So Sarah Palin came to town Tuesday, and brought some guy with her.
Oh. Right.
John McCain
is at the top of this ticket, right? It certainly hasn't seemed that way over the past few weeks, as Palin has generated the bulk of both the headlines and excitement. The Palin-McCain ticket performed before an estimated 7,000 at Franklin & Marshall College. Do you think there would have been that many had McCain selected Joe Lieberman, reportedly his first choice, as his vice-presidential candidate? Or Mitt Romney?
Hardly. Palin has invigorated a ticket that had excited virtually no one. Were Palin to run against McCain in a primary battle today, she'd crush him. The conservative "base" still doesn't like McCain — but they love Palin, for one reason and one reason only: She's one of them.
It is tribalism writ large.
There is a similar visceral tribalism on the left, perhaps more pronounced in generations past. But it is most pronounced, now, amongst movement conservatives. Their embrace of Palin is a case in point. Many still know virtually nothing about her, or her record. But they do know she's a small-town, middle-class Christian. She walked the walk in giving birth to a Down syndrome child. She is just like them; she is of the tribe. And that is enough.
Not for all conservatives, mind you. "We have seen," wrote Daniel Larison on the American Conservative Web site, "how this instinct to endow a politician with virtues blinds people to the pol's flaws, and I fear it is happening all over again with Palin. I see that people feel the choice to be magnificent, and I don't doubt that this is a sincere feeling, but I would suggest that we need to do less feeling and more thinking."
Fat chance.
I don't doubt the sincerity of the tribalistic impulse either; what I do doubt is its validity. Because to the tribe, Palin's experience, or lack of it, really doesn't matter. Her knowledge, or lack of it, about Iraq or any other issue doesn't matter. She supported the "Bridge to Nowhere" before opposing it? Doesn't matter. All that matters is that she's of the tribe, infused with the inherent tribal honesty and ethicality and common sense.
So she can necessarily be trusted to make the "right" decision in every situation. Her heart is in the right place, and because of that she'll execute the duties of the vice president — maybe even president! — capably.
This "vicarious identification and clannishness," noted a commenter on Larison's site, are "basic survival instincts that precede and sometimes conflict with enlightenment values and the prudence necessitated by personal responsibility." But it also represents a devolution, a regression, in our politics.
This instinctual approach is directly responsible for the George W. Bush years, though don't think the tribe will accept any culpability for it. For the tribe cannot be wrong; as a result, we get Mitt Romney telling the rapturous throngs at the GOP convention, "We need a change all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington!" Never mind that conservatives have run Washington for the bulk of the past decade; the tribe cannot fail. If there has
been failure, it is obviously the fault of the tribe's enemies.
Once you understand this mentality you understand both the enthusiasm for Palin, and why McCain picked her. His move was cynically brilliant. Let the base get excited, let them pack the rallies and donate the money and snarl at the liberals. Let the tribe put its shoulder to the wheel, for this election can now be seen as a validation of the tribe itself.
Very useful, this tribe. So let them think it really
is Palin-McCain.
Until Nov. 5, that is.
SMART REMARKS: The pig goes oink
Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.
