Demagogue

we pause in our regularly scheduled programing for a time out for politics

Although most of the time, I have stuck to my decision to watch very little or no news. I made an exception when the tea party met for what was labeled a convention but seemed more like a conference where they listened to speakers. This had interest to me on several levels as I am mystified why they receive so much coverage since at this point, their numbers appear to be pretty small, yet they get national cable outlets covering their every move-- misspelled words and all. (If you can't spell moron, should you use the word in a sign seen on national TV? Could Tom Tancredo's literacy test disqualify you from voting?)

When listening to Sarah Palin give her big 'acceptance' speech, I felt an amazement that this woman is so close to being a presidential candidate for one of our two major parties. I heard the pundits (right and left) talk about what a wonderful speaker she is, the best Republican speaker since Reagan and I kept wondering-- huh!!??? This is wonderful?

While it's true that she moves crowds and she is beautiful of the kind that is more than pretty features but interesting face; but a great speaker??? Come on! She doesn't have a pleasing tone to her voice but worse than that, she doesn't say anything! She makes jokes where she knows they will get laughs taking no risks with something like 'How's that hopey, changey stuff working out for ya?' Funny or not, it was a line with a hook easily repeated for the mind-numbed media and those of her mindset (assuming she has a mindset other than for $100k I'll say whatever you want.)

From what I can tell tea-baggers do have some major themes. They are mad that somebody else is running their country. They don't want to pay taxes but cheer at the thought of a bigger war with Iran. They don't like government except when they are receiving a check from it. They are angry at those, who don't look like themselves, and are ruining their country. They want a war where someone says they know who to attack (and it won't cost them personally a dime).

Show someone like Joseph Farah, who operates an extreme right wing online newspaper, a birth certificate for Barack Hussein Obama, and he will close his eyes refusing to look. It doesn't suit his agenda, and he maybe does have one although exactly what is always hard to say with media people.

The Tea Party people's biggest thing appears to be a desire to hear someone like Palin rip someone else apart. Verbal warfare is cheap... other than that $100,000 that she will donate to a good cause (I bet she's got a couple of those real close to home). Palin is good at ripping up other people. How does that work for governing? Tea Partiers don't care about governing. This is about dismantling except dismantling what?

Palin doesn't have to answer with specifics. She doesn't have to defend her ability to govern since these people don't like governing anyway. If they cared, her record is as a mayor who bordered on the corrupt (got her home on the cheap while giving the company who built it a big contract for an indoor sports center that put her small city in deep debt) and quitting as governor after 2 1/2 years, would give them concern-- but they don't care. Those who vote for her are more about what she is against rather than what she might be for (other than Jesus Christ).

The issue though for me is what kind of speaker is she actually? Listening to her, hearing the cheers, clearly she registers with those who want literacy tests to keep some people from voting, who think someone half black with an ethnic name could not possibly have been born in their United States, who believe taxes can be cut while they fight wars, who think there is a lot of waste in government but they can't explain what it is, and with the media (both sides). Talk about a need for a literacy test...

Then her appeal dawned on me. She's a demagogue [dictionary definition: a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power]. It's what she does and why she's effective with her crowd. It's why I listen to her and do not hear a good speaker. She is an effective demagogue.

Palin is urging the tea-baggers to do what they already want to do. She says they should start a revolution but leaderless. What they will do if they take over power? Do they know? Dismantle government? End Social Security? End Medicare? Put welfare families into work camps? They don't talk about what their revolution would do except cut taxes and go back to the 1700s, I guess. I wonder how many of them know what it was like back then (their women wouldn't even be able to vote).

If we do as Palin suggested and attack Iran, not only will this be against a foreign military that is more powerful than any we have faced in recent years, but it will rile up the rest of the Middle East and farther. The terrorists are not coming from Iran. They haven't come from Iraq. They have trained in Afghanistan but with their kind of facilities, they can do it anywhere at any time including our own backyard if we don't have effective police work to stop them first.

No, the group supporting Palin want whatever they thought they had but likely never did. And they are angry at a usurper running this country. That anger insures they would vote for her with no clue what would come next. There is a lack of logic revealed in poll after poll (and not just by them):

[Down with the People]

It's not like someone like Palin cannot get the nomination from the party of no, from the party who favors breaking international treaties, who feel they are the only ones with a right to criticize their own behavior because they are supported by their concept of god. If those people get back in power, then what? I can guarantee you the tea-baggers don't have a clue.

Sarah Palin's Presidential Strategy
How's that hopey, changey stuff? Palin asks
Tomorrow belongs to her
How Palin Could Win

If you are a supporter of Mitt Romney, Mike Pence, or any other halfway reasonable sounding Republican candidate for president, I suggest you donate sooner than later to their campaigns. Later will be too late unless some big secret of Sarah Palin's comes to the surface and most of what journalists might discover won't matter to her supporters. They won't believe it. Theirs is a movement of emotion, not logic.

Where it comes to Republicans, I won't agree with any of them on policy, but I don't think some of you would like what would come under a Palin presidency much better than I would. And anybody who thought she was only in the past is sticking their head in the sand or wants you to put yours there. She's very much in the present and she hopes the future.

Palin didn't have those crib notes on her hand to deliver her speech. She can deliver a written speech just fine using even a teleprompter, when she doesn't want to make that an accusation, or use a written speech on paper. No, those notes were to be able to answer questions in the following interview. On her hand, she had crossed out budget in favor of tax cuts (which means more of the Bush years if she got in-- tax cuts but none from the budget. If you like that, you must also like deficits).

Moderate Republicans are being pushed out in every place that the extreme right can run someone. Soon there will be two parties in this country. One will be the Christocrats, running under the symbol of the cross (yes, the country will be crucified if this group is voted into power) and the other the Duck-for-Cover party whose symbol will be the white feather.

If you are a Palin fan, please tell me why? Is it just because Democrats don't like her? That's not much of a reason for voting for someone to run this country, is it?

The lambs don't relate to the tea party or Palin. But they are coming fast right now and the barn is full of the baa of lambs and the soothing mmuuhhhs from their mothers-- especially since outside it's raining.