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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"I Think People Will Get Tired of Him": Sarah Palin's Fall Shows the Limits of Media Obsession
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/for-donald-trump-sarah-palins-fall-shows-the-limits-of-media-obsession?utm_source=pocket-newtabSoon after the segment aired, CNN president Jeff Zucker, who is always watching, emailed me and a few other producers demanding that we not cover Trump or Palin, explaining that both Republicans were carnival acts, attention-seekers, two unserious distractions from the real presidential race to come. At the time, few in politics would have disagreed. I think about that moment from time to time, and not just because CNNs position on covering Trump so famously changed once he actually became a candidate, delivering ratings galore. But the Iowa story is worth remembering, too, because of the way Trump and Palin were lumped together by the smart set as little more than a sad and desperate right-wing sideshow, when in truth, they were two of the most consequential political figures in American history.
These days Palin has receded to a historical footnote and a punch line for a news media thats become even more cocooned in its urban bubble since 2008, with Trump now receiving most of the credit for upending the presumed order of national politics. But it was Palin who opened the door for Trump, the first politician to fuse together backlash politics and anti-elitism with the mighty American power of celebrity. The impact that she has had on rejuvenating almost the Republican Party, its been unbelievable, Trump said of Palin in 2008, soon after she was picked from obscurity to join McCain on the ticket. After McCain lost, Palin resigned from the governorship in Alaska but continued to gather strength as a fixture on the conservative political circuit, publishing a best-selling memoir, headlining Tea Party rallies, joining Fox News, and coming close to running for president in 2012. And she did most of it while bypassing the lamestream media by posting her musings and rants on Facebook for an enormous community of die-hard fans.
Like Trump, Palin had powers beyond the campaign trail: She wore a celebrity halo rarely seen on a politician. Her traveling circus in the fall of 2008 proudly embraced redneck America, Hank Williams Jr. and Gretchen Wilson, hunting and fishing, Carhartts and Walmart. Her crowds were rapturous. Rural Americans and working people who didnt go to college saw her as one of their own, while liberals and journalists loved to mock her lack of sophistication and manner of speaking. It was a partisan culture clash that only gave Palin more strength. Tina Feys scornful impression of Palin on Saturday Night Live was only the beginning. After Palin came on the scene, as Nancy Isenberg recounted in her book White Trash, a history of class in America, Hollywood unleashed a crop of new TV shows that played off the redneck trope that Palin ushered into the mainstream: Swamp People, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Redneck Island, Duck Dynasty, Moonshiners, Appalachian Outlaws. Her family dramas became tabloid favorites. And Palin would go on, fittingly, to star in her own reality show, Sarah Palins Alaska, produced by Mark Burnett, Trumps beloved reality-show producer.
A lot more at the linky dink.
RAB910
(3,484 posts)Trump was well suited to the one or two sentence formats as his simplistic ideas and instincts rarely if ever needed more than a few words to describe
There are other ways to get his message out there but they all require a bit more substance than he is capable of delivering
Taking his Twitter away takes away like 90% of his relevance. He is dying to be able to whine and complain to the public non stop.
I bet he holds a couple rallies starting next month, probably charges attendance. They'll get a lot of coverage at first, but then the national media will start ignoring them, and then even the local media of the town he goes to will stop giving it much attention.
MyOwnPeace
(16,913 posts)And take away the attention that the hearings are delivering and boom - it'll be 'Donald Who?" before summer - unless he has to begin making court appearances - or does a 'perp walk' in cuffs!
hibbing
(10,093 posts)JI7
(89,237 posts)Right wing men mostly liked her becsuse she was attractive but she was mostly civil in person towards others. She had shitty views and said stupid shit but she never appealed to them in a cult like way..
She just isn't a good comparison to him.
Most people ARE tired of Trump though. But he has the trashy folliwing in a way that Palin never did.