Putting Sarah Palin and Donald Trump together is so beautiful I can hardly stand it. It feels like a beautiful waking dream. "Now our cause is one," said the trailer trash fascist, less than 24 hours after her son was arrested for punching his girlfriend in the face. Marcel Duchamp could not script a better shitshow than a Trump-Palin campaign would inevitably be.
It's a natural fit given that both demagogues transparently hate their army of rubes and lead what is essentially America's version of Europe's far-right nationalist movement. If it isn't fascism proper it's close enough. Why not join forces to create the most cynical, meanest performance art piece the country has ever seen, elevated to near perfection by the fact that their supporters are not in on the gag?
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What is the limit to the amount you would pay to watch media outlets awkwardly take them seriously? Personally, I'm ready to drain my bank accounts to see the spectacle.
As an added bonus, Trump as the GOP nominee (which, again, remains an unlikely outcome but let's dream big for a second) with Palin's tongue attached to his O-ring would not only lose and lose big but they would also take the entire Republican Party down with them. They would do what the Civil War did to the Whigs and what Brian Mulroney did to the Progressive Conservatives in Canada.
That we would get to watch a moron who can't talk as the potential running mate of a man who acts like he is auditioning for the lead role in a Goebbels biopic is almost too sweet. "Icing on the cake" understates how wonderful that would be, unless the icing is made of 0 bills and 90 minute massage gift certificates.
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For the first time, I am a little excited about the 2016 Election. If you invited me to a demolition derby I'd have very little interest in going. If you invited me to a demolition derby where all of the vehicles had mounted rocket launchers and were driven by drunk men with neurological deficits that left them permanently without depth perception, wild horses wouldn't be enough to keep me away.
Gil More says:
"Icing on the frosting", an old Irish saying when things are really sweet.
Matt C. says:
Hope you touch on Flint at some point.
el mago says:
Just laughed at this. Rare for me.
wetcasements says:
Even if Trump doesn't actually win the nom, the damage has been done (a la Goldwater) and it's beautiful.
HoosierPoli says:
'Take down the entire Republican party'…I have to disagree. The Republican party basically doesn't exist anymore, but they don't actually need it. It's a brand, like Al Qaeda, not an administrative structure. As long as Republican VOTERS still exist, that (R) isn't going anywhere.
waldoh says:
Starbursts!
Katydid says:
Sarah Palin is like a Monty Python parody: her abstinence spokesmodel daughter has just had her second (possibly her fourth, but second publicly acknowledged) out-of-wedlock childbirth with different fathers each time (and no obvious father for this latest one), her "warrior-body" son who the rightwingers claimed was saving soldiers in Iraq was arrested for drunken assault with a firearm, her "special needs gift from God" is 8 years old and can't eat a Cheerio and is still in diapers because his therapeutic needs have been neglected, and the feds are starting to take a close look at her personal slush fund that purports to support right-wing candidates but actually buys them houses in Arizona and pontoon boats and chartered flights.
Despite this, there's an alarming segment of the population who think she's the next "Queen Esther" and rant about how godly and special she is.
doug says:
wow you are SO right about demo derbys. I have been to one that only lacked rocket launchers; and it was divine.
Borowitz has a good one in the newyorker today as well on the endorsement…
Well mostly says:
Ed, that's funny. This election season has been wandering around the desert of the absurd for too long. Finally we've reached the Oasis of Farce. Somehow my soul feels more…..dare I say…..joyful?
Dave Dell says:
I still think Trump is in this for his own aggrandizement rather than for a serious run for the Presidency. Palin does take herself seriously without a hint that she is a parody of an actual deep thinker.
Cruz is the real danger in this election. He's dangerously smart and his organization is better organized and goal oriented than the rest of the candidates combined.
Montrealdude says:
Huzzah for the Mulroney reference but let's not forget that the electoral trouncing of the Progressive Conservatives led to the PC/Canadian Alliance merger which gave us the objectively worst current Conservative Party and the long dark Harper regime.
Could a similar scenario play out in the US ?
John Danley says:
Wasilla meets Wharton. Sarah needs to subsidize her growing chinchilla collection.
ConcernedCitizen says:
Nice post, Ed, but I do wish you'd reserve the f-word for real fascists. Slinging slurs like that can't improve the state of political discourse in this country.
terraformer says:
That final paragraph is a prime example of why I read this site every day.
satrap says:
Even my highly lucid, night of heavy drinking, dreams could never conjure pretty colors and images such as this.
Edward says:
I have been thinking in terms of Elvis Presley as the ideal running mate for Trump, but I have to admit, a Trump-Palin ticket is a stroke of pure genius.
Bangoperator says:
She described him as "compassionate". What does she think that word means?
Brian M says:
Cruz is the real danger in this election. He's dangerously smart and his organization is better organized and goal oriented than the rest of the candidates combined.
