SEEING SARAH PALIN

A couple of days ago I was jogging with my dogs on the boardwalk at Liberty State Park.  There's a little bridge there that leads over to Ellis Island -- not for the public, just for cops and people who work there.  Ever since 9/11 they've had a K-9 stationed there, sniffing all the cars.  So as I jogged up, there were two SUVS waiting while the dog checked them out; the back window of one of them was rolled down, and there were three people with video cameras pointing into the back window -- not press, just people (maybe Sarah's PR website chroniclers?).  As I drew closer, they pulled away from the car, and there I was looking straight in the open window at Sarah Palin, from ten feet away.  And I said nothing -- couldn't think of a thing to say.  Then up went the window, and off she went over the bridge on her "family vacation" tour of American monuments.  Surreal to see her there with no mob of security, no press, no nothing.

This really got me thinking -- first, about why Sarah Palin is such a compelling figure to me, and second, why I didn't have anything to say.

The truth is, I'm jealous of Sarah Palin: she's not a good girl, she's not book-smart, and she doesn't do her homework -- and she doesn't care.  She doesn't play by the rules and wait for people to give her the reward she deserves for being good and obedient.  She thinks her feelings are really, really important -- and that everyone else should take them seriously too.  When people criticize her, she doesn't go into a corner and hyperventilate while tears run down her cheeks-- she gets mad and lashes back.  Nothing stops her from going after what she wants.  I'm jealous of her.  I want to be like her.  I want amazing self-confidence and to be utterly sure that I'm right.

I still haven't quite put my finger on why Sarah Palin provokes this in me, and not, say, Michele Bachmann.

So why does it matter that Sarah Palin only cares about her own feelings?  One day in heart circle a wise faerie said something really interesting: "I had all these bad feelings, and I decided I wouldn't let them define me."  Years of therapy can be a good thing -- it's really helped me -- but therapy makes you lose sight of the fact that you in fact do not have to be defined by your feelings: you can have them, acknowledge them, and then decide to move on in a different way.  Such a simple, radical proposition: I choose not to allow bad stuff from the past rule my current actions.  Sarah Palin is a genius at tapping in to people's feelings -- that is, the feelings of the kind of white people who assume that they were entitled to run America, and who are upset because they now feel it's being taken away from them. (Let's not get into the issue that the people who really run America still do, and don't show up in tea party hats on TV.)  The very bad feeling of having what you thought was yours seem to slip through your fingers is powerful; in a utopia, we would have institutions to help people work through those feelings of loss and rage -- churches or schools that offered real tools for delving into "fear of the Other" and "over-entitlement."  But we don't: instead we have a 24-hour news/reality cycle that makes quiet self-reflection impossible and uncool.  The current climate makes feelings seem like the only real thing there is, and no one asks us to ponder the wisdom of letting our feelings dictate our lives.

Which brings me back to the question of how to talk back to Sarah Palin.  I'm an academic: for years I've been trained to footnote everything -- check multiple sources, compare notes, draw slow conclusions, cite my sources so others can check my train of thought.  Every time I make a big statement, I qualify it, out of habit: nothing's simple.  Which is why no one ever listens to academics.  So when I think about the most bothersome element of Sarah Palin's rhetoric -- her claims about American exceptionalism -- I can't figure out how to turn my concern into a sound bite.  Sarah, I want to say, surely you understand that the concept of American exceptionalism is rooted in racism, imperialism, and genocide?  And that we can't reclaim the concept for contemporary use simply by ignoring the past?  Let's talk about why Americans think God is on their side when they win, and why God wasn't on the side of the slaughtered Indians or the slaves.  ... Now, how am I going to turn THAT into a snappy retort so pointed that it will make Palin pull up short and re-envision her own worldview?  But if there's no speech that has this power, then why am I wasting my time as an academic?

You see my dilemma.