Sarah Palin develops one great theme in her speech. She has a quite Manichaean view of American politics, very Us versus Them. Well...politics is Manichaean, no? Yeah, i'tis. Here's Palin:
Now, eight years ago, I warned that Obama’s promised fundamental transformation of America. That is was going to take more from you and leave America weaker on the world stage and that we would soon be unrecognizable. Well, it’s the one promise that Obama kept.
And all these new Democrat voters that are going to be coming on over border as we keep the borders open...
Are you ready for new? And are you ready for the leader who will let you make America great again?
...our friends, who are fighters in the House and the Senate today, they need to stay there and help out. They can help our new leader in the positions that they are in.
Yeah, our leader is a little bit different.
Now, eight years ago, I warned that Obama’s promised fundamental transformation of America. That is was going to take more from you and leave America weaker on the world stage and that we would soon be unrecognizable. Well, it’s the one promise that Obama kept.
[Obama is a Them. Okay, duh.]
[Lolol. That is how Republicans think! An immigrant is only a recruit for the opposite party. Democrats and immigrants are Them's. But look where she goes from there:]
But he didn’t do it alone and this is important to remember, especially those of you, like me, a member of the GOP. This is what we have to remember in this very contested, competitive, great primary race.
Trump’s candidacy. It has exposed not just that tragic the ramifications of that betrayal of the transformation of our country, but too, he has exposed the complicity on both sides of the aisle that has enabled it, OK?
Well, Trump, what he’s been able to do, which is really ticking people off, which I’m glad about, he’s going rogue left and right, man. That’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system. The way that the system really works and please hear me on this. I want you guys to understand more and more how the system, the establishment, works and has gotten us into the troubles that we are in — in America.
The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class...
...as long as the politicos, they get to keep their titles and their perks and their media ratings. They don’t really care who wins elections.
...some of them even whispering, they’re ready to throw in for Hillary over Trump because they can’t afford to see the status quo go. Otherwise, they won’t be able to be slurping off the gravy train that’s been feeding them all these years. They don’t want that to end.
This election is more than just your basic ABCs: Anybody But Clinton. It’s more than that this go-around...we’re talking about our very existence,
Trump’s candidacy. It has exposed not just that tragic the ramifications of that betrayal of the transformation of our country, but too, he has exposed the complicity on both sides of the aisle that has enabled it, OK?
[This is a political war within the GOP which has been going on in its present instantiation since the Tea Party but you can see earlier versions in Goldwater, 1964, and in Taft-Eisenhower in the 1950's. Ike was an Outsider and Taft the consummate Establishment candidate. (Ike won).]
GOP majorities handing over a blank check to fund Obamacare and Planned Parenthood and illegal immigration that competes for your jobs and turning safety nets into hammocks.
[Isn't that bizarre?]
[She is right on, there. Trump has "disrupted" the left-right axis.]
The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class...
[Part of Palin's theme is "class"-based. Just as Nixon bragged of his wife's "respectable cloth coat" to distance himself from wealthy New York Republicans,--Oop, Trump.--just as Goldwater did, "Cut New York off and let it drift off into the Atlantic," in distancing himself from the Republican "limousine liberals" like Nelson Rockefeller, so Palin appeals to Joe Six Pack and Steve Steel-Toed Boots and distances herself (And Trump though, how is this going to work?) from soft leather loafers and Savile Row suits. I cut her sentence off where I did because...her thought dissembles in the remainder:]
...and that’s why you see that the borders are kept open. [?] For them, for their cheap labor that they want to come in. [?] That’s why they’ve been bloating budgets. [??] It’s for crony capitalists to be able to suck off of them. It’s why we see these lousy trade deals that gut our industry for special interests elsewhere. [?]
[She is taking aim at Wall Street there as part of this class of Them's, it does not follow any more than the rest of that paragraph does, but she is taking aim at Wall Street and note her language "suck off them," they're a parasitic class.]
[This class is parasitic and it wins even when the rest of the country loses, so they really don't care. They are not loyal Americans, not real Americans, they are a class that has "dual loyalties." Follow?]
[It is true that some Republicans have said they will go over to Hillary Clinton if Trump wins the nomination. It's a dark "whispering," cabal, this parasitic, class of dual loyalists. Like who? William Kristol is one.]
...we need to...elect new and independent. A candidate who represents that and represents America first.
[Palin has been building and building to that. She is now about two-thirds the way through her speech, says "America First," and now builds on that. Previously, in that same sentence in fact, it was, we need an America First candidate. She completes that paragraph and then, in the very next paragraph "candidate" is replaced with...:]
["Our leader:" does that not ring a little tinny in the ear? Folks, this is a speech made before the first votes have been cast! "Our leader" has never been a Republican stalwart or a conservative stalwart, never a Republican or any other kind of officeholder and Sarah Palin calls him "our leader???" She is using the word in the "Fuhrer" sense, as in Maximum Leader/Strong Man, not like "Party leader," Senate Majority leader," Boy Scout leader. This is a well-crafted speech and there is certainly nothing unintentional in the word choice. Sarah Palin said what she wanted to say in the manner she wanted to say it. She skillfully developed one great theme, a theme of anti-semitism.]