This.
I think it is a mistake to focus too much on how ridiculous Trump is
1. Because I would argue that the other candidates are worse.
2. At least Trump is not an insane religious fascist and reflexive War Pig (to the extent the other candidates are). Given a choice between a Trump and a Cruz, mine would be obvious.
3. At least Trump is not a pious, committed ideologue like the other candidates.
c u n d gulag says:
Man!
Politics as Performance Art doen't get any better than this!!
Sarah "The Whore of Babblin'-on" Palin, supporting Donald "The Prince of the Plutocrats" Trump!
If they could have children, the girl would be named Bullit (sic), and the boy, Bucks.
Wayne Ruffner says:
"Not in on the gag" got a real, honest LOL out of me, and "drunk men with neurological deficits" got another. Excellent, thanks!
Vinny says:
He's trying his hardest to knock himself from the top of Republican polls, but it's only making him more popular. It's crazy.
Mo says:
Dave –
No, she does not take herself seriously. She is manipulative, which by definition means one morphs to validate the demands of one's
audiencemarks.What she is dead serious about is making money and living large.
Major Kong says:
No people ever recognize their dictator in advance.
He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument of the Incorporated National Will.
When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys and he will stand up for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say 'Heil' to him, nor will they call him 'Fuhrer' or 'Duce'.
But they will greet him with one big, universal democratic sheep-like bleat of, 'Ok, Chief, fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!'
– Dorothy Thompson 1935
Skepticalist says:
It is a thing of beauty. It's so bizarre that I had a hard time following it.
That it's serious is hard to fathom.
What's left of the GOP must be doing cartwheels. Spencer's Gifts are too.
mothra says:
When I heard the news this morning, I thought two things–one was why on earth were the media even reporting this shit–as in who cares who Sarah Palin endorses–I mean, does her endorsement actually mean anything?; and two, of course Sarah Palin endorsed Trump. They are creatures cut from the same cloth, although Trump has more education than Palin. They are both attention whores to the extreme. This will be fun for the first couple of primaries, then Trump will drop out because he will start losing primaries and Sarah will drift off to endorse, oh, I don't know….Huckabee? Santorum? Some downmarket candidate who won't push her away. And we will all look on in horror as Cruz marches to the nomination.
My question is who will Cruz possibly be able to have as his VP? He is apparently so repellent that most politicians want nothing to do with him.
Gerald says:
wild horses wouldn't be enough to keep me away.
Yeah!!! Giddy up! LOL
Skipper says:
@Concerned Citizen. Can you please define "fascist" for us so we can use it correctly. Every time someone accuses someone of being a fascist, there is a Greek chorus moaning about how they're not really a fascist. I once had someone tell me it wasn't fascism because there are no trucks or jack boots in the streets. I'm not sure that's the defining mark of fascism. So, please enlighten us, so we can use the word correctly.
Everyone else. Don't write Sarah off as a totally dim bulb. She gets an A+ for self-promotion. She should be working in the Wasilla Walmart, but she managed to get herself elected mayor — granted there were only 900 votes cast, and even her husband's parents voted against her.
Then she ran for governor against a guy whose approval ratings were in negative numbers and thrust herself into the governor's office — where she was clearly out of her depth.
However, and this is a big however, she was smart enough to capitalize on these "Conservative Cruises" that stop in Alaska. (As an aside, I can't even imagine the horror of being on a cruise ship with a couple of thousand conservatives, who are hanging on every word of the right-wing bloviators who are the star attractions. I would probably be overboard before morning.)
Anyhoo. She would invite the bigwigs to the governor's mansion where she would wine and dine them. After a few martinis and very limited exposure to her, they came to see her as America's answer to Maggie Thatcher. That's how these people came to foist her off on John McCain — who had no idea who she was until they told him she was his running mate.
The rest is history.
Mo says:
Beauty, Skipper.
geoff says:
I honestly don't think Cruz is eligible to be President. Being born in Canada to a Canadian father and a (maybe) American mother would not seem to make one a "natural born Citizen". Of course, we'd probably need a federal court to make a final determination, but c'mon, the guy was born in a foreign country to (at least one) foreign parents.
As for Palin and Trump, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!!
Skipper says:
@geoff — The only problem is that the GOP birthers have flogged the Obama canard until it's nothing but a spot on the sidewalk where there used to be a dead horse.
Raising it in Cruz' case is just going to elicit exasperated sighs of "Not this again." The real issue is not his eligibility, but his suitability — and that's where he fails miserably.
Nick says:
Cruz gets the far right non-Trump, but he's in no way electable–he looks like a sweaty vagina every time he's on stage. He's not personable, charismatic, or attractive. To my mind the real danger is Rubio: Smart (but not "intellectual"), attractive, charismatic, and as a bonus Hispanic. The party elites may settle for Cruz if they have to–better than Trump–but I think Rubio's the one with staying power, and the real danger in a general election.
