I stopped paying much attention to Palin around the time she self-destructed by trying to make herself the victim after the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the shooting of 18 other people in Tucson, Ariz., in January 2011. After that, not only my attention but others’ seemed to drift away. She declared that she wouldn’t run for president, surprising no one, her spots on Fox News became less frequent (to her loud complaints) and, ultimately, the right-wing network didn’t renew her contract (though it was stated as her choice; she was going on to better things). I thought maybe Palin didn’t matter anymore.
But she continued to be the big crowd-pleaser at conservative gatherings from CPAC to the NRA convention, where she mocked Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun politics by slugging a Big Gulp, taking on the whole elite, effete nanny state her admirers imagine threatens them. Still, it was her attack on Bush this weekend that made me realize the extent to which she could become the face of the white nativist backlash, which is a dangerous development for the GOP, and the country, but a cushy, natural perch for Palin.
Bush, you probably heard, made a dumb play for conservatives to support immigration reform by claiming older white America needs their … babies. “Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population,” the former Florida governor told Reed’s convening on Friday. Alex Seitz-Wald noted immediately what a mistake that was: Bush was stating some of the very reasons that the far right opposes immigration reform. And he did it the same day we got the news that deaths among native-born whites were outpacing their births. Way to rub it in, Jeb!
Well, Palin rubbed Bush’s nose in his mistake, trashing him ideologically while using her trademark sex appeal. You kind of have to see it – her hair has never been bigger, and she mocked Bush with such visible self-confidence and self-satisfaction:
"It’s dangerous, touchy territory to debate this over one race’s fertility rate, and I say this as one who’s kind of fertile herself. I don’t think that’s where we want to go in deciding how we will incentify [sic] the hard-working families who want to be in the line, follow the law and become American citizens, versus those whose very first act on American soil is to break the law…"
Note that Bush didn’t mention any specific race as being either more or less fertile. Native-born Americans of every race tend to have fewer children than immigrants. It was Palin who perceived an insult to the fertility of white people – and who had to therefore remind us of her own. (Which those of us on this blog know is just as phony as her hair.)
Palin’s return to Fox shows that Roger Ailes knows the GOP can’t win back the White House in 2016, so he may as well focus on consolidating his audience, and keeping them comfortable as they watch the further decline of what Bill O’Reilly called “the white establishment” that was vanquished by Barack Obama.
So Palin's inherent racism is no longer being discussed only on "defunct" blogs but has now been accepted as fact by the mainstream. Nice to see that the drum we have been beating for the last five years now has a few more drumsticks to increase the volume of the tunes we play.
By the way, THIS was how one of the Palin-bots responded to Joan's article:
Yes the ONLY reason that anybody would criticize Sarah Palin is because they are jealous. Hah!@joanwalsh jealous bitch! Maybe if u did ur hair and wore women cloths; didn't seem like a transgender wanna b u might look like a girl
— Alexandra Foster (@KAFosterSowell) June 17, 2013
While we are on the subject of Palin I thought you all might enjoy this video of Joe McGinniss, which I had never seen, that suddenly showed up today, talking about moving in next to the Palins.
You know it suddenly dawns on me that my first meeting with Joe took place on the morning of this Monday which he is talking about here.
I actually do remember asking him where he was going to live and he told me it was someplace in Anchorage. I only found out later, after Palin's famous Facebook post, where he eventually took up residence.
