A Look at the Causes and Likely Consequences of the Vicious Attacks on Sarah Palin

The assault on Sarah Palin is without precedent . . . almost. Every aspect of her personal and political life is under constant attack, and similar attacks have been and continue to be aimed at every member of her family.

To understand the unremitting frenzy against Ms. Palin one need only look at its source -- members of our corrupt and depraved elite institutions. The sources are, to put it bluntly, un-American. They are pooh bahs who identify with, prefer, and seek to emulate Europeans, whom they view as being more cultured, more sophisticated, and possessing finer sensibilities.

They reject American exceptionalism and view the country as crass and vulgar, and recoil with horror at the accurate description voiced by the Benjamin Franklin character in the musical 1776:

We've spawned a new race here -- rougher,
simpler, more violent, more enterprising, and
less refined. We're a new nationality

Thus they have nothing in common with ordinary American citizens but the description fits Ms. Palin perfectly. She is the quintessential American frontier woman who embodies the description. She posseses and demonstrates great capabilities, character, and fortitude, along with extraordinary gifts and an extraordinary record of achievements.

The extraordinary gift that gives rise to the hatred and fear underlying the attacks against her is Ms. Palin's ability to communicate, connect and bond with ordinary citizens who make up a great majority of the country's electorate.

The very idea of such a person presuming to participate as a leader in the nation's governance is a threat to the oligarchs who gather in the salons in Georgetown, Manhattan's upper east side, much of Boston and San Francisco, Bel Air and Beverly Hills, and other such enclaves of privilege and ease. (Adding to this is an emotional reaction against her among the population's sexually inadequate women and metro sexual men to whom she is a living rebuke.)

Consequently, the denizens of those posh perches have concluded that Ms. Palin must be destroyed as a threatening political force, and they have set about attempting to do just that, utilizing the tools that they have at their disposal -- the nation's ensconced political elite, academicians, and media. Ms. Palin and everyone connected with her is viciously and continually attacked, criticized, and pilloried at every opportunity in an unremitting effort to diminish her standing with members of the American working class (who are equally disdained by Ms. Palin's detractors).

At the outset of these reflections, it was stated that the campaign against Ms. Palin was unprecedented . . . almost. The nation's history includes one notable precedent and the parallel with it is eerily striking. Andrew Jackson, another direct and plain spoken frontier character with similar communication, connection, and bonding gifts, also was viewed with fear and loathing, and viciously attacked by the silk stocking and wig wearing oligarchs of his time. His ascendancy to the White House brought ordinary working Americans into the political process -- something that at the time was viewed as mob rule but subsequently came to be known as the Jacksonian revolution.

Were they smarter and more prescient than they are, our current ruling class would be hoping for the early success of a similar revolution led by Ms. Palin or someone like her. The only alternative soon will be a far more dangerous kind of upheaval -- one in which a key role probably would/will be played by someone who is a modern version of Madame Defarge.