BruceJ says:
That was several Applebees' salad bars worth of word salad. My wife actually watched the performance on Teevee, and reported that even the audience was puzzled, unsure when or if to applaud.
My wife has a MUCH stronger constitution than I do, I avoid Palin's appearances lest I hurl large objects at the screen.
okay, then says:
Like Charlie Pierce, I'd really like to know how much her endorsement cost Trump.
Nate says:
I was delighted to see Ms. Palin loudly declare her status as the huge fucking millstone around Trump's presidential hopes. She made McCain COMPLETELY unelectable in '08.
Kmtberry says:
I knew you would LOVE IT.
AstroBio says:
@Nick, I'm sorry you have not been lucky enough to spend time with any personable, charismatic, or attractive vaginas.
Katydid says:
Re: birther stuff: remember when the GOP brainiacs were slavering over Schwarzenegger and wanted him to run for POTUS (because apparently the rightwing can't tell the difference between roles people play and actual people)? Remember how certain segments of the population (ahem: FOX NEWS) were screaming that the Natural Born Citizen requirement was old-fashioned and unnecessary? That was the same segment of the population that screamed loudly when a man born in America to an American citizen (whose parents were also American, and THEIR parents were American, and THEIR parents were American…) was ineligible to run because (he was mixed-race)….uh, SHUT UP, that's why!
@Nate: there were a number of Republican women who were actually sane, had governmental experience *and* could communicate in full sentences–Olivia Snow and Condoleeza Rice being two of them (agree or disagree with their politics, you have to admit they could tell you what state they were in and that Africa was a continent, not a country). The Horny White Men went with Palin, an incompetent whose own state was trying her on multiple ethics violations. Even after hundreds of thousands of dollars of Other People's Money to dress her and try to teach her how the USA works, she was an arrogant failure at every turn, which turned off most of America and lost the election for John McCain.
I have to admit, I was really curious when the GOP announced a woman VP nominee–who'd'a thunk it? I tuned in eagerly to her first speech…and good grief, what a disaster. Subtract the cock-teasing from her performance, and there was literally nothing there. Then, multiple interviews showed her to not only be a total dumbass, but clearly unable to think on her feet She was so ignorant of the world around her that she couldn't even fake her way through softball questions like "what newspapers do you read?" or "What supreme court rulings do you disagree with?" (you'd think such a self-proclaimed 'right-to-lifer' would instantly hop on the abortion one, but nope.) Worse, she used her own children as human shields to try to deflect criticism from her very-real failings as a candidate.
Major Kong says:
@Katydid
Agreed. Condaleeza Rice would have been a much better pick than Moose Lady. While I disagree with Condi much of the time, she is highly intelligent and articulate.
Some reports have her actually being the voice of reason during the second half of W's administration. Reportedly W started listening to her and not Cheney.
jon says:
Glenn Beck is going to be with Ted Cruz this weekend. In Waterloo and other places.
I hope the Democrats hold on to their third wish for a while, because this election is Magical.
mojrim says:
This is almost as beautiful as the campaign it describes. Thank you!
Katydid says:
@Major Kong; I was not a fan of Condoleeza Rice's views either, but at least they would be informed views. Much like I disagreed with much of what Bush I said/believed/did, but I thought the man actually understood what he was saying/doing. Palin is an incoherent, slogan-spewing mess who will whore herself out by saying or doing anything she thinks will get her rubes to contribute to her personal slush fund.
Xynzee says:
The US has a huge festering boil that needs to be lanced. I'm wondering which ticket will bring the country to peak crazy faster.
Trump/Pallid: the country may last a term or two, but fractures. Or the other dystopian scenario; Trump gets in, sets himself as dictator with the, "gotta weapon up, 'cause the gub'min gunna go all tyrannical on us!" crowd helping him out.
The richness of the irony in that, should I laugh or cry?
The US then becomes a threat to everyone due to its delusional paranoia. Who ever thought a board game would predict the future?
Clinton/O'Malley: the "gotta weapon up, 'cause the gub'min gunna go all tyrannical on us!" crowd, looses their shit completely, with Malheurs cropping up everywhere trying to provoke gub'min to arect, so they can act out their little ammosexual fantasies. Thus the country implodes into civil war.
Good times!
I cannot imagine this sickness to go away on its own.
Nick says:
AstroBio: I certainly don't mean to suggest that all vaginas have the misfortune of looking like Ted Cruz, only that he resembles a particularly sweaty one when under stage lights.
ConcernedCitizen says:
@Skipper
Sure. For me at least (because I'm not an authority on words; I just think they should be used judiciously), fascism has three components: the aggrandizement of a single tribe–be it racial or religious–to the detriment of all others; the deliberate quest for a utopia in which this tribe reigns supreme; and the unfettered use of violence to achieve this end. Fascism is totalitarian–in that it endorses a single, all encompassing vision of what life should be–but also violently expansionist. Fascists cannot tolerate liberal societies on their borders any more than they can tolerate liberals within their societies.
Trump may be the worst kind of populist, but I'm not at all worried he'd try to purge North America of everyone he doesn't like.
If you're looking for fascists, look to Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a fascist (Baath Socialism was an Arab version of Nazism), and now there are theocratic fascists trying to take his place. Trump has a long way to go before he gets on their level.
Ridnik Chrome says:
@"Concerned" Citizen, Skipper and others: My go-to definition of fascism is George Orwell's, "Revolutionary sentiment plus reactionary politics", and that is just about a perfect description of both the Trump and the Cruz campaigns…
Nate says:
@katydid Yes, you are right about there being sane and intelligent women in the GOP, both Condi and Olympia Snow are great examples. My point was that Palin is such an awful choice because of her incompetence and idiocy. Not because she was a GOP woman. She tanked McCain, an honorable POW war hero! While I do disagree with him on many issues, he at least had the stones to correct voters about Obama's "muslim" status.
There isn't much redeeming about Trump to me, except when he took Cruz's "New York Values" statement and crammed it down his throat. That was good to see.
Skipper says:
fascism has three components: the aggrandizement of a single tribe–be it racial or religious–to the detriment of all others; the deliberate quest for a utopia in which this tribe reigns supreme; and the unfettered use of violence to achieve this end.
Damn, I think you just defined all of the GOP candidates — not just Trump
mothra says:
Trumpalin. THE champagne for rednecks/white supremacists.
ConcernedCitizen says:
@Skipper & Ridnik Chrome
Fine. Call them fascists. By all means, use that word as liberally (get it?) as you use the word "racist," and witness the further polarization of American politics.
Ridnik Chrome says:
@Concerned Citizen: Republicans have been calling us traitors and worse since Newt Gingrich was a Congressman, but we're the ones who are polarizing politics…
democommie says:
Trump, and the rest of the GOP's candidunces are demagogues and sociopathic assholes. Whether they are fascists is not worth wasting time debating.
Katydid says:
Huh; I'm only seeing the last comment (democommie at 4:51 pm). Is anyone else seeing (or not-seeing) this?
mayya says:
Yes, I am only seeing democommie and yours.
Xynzee says:
Same as Katydid and Mayya
EJ says:
Looks like the site's only displaying the comments for the current day.
Anyway, lately when some bloodthirsty ghoul starts bloviating about how the US "shows weakness," I've take to just asking, "OK, how many people do you think should die because of this?" They'll usually get OFFENDED and accuse you of not taking seriously the GRAVE THREAT that the antagonist of the day poses, and being flippant about the HONOR and SACRIFICE of OUR TROOPS. Watching them get wound up is fun.
Then I'll go, "nah, I used to live in San Diego – a lot of my friends and neighbors were military. I'd prefer that if they have to go overseas to kill and die that it be for a damn good reason. You're talking about escalating a military situation, which, if [current antagonist] doesn't back down, will result in shooting. So how many people do you think should die?"
Ms. Ann Thrope says:
"What is the limit to the amount you would pay to watch media outlets awkwardly take them seriously?"
We need pay nothing-I've been watching for free for a day now.
Khaled says:
The comments seem to "reset" at 50 lately, so once we've hit 50, BAM new page, all old posts are gone.
Khaled says:
@EJ
Yeah, for every "boots on the ground" babble from the right-wing war mongers, they don't seem to really care that it means that some nice America boys are gonna be killed. I mean, no one they actually *know*, but us peasants are gonna be upset when people start coming home in body bags for their splendid little wars.
J. Dryden says:
@Khaled et al.: Yeah, that's why I've stopped commenting. It may be petty (IT IS INSANELY PETTY) but damned if I'm going to have my brilliance lost to the ravenous ether.
zebbidie says:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cant-comment-nor-see-old-comments-on-individual-posts
Maybe it's the plugins. Disable the plugins and see if that fixes stuff Ed.
ScrewyCanuck says:
Hey J. Dryen, your brilliance has not been lost. Here are the first 50 comments from this post:
http://www.ginandtacos.com/2016/01/20/my-god-its-full-of-stars/comment-page-1/#comments
S M McBean says:
Thanks to our Canuckanese comrade! I always enjoy reading these comments.
Interrobang says:
Thanks for the Brian Baloney reference. It's totally awesome to see Canadian politics name-checked on an American blog!
On the other hand, commenter upthread who said that their trouncing directly led into the Reform Party takeover of the Conservative Party, which in turn gave us Harper, is essentially correct, but then, there are a lot of morons out there who don't get (even yet) that these are not your father's Conservatives.