Sarah Palin And The Politics Of Victimhood: A Tactical Analysis

On July 3 2009, when Sarah Palin announced her resignation, she followed a few guidelines that now typify most of her political moves. Notice how they all work synergistically to get her what she craves: attention.

1. Make it sudden: With Palin, highly significant political decisions come right out of the blue with few preceding clues. She seems to be following similar tactics deployed by McCain’s team when they chose her for Veep. Not many outside of the tight circle of neocon movers and shakers knew that Palin was even in consideration.

Similarly, few outside of her immediate circle of close associates and family had any idea that she would be announcing her resignation as Governor of Alaska. The suddenness makes for high dramatic impact. Does anyone know what she will do next? By keeping the public on their toes, she generates attention and thus high interest.

2. Make it weird: America has a special place in its heart for people who are crazy like a fox. We are the nation that invented the concept of the maverick. We respect people who do things that seem counter-intuitive and just plain weird. As long as they work. Or rather as long as they look like they work. Palin knows full well that she can come off as nutty as she wants, her backers like William Kristol will continue to present her as someone intelligent who disregards conventional wisdom, and instead follows a higher wisdom.

3. Make it secret: The American public does not have a clear idea of why exactly Palin was chosen over Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Mike Huckabee as the Veep candidate. What did she really bring to the table besides her feminine sex appeal and folksy combativeness? The Republican strategists have still not made that clear. Then, as now, nobody is providing a cogent and coherent answer to the question, why? In fact, asking the simple question why? is framed as an attack against American values of fair play and egalitarianism, and thus against America itself.

These attention-seeking maneuvers have a strong chance of falling flat if the person deploying them does not define his or her public identity. Thus something needs to precede them in order to give the public a sense of who it is that they’re focusing on so intently. And here is where Palin’s genius for understanding her base comes in. She gets that her socially conservative base has several preconditions for supporting women in political power. The conservative right wing very carefully chooses the women to whom they accord power. In an ideology where women are said to be commanded by God Himself to graciously submit to men, Sarah Palin dodged being told to remember her place.

The right wing typically accords women power from two sources; sexual and maternal.

Palin has both.

There is a third source of power that has formed the backbone of the Republican attack plan over the last few years: that of the aggrieved victim. If we Americans love the underdog, then anyone portrayed as an underdog will be loved. Because right-wing conservatives believe that women are fundamentally weaker than men and need male support to thrive, then it follows that a woman who is victimized by un-godly unvirtuous liberals needs men to rush to her rescue and stay on her side.

Sarah Palin retains her victimhood status through various methods:

1. Overt femininity: Palin’s clothes are carefully tailored to showcase her female anatomy. Her pants and skirts tightly hug her feminine hips and legs. Most female leaders, political or otherwise, wear looser clothes and have shorter hair. A woman’s hair is a powerful socio-sexual-political symbol in the United States. Palin wants the world to know that she is a woman and a very sexually attractive one at that. This is one of her most obvious yet canny tactics. Her overtly feminized appearance with powerful sexual undertones has captured a lot of female support. Yes, I said female support. For millions of women who believe that their power as individuals comes from their sexuality and their maternity, and from little else, Palin is their messiah who confirms to them that everything they believe is true. Second, notice now Palin stays away from clothes that are blatantly revealing. Right-wing culture strongly values women to have a little sexual mystery and to leave something to the imagination. A little too much skin and Palin risks being called a whore. Her presentation is perfect. By showcasing herself not as a person, but as a woman, Palin arouses powerful tribal protective instincts in many right-wing men who see themselves as guardians and co-owners of their women’s sexuality.

2. A mother’s cry for help: Mothers are elevated to sainthood in most cultures. Without giving birth to Jesus, the Virgin Mary would be just another virgin, pure and unsullied by the taint of sexual contact and all that. But once a woman has fulfilled her duty of giving birth to her husband’s heirs, she takes on an elevated grace. Palin repeatedly cites evil liberal attacks on her children. Most cultures, including our own, strongly revile female aggression. However, all cultures strongly encourage women to be aggressive just as long as it is in not in their own defence, but in defence of their children. Our most sympathetic victims are mothers. Mothers are believed to carry a stronger moral weight when they speak out in defence of their children. So when Palin exaggerates jibes against her children as being full-blown attacks instead, she hopes to induce feelings of guilt in her detractors. But more importantly, she hopes to garner sympathy votes and socio-political support for her position as an attacked mother.

3. Damsel in distress: Our society doesn’t really care about women in distress when those women are believed to be ugly. Sadly, this is reflected in our collective indifference towards missing black or Latina women, or even white lower-class women. Notice that in children’s fairy tales, the beautiful Caucasian heroine is always royal by birth or attains the status of royalty by the end of the story. Palin is a high-status, economically prosperous, beautiful, Caucasian woman. By framing any sort of criticism as an attack, she makes herself look similar to the beleaguered female protagonists from fairy tales. Again, it arouses powerful, protective instincts from right-wing men.

4. Repeated mentions of double-standards: Palin said recently

“…though it’s honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make.”

She makes herself sound like the system (run by latte-sipping un-American evil effetes) is treating her unfairly. Alexis de Tocqueville said, “Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” Any accusation of unfair treatment fascinates us as a nation. When Palin cries double-standards, many will pay attention and focus on the possible merits of her claims.

5. Bad big cities: Over the past few decades, higher paying jobs have migrated from the primary (agriculture and mining) and secondary sector (manufacturing) to the tertiary sector (services). Most jobs in small towns, especially in Red States, are mired in primary and secondary sector hell. In the fifties, small towns had far more activity and vibrancy than they do now, and it was possible to make a decent living without going to college. Today, many varieties of higher-paying jobs have migrated to cities. There’s a lot about cities that right-wingers loathe. Perhaps the biggest factor is that people in cities are less likely to be heavily emotionally dependent on religious institutions. Religious right-wingers construe this to be a sign of arrogance. People living in small towns see themselves as powerless victims and see cities, especially in blue states, as their adversaries. Sarah Palin capitalizes on all this by framing herself as a small-town girl who is being attacked by evil godless city-dwellers who have contempt for her simply because she is from a small town. Many working class people re- direct the shame over their generational loss of status outwards as rage towards big city folk laughing it up over their wine and arugula. When Palin keeps mentioning the small town of Wasilla and frames herself as a proud small-town dweller, she frames herself as a victim of big city condescension. Her message is “They have contempt for you, and because I am like you, they have contempt for me too. Help me.”

6. My champion’s enemy is my enemy: Palin casts herself as the champion of the working-class right. When left-wingers and centrists criticize her, they only infuriate people who see her as their messiah. So anyone who attacks her seemingly attacks the working-class right as well. This makes her a highly sympathetic victim to her supporters.

7. Blaming bloggers: While Americans embrace technology sue to our deep-seated pragmatism, we also fear proponents of anything too high-falutin’. Palin capitalizes on the sense of inferiority and being left behind that many working-class people have. She has repeatedly singled out bloggers as her evil assailants. Given that many Americans don’t understand blogging and despise bloggers as lazy dilettantes still dependent on their parents’ income, Palin has set up the perfect group to take the fall for criticizing her.

8. Exaggerate your adversary’s attacks: If your adversary calls you out for being uninformed, say that your adversary called you stupid. If your adversary calls you out for being inexperienced, say that your adversary just spat on small-town America. If your adversary makes a joke about your daughter, say that he threatened to rape your daughter . But insinuate. Never ever fight on the facts.

9. Describe any criticism against you in violent terms: Words like ‘bloodsport’ are fantastic ways to evoke an image of a defenseless woman being attacked by violent and ruthless enemies. And because it is a woman being attacked, this makes the enemies look cowardly and pathetic. Palin is a master at evocative language that paints multiple images. But she is at her best when she makes her critics’ verbal jibes sound like intensely injurious and frightening physical attacks. Again this arouses protective instincts in men and feelings of shared vulnerability and outrage in women.

10. The Truth-telling Outsider: The concept of the lone individual speaking truth to power is a very American one. As long as Palin casts herself as just a regular person who is looking to change an evil, arrogant and corrupt system, she makes for a very sympathetic victim. Palin is capitalizing on the very real sense of discontent that many Americans, right and left-wing, have for their political system. However, by casting herself as a sort of Jesus-like figure who gets penalized for doing nothing more than telling the truth, she makes herself look like the virtuous victim.

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