Blowing Smoke - Michael Wolraich [118]
What was it about Sarah Palin’s political rallies that invited so much joyous frustration? The frightening specter of a black liberal president was certainly a factor, but there was more than that; McCain didn’t inspire such crowds until after he selected Palin as his running mate. There was something about Sarah. Through her “real America” rhetoric and her embodiment of the persecuted victim of an elitist media in love with an African American president, Palin catalyzed the race-driven fears and class-driven animosities of her constituents. With Palin’s nomination, the 2008 presidential election transformed from a political contest between two men with different opinions into a pivotal battle between “us” and “them,” where the embattled mooseburger-loving Sarah Palin represented “us” and the elitist, socialistic, great black hope, Barack Obama, represented “them.”
“The Shout Heard ’Round the World”
The joyous frustration that Palin aroused didn’t cease with the election. The man that her supporters so reviled became president, and their resentment against the media elite metamorphosed almost overnight into resentment against the government. Glenn Beck became an instant sensation by deftly shepherding that resentment into his conspiracy theories about Marxist czars and angry black men. Sarah Palin made millions selling books and giving speeches to malcontent supporters. (Victimhood has its charms.) And then there were the Tea Parties.
The Tea Parties, which have become the standard-bearers of right-wing persecution politics, are neither political parties nor social gatherings. Some refer to a Tea Party movement, which is vague enough to capture the muddled pastiche of organizations and ideologies that constitute this latest right-wing insurgency.cz Credit for popularizing the term Tea Party goes to CNBC business news editor, Rick Santelli. One month after Obama’s inauguration, Santelli delivered a televised rant from the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange lambasting the administration’s mortgage refinancing plan. “How about this, President and new administration?” he yelled as commodity traders cheered and whistled. “Why don’t you put up a website to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages?”61 Then he called to the traders, “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?” The traders boisterously booed to indicate that they did not want to pay the mortgages of their overbathroomed neighbors. Then Santelli, aroused by the hot-blooded enthusiasm of the commodities traders, proceeded to metamorphose from cable news business editor into Revolutionary Hero of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. “We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July!” he roared to the cheering traders, “All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m gonna start organizing!”da Soon after, the Drudge Report heralded Santelli’s diatribe in a giant, dazzling red font, accompanied by a flashing siren logo to convey its urgent import:
TRADERS REVOLT: CNBC HOST CALLS FOR NEW “TEA PARTY”62
For the right wing, it was love at first sight. The 1773 Boston Tea Party, featuring the plucky Sons of Liberty versus the tyrannical King George III and the tax-loving British parliament, offered the perfect metaphor for the antigovernment resentment that exploded within weeks of Obama’s inauguration. Its fertile symbolism easily incorporated various right-wing mythologies, from Christian persecution to jackbooted ATF thugs, health care “redistribution” to the glorious heritage of Anglo-Saxon America. Plus, it provided a fun excuse to dress in knickers, hose, and tricorn hats and to write clever protest signs like RUSSIA CALLED, THEY WANT THEIR SOCIALISM BACK. Or somewhat less clever protest signs like KEEP THE GUVMINT OUT OF MY MEDICARE.63
In little more than a week after Santelli’s rant, which CNBC proudly