Contemplating a future idiocracy
I urge everyone who hasn’t to watch the Mike Judge (Office Space, King of the Hill) film called “Idiocracy.” Not because it’s a good film – frankly I couldn’t take any more and stopped watching after the first hour or so. While it grew increasingly unwatchable, it didn’t stop being a disturbingly, head-bludgingingly accurate depiction of a nation with Sarah Palin as president.
I purposefully omit her title “Alaska Governor,” because, well, as she seems to believe it’s a title with no value – something to be tossed aside whenever she pleases – I will show it no more value or respect than she has by announcing she’s resigning this month. The way Sarah Palin operates in the political world sometimes beggars belief; sometimes inducing concussion-inducing facepalms; other times a thumbs-up and a wink and one of those long, polite O….kays. Sarah Palin puts Hoovers in glass cases and hangs lobsters from the Louvre. Some sigh and flip her off; some fawn and bow down before her. And shell out cash. She’s a political Jeff Koons.
Just as some believe Jeff Koons (or that Gehry dude, who conceptualizes buildings based on crumpled tinfoil) is a genius and a visionary and God incarnate, many will see Palin’s move as a smart one. If you’re not running for re-election, why deal with lame-duckness, like George W. Bush? Why not just quit? I mean, it’s not like Alaska needs a governor. It just needs some orderly to hand out state oil profit checks to the people (because that’s not socialist at all.)
Still, everyone knows what’s up: Alaska is too far away and too weird to remain her base of operations. She’s moving to Iowa and pitching a tent…barely six months into the term of the man who beat her. You hear “Crazy” or “Crazy like a FOX” and people chortle because it’s clever to say she’s clever like a fox because she’s attractive and manages to still look foxy after pumping out enough kids to field her own baseball team. It’s true, she, like a fox, has an uncanny drive to survive by any means necessary – even by adapting to habitats that are more densely populated by humans. but foxes stay out of the spotlight.
Time and again, Sarah Palin has dismissed true knowledge of crucial political subjects like domestic and foreign policy, the economy, etc. as meaningless. As long as she smiles and talks tough, she thinks she’ll be fine. Even if what she’s saying is nothing but boilerplate gobbledygook; just going through the motions. Palin doesn’t want to go through petty things like vetting, interviews, debates, or town halls. She wants to talk, and she demands you listen and fawn, and she wants your vote. She believes she’s shed something that every other politician still has – a belief that your style will only take you so far, and you must have substance to back it up.
Perhaps she never shed it, because she never had it; because she possesses something far more valuable: uncanny instincts, and absolutely nothing else. Palin was put on this earth to win. Win basketball games, win husbands, win baby-making contests, and win elections. Not through knowledge, wisdom, and certainly not through preparation or any other external stimuli. She was born ready, and she wins by her will and her will alone. Yes, she plays the same game all other politicians play, but I believe her when she says she’s a maverick, because unlike all those others, she is doing what she was born to do.
We got off easy last time. I mean, she couldn’t very well push an honorable war hero who crashed one too many of his daddy’s planes off the stage; she’d lose too much of her base. So she’ll wait until the next election and this time, there won’t be any old men stealing her spotlight. God help anyone who stands between her and her victory. And then, after she’s painted the White House mauve, canceled all government programs, and handed power either to her husband or to the corporations, we’ll be well on our way to Idiocracy.
We might as well all get total frontal lobotomies now, if we don’t want to end up in Abu Ghraib II or New Guantanamo.
