Intro: "It is obvious that the left and the media establishment in the United States cannot fully understand the popular appeal of the two Republican tigresses in the news - first Sarah Palin, and now, as she consolidates her status as a Republican presidential front-runner, Michele Bachmann. What do they have that other candidates don't - and that so many Americans seem to want?"
Rep. Michele Bachmann speaks at the Conservative Political Action conference in Washington, DC, 02/10/11. (photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
America's Reactionary Feminists
04 August 11
What do Palin and Bachmann have that make them so appealing to the American public?
t is obvious that the left and the media establishment in the United States cannot fully understand the popular appeal of the two Republican tigresses in the news - first Sarah Palin, and now, as she consolidates her status as a Republican presidential front-runner, Michele Bachmann. What do they have that other candidates don't - and that so many Americans seem to want?
Both Bachmann and Palin are regularly derided in the mainstream press. In Palin's case, the dominant perception is that she is an intellectual lightweight: a clip of her unable to mention a single newspaper or news magazine that she reads regularly got millions of hits on YouTube during the last presidential election.
Bachmann, on the other hand, is portrayed as being slightly unhinged. Indeed, I can attest from personal experience that to debate her is to encounter someone who is absolutely certain of facts that must exist somewhere in a parallel universe.
But it would be a mistake simply to dismiss their appeal with no effort to comprehend its source. This is especially true of Bachmann. Palin has not managed to secure the support and mentorship of the Republican Party establishment, and will continue to showcase her odd appeal as a media personality. But Bachmann, weirdly, might become president of the United States.
The Source
The nature of their attraction has to do with two strains in American thought to which the US left and media establishment are truly blind. One is the American tradition of populist demagoguery - a tradition that, in the twentieth century, included the racist Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930s, the anti-Communist witch-hunter Joe McCarthy in the 1950s, and the radical Malcolm X in the 1960s. Populist leaders inspire passionate devotion, usually in people who feel (and often are) economically, politically, and culturally marginalised.
These populist movements' energy can be directed for good or ill, but demagogues in the US embrace similar tactics to fuel their rise to visibility and power. They use emotive rhetoric. They often invent shadowy networks of "elite" forces ranged against the ordinary, decent American. They create an "us versus them" scenario. And they ask their listeners to believe that they alone will restore American dignity and articulate the wishes of the unheard.
Palin and Bachmann speak this highly personal or emotional language, which even the most rock-ribbed male Republican finds difficult to emulate. In the last three decades, the US's male-dominated politics have become increasingly wonky, abstract, and professionalised. This is bad for demagoguery, but it does not inhibit the tigresses on the right, who did not come up through the "old boy's club."
As a result, Palin is free to talk about "death panels" - a wholly invented threat of President Barack Obama's health-care reform - and Bachmann can summon the spirit of McCarthy to raise the equally bizarre spectre of socialism's tentacles infiltrating the highest levels of government. Both can issue homespun appeals as "hockey moms" or "soccer moms" - precisely the type of emotionalism that more cut-and-dried professional male politicians, even (or especially) at the top of the party, cannot manage to deliver.
The second reason that Bachmann and Palin appeal to so many Americans - and this should not be underestimated, either - has to do with a serious historical misreading of feminism. Because feminism in the 1960s and 1970s was articulated via the institutions of the left - in Britain, it was often allied with the labour movement, and in the US, it was reborn in conjunction with the emergence of the New Left - there is an assumption that feminism itself must be leftist. In fact, feminism is philosophically as much in harmony with conservative, and especially libertarian, values - and in some ways even more so.
Freedom of Choice
The core of feminism is individual choice and freedom, and it is these strains that are being sounded now more by the Tea Party movement than by the left. But, apart from these sound bites, there is a powerful constituency of right-wing women in Britain and Western Europe, as well as in the US, who do not see their values reflected in collectivist social-policy prescriptions or gender quotas. They prefer what they see as the rugged individualism of free-market forces, a level capitalist playing field, and a weak state that does not impinge on their personal choices.
Many of these women are socially conservative, strongly supportive of the armed forces, and religious - and yet they crave equality as strongly as any leftist vegetarian in Birkenstocks. It is blindness to this perfectly legitimate approach to feminism that keeps tripping up commentators who wish to dismiss women like Margaret Thatcher, or Muslim women, or now right-wing US women leaders, as somehow not being the "real thing."
But these women are real feminists - even if they do not share policy preferences with the already recognised "sisterhood", and even if they themselves would reject the feminist label. In the case of Palin - and especially that of Bachmann – we ignore the wide appeal of right-wing feminism at our peril.
Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic whose most recent book is "Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries."
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I recall quite clearly how Libs thought Thatcher was also stupid.
Neither Palin nor Bachmann are stupid. In fact, only ignorant fools make such statements, or, more likely, narrow minded people who believe that all who disagree with them must be idiots.
Oh well, so much for Libs be open-minded.
Your name speaks of both arrogance and ignorance.
Only a simpleton would believe in "the idea of Peace if we had a woman president". Typical mush-minded Lib thinking. You Libs need to expunge your wishful thinging and replace your thought process with true critical thinking. MOST IMPORTANTLY, you have to come to grips with the reality that there really are evil people in this world (hint: Americans are the good guys; Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Che, Amadineja are the bad guys).
I talked with Palin in person. The camerea is not her friend. She's actually more beautiful in person.
PS - good luck seducting that goat. I'm sure you'd have more luck than with an Palin or Bachmann, or with any real woman.
They project an attractive, successful, and energetic image that appeals to women, especially younger women. They present an alternative for younger generations of women to follow. They are the antidote to the paradigm that women must be "Liberal" Feminists.
Thanks to Palin and Bachmann (and Carrie Prejean, S.E. Cupp, Dana Perino, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, Mary Katherine Hamm, Ann Coulter, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, Angie Harmon, Ainsley Earhardt, Megyn Kelly (BTW – I am the only one who has noticed that The O’Reilly Factor has a new bunch of really hot Irish babes … a coincidence, I think not).
We dismiss these women and their supporters at our peril.
Remember the B-Slap that was Cash 4 Clunkers? What a Fustercluck that was! Giving money to Auto Makers doesn't help the poor family in need of a good used car, the Cash 4 Clunkers put the poor family INTO DEBT! I could go on and on ...
Yet another aspect of George Orwell's novel, "1984" becoming manifest.
Just curious if you knew that Orwell's books, 1984 and Animal Farm were both meant as warnings against Communism/Socialism?
How ironic that Libs quote Orwell to condemn small government Conservatives.
Geez, talk about doublespeak. Scary.
Stupidity is not.
Also I think you’re attaching the appeal of these two politicians too closely to their gender. Men continue to be very good populists – the Paul’s for instance, Ron and son, Rand, have both been quite successful with populism.
But they are powerful. They are tigresses. I don't think they can win because most conservatives still prefer to see a man at the top. But they will be powerful in attracting conservatives to the cause. They use their power as women -- people will listen to them and will believe that they care about what they are saying. Most of us know now that male politicians don't care about anything other than themselves and that they lie all the time (think Obama/Bush). Women have more credibility and more trust. So Palin and Bachmann benefit from the power of women, but they are not feminists in my view.
But I humbly submit that the answer to the Barfman / Palin phenomena lies no deeper than a physical manifestation of the tripe that the "average" American watches on the flickering (sorry, hi-def') big screen which they seem to be willing to go into debt to acquire and which programing is their opiate to the exclusion of all reason and common-sense.
They are quite physically attractive, shoot from the hip, tilt at windmills and behave like they are scripted by the same teams which write vapid sitcoms, "reality" programming and game shows, pretending to intelligence which most are in no position to dispute, even if they wanted to.
Being led by the nose-ring like a docile bovine or gelding is about the level of discourse extant in the nation these days and these ladies and their handlers are well aware of that, exploit it to the max' and seek to establish and Orwellian (as in "1984") state with a figurehead for the benefit of the true rulers, materially and/or theologically.
My simple mind comes down to that really; the evidence is all around (just go into the nearest big-screen infested "Sports" bar to check it out).
WE DO NEED TO VOTE, HOWEVER, or we will get whatever is put before us.
fs
(I know I sounf like Obama, but please stick with me)
Instead look at it from a Conservative woman's point of view. Okay, here we go. Conservatives, male and female, are by definition stupid, so Palin's and Bachmann's intelligence do not matter.
Second, as Naomi explains, Libertarians are (at least sane ones) for Liberty! These women use this term way more often than most Tea bagging men. Why because they are seeking their own liberation on their conservative based terms. Maybe it contradicts some of our strongly held beliefs, and very likely they are wrong. But that is only because they are stupid, which is a symptom of severe Conservatism. Not because they are in fact Feminists.
Don't you just love they irony!
I do
They both hold or held office, receiving a majority of votes. But you say they're both feminists? No way.
Agreed entirely! I didn't have room for the inclusion of this point in my little post but it's like equating MLK with Franco 'Il Duce"!
Malcom X's exasperation with MLK's pacifist tactics led him to push back a bit harder with the enemy's own