckabee.

And hell he even wrote a book about it:

While nobody has written a full-fledged manifesto for conservative cultural resentment, Mike Huckabee’s new pre-campaign book is a significant step in the direction of full-spectrum cry for the vindication of Real Americans. It is telling that the politician who was widely admired outside the conservative movement during his 2008 run for being genial, modest, quick-witted, and “a conservative who’s not mad about it” has now released a long litany of fury at supposed liberal-elite condescension toward and malevolent designs against the Christian middle class of the Heartland. 

The clever conceit of God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy is that Huckabee is explaining to powerful and arrogant elites of “Bubble-ville”—New York, Washington, and Los Angeles—the sturdy folk virtues and beliefs of “Bubba-ville,” by which he means the rest of the country, though it often sounds like just the Deep South as viewed by its older and more conservative white residents. But the book is clearly meant for “Bubbas,” and it is meant to make them very angry. The first chapter is entitled “The New American Outcasts,” and it asks readers to identify with the martyrdom of Chick-fil-A’s Dan Cathy and Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson for defending the “biblical” view of marriage and homosexuality. Huckabee actually launched the very successful idea of a “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” on his Fox News show, giving conservatives the opportunity to show their contempt for “political correctness” by giving the chicken sandwich chain a record day of sales. And he’s long competed with Bobby Jindal in promoting Phil Robertson (a Louisiana native). But aside from these totems, the idea that “Bubbas” must fight back against people who would rob them of all liberty and property permeates nearly every page of Huckabee’s book.

In the article's summation it points out that though Palin is no longer considered a political player, her influence lingers on. Which I think should now be apparent to everyone.

You know much like when somebody hits a skunk on the highway but you can still smell it several miles down the road.

Speaking of a lingering bad aroma, guess who is NOT scheduled to make an appearance in the upcoming Faith and Freedom Coalition convention.

And the FFC is partnering this year with the group Concerned Women for America so that is a double burn.

By the way I encourage you to take the time to read the entire article over at the Washington Monthly. I only shared a portion, but the entire thing is quite informative and entertaining.