Apologies for making a sports analogy but it seems apt. The thrust of the article is that given the nature of evangelical and charismatic sects Palin as a woman can get up on a stage and "inspire" people but she is very unlikely to be allowed to lead because fundamentalist Christians are really sexist. It also looks at how her superficial prominence and success in the movement is being wrongly interpreted as feminism. Go read it here.
A note of warning though, don't take too much comfort from the fact she can't personally lead the religious right if they have anything to do with it. Personally I see Palin's rise as quite similar to Hitler's (yes yes Godwin) in that she may not be the ideal candidate for all of the base (Hitler was after all Austrian) but she is good at giving speeches and is generally popular with said base. On top of this with likely increasing social and economic problems on the way the elite will want someone, anyone at all, that can engage populism and win a crisis election who isn't left wing. Obama was not ideal but still has generally seen as a sop to the proles, if situations keep encouraging the masses to get uppity more drastic measures may have to be taken. Hitler largely succeeded because he was seen as an ideal not communist candidate by the rich and had massive funding from them and most notably Alfred Hugenberg's massive media empire started backing him. Murdoch seems rather fond of Palin.
Food for thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment