Andrew Sullivan's latest on the Tea Party is gaining some traction:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/04/the-tea-party-ag...
More and more, this feels to me like an essentially cultural revolt against what America is becoming: a multi-racial, multi-faith, gay-inclusive, women-friendly, majority-minority country. The "tea-party" analogy is not about restricting government as much as it is a form of almost pathological nostalgia. That's why there's much more lashing out than constructive proposals. And yes, a bi-racial president completes the picture. And no, that doesn't mean they're all racists. Discomfort with social and cultural change is not racism. But it can express itself that way.
I especially like the bit about "pathological nostalgia."
Maybe the right way to think about Sarah Palin is as a Ghost Dancer.
Ghost Dance fever raged among "the more recently defeated Indians of the Great Plains" and other tribes from 1889 to 1891.
http://www.crystalinks.com/paiute.html (scroll down a bit)
The revitalization movement was led by a Northern Paiute named Wovoka.
[Wovoka's] pronouncements heralded the dawning of a new age, in which whites would vanish, leaving Indians to live in a land of material abundance, spiritual renewal and immortal life. Like many millenarian visions, Wovoka's prophecies stressed the link between righteous behavior and imminent salvation. Salvation was not to be passively awaited but welcomed by a regime of ritual dancing and upright moral conduct.
In another description:
http://www.crystalinks.com/paiute.html
The Ghost Dance religion promised an apocalypse in the coming years during which time the earth would be destroyed, only to be recreated with the Indians as the inheritors of the new earth. According to the prophecy, the recent times of suffering for Indians had been brought about by their sins, but now they had withstood enough under the whites. With the earth destroyed, white people would be obliterated, buried under the new soil of the spring that would cover the land and restore the prairie. The buffalo and antelope would return, and deceased ancestors would rise to once again roam the earth, now free of violence, starvation, and disease. The natural world would be restored, and the land once again would be free and open to the Indian peoples, without the borders and boundaries of the white man.
Which brings us to Ted Nugent, who sings Sarah Pailn's praises in Time this week :
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1984685_1984864_19...
The independent patriotic spirit, attitude and soul of our forefathers are alive and well in Sarah. In the way she lives, what she says and how she dedicates herself to make America better in these interesting times, she represents the good, while exposing the bad and ugly. . . . Her rugged individualism, self-reliance and a herculean work ethic resonate now more than ever in a country spinning away from these basics that made the U.S.A. the last best place. . . .
I'd be proud to share a moose-barbecue campfire with the Palin family anytime, so long as I can shoot the moose.
Ghost Dance at Nugent's this weekend!