It's Not a Game: Sarah Palin and the Madness of March
Dave Zirin
In the wake of Saturday's horrific shooting in Tucson of Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords and nineteen other victims, long overdue attention is being
paid to Republican Party heroine Sarah Palin's brazen use of violent
language and symbols. It's hard to recall a national political figure
since George Wallace who played so fast and loose with images of
gunplay, demonization and death. For me, it was last March when I
wondered if "going rogue" meant going off the deep end. This was when
Palin strayed from the realm of politics and directed a particularly
toxic stream of consciousness into the world of sports.
At the time, Palin and other GOP party members were facing criticism
for using violent, inflammatory rhetoric against their Democratic
opponents in the healthcare debate. In a misguided attempt to defend
herself, Palin tried to show that violent rhetoric is used across
American culture, most notably in the world of sports. In a rambling
response that evoked Jonathan Swift crossed with Larry the Cable Guy,
Palin took to Facebook to offer satirical words of encouragement to the
NCAA hoops teams in the throes of March Madness. She wrote:
To the teams that desire making it this far next
year: Gear up! In the battle, set your sights on next season's targets!
>From the shot across the bow —the first second's tip-off —your leaders
will be in the enemy's crosshairs, so you must execute strong defensive
tactics.
You won't win only playing defense, so get on offense! The
crossfire is intense, so penetrate through enemy territory by bombing
through the press, and use your strong weapons—your Big Guns—to drive to
the hole. Shoot with accuracy; aim high and remember it takes blood,
sweat and tears to win. Focus on the goal and fight for it. If the gate
is closed, go over the fence. If the fence is too high, pole vault in.
If that doesn't work, parachute in. If the other side tries to push
back, your attitude should be "go for it." Get in their faces and argue
with them. (Sound familiar?!) Every possession is a battle; you'll only
win the war if you've picked your battles wisely. No matter how tough it
gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!
This isn't about reality television. It's about reality. It's about
understanding that the radical right needs to be politically challenged
and Sarah Palin - it needs to be said loudly - should have long
disqualified herself from national politics. Any political leader that
continues to defend her should be seen as endorsing the very discourse
she promotes. This isn't about stifling speech. It's about laying down a
marker after this weekend, and saying that this is not a game.
To be as charitable as possible, the aim of Palin's "satire" was to
point out that violent, martial imagery is constantly used in sports and
therefore is an absolutely legitimate metaphor for political debate.
Let's leave aside for a moment that unlike sports, politics in the
United States has a consistent tradition of unhinged violence sparked by
demagoguery. Let's also concede that the world of sports is rife with
unconscious military metaphor and language. This is most apparent in
football of course, where quarterbacks are field generals, throwing
bullet passes and bombs as they encroach on enemy territory.
But the subject at hand was NCAA basketball and this is where we
enter the bizarre recesses of Palin's brain. Please take my word for it
as a professional sportswriter, a columnist for SLAM
magazine and someone who has been playing basketball since he was in
utero: I've been around this game my whole life and never heard the
opening tip called "the shot across the bow." I've never heard "the
crossfire is intense" used to describe anything on a court. I've
certainly heard calls from coaches to "shoot with accuracy," but never
heard any coach call for players to "aim high." And I've met more than a
few coaches who were blithering idiots, but none so blithering as to
say, "Every possession is a battle; you'll only win the war if you've
picked your battles wisely."
The point is not that Sarah Palin lacks the intellectual faculties to
be hired as an NBA coach (honestly, I shouldn't even joke about the
prospect, lest Clippers owner Donald Sterling get any bright ideas.) The
point is that that Palin revels in the idea that "reloading" against
those she doesn't deem to be "real Americans" is a completely legitimate
part of national discourse. The point is that behind her flawless
façade and frontierswoman packaging, Palin draws strength from visions
of violence. The fact that she is a national political figure with an
obsessive right-wing cult following makes it all the more disturbing.
We should be honest and say that were Sarah Palin a Muslim, producing
gun-sight propaganda aimed at Congressional candidates, she'd be being
interviewed by the Feds right now. I personally don't want the Feds
interviewing anybody for their words, no matter where they fall on the
political scene. But that doesn't mean we the people don't have a
collective accountability to stand up to Palin and all who feed the
right-wing hate machine.
If this weekend taught us nothing else, it's
not enough to just "change the channel." It's not enough to say that
articles like this one "just give Palin the attention she wants" and
"all she cares about being is a reality TV star." No. This isn't about
reality television. It's about reality. It's about understanding that
the radical right needs to be politically challenged and Sarah Palin—it
needs to be said loudly—should have long disqualified herself from
national politics. Any political leader that continues to defend her
should be seen as endorsing the very discourse she promotes. This isn't
about stifling speech. It's about laying down a marker after this
weekend, and saying that this is not a game.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/157599/its-not-game-sarah-palin-and-madness-march
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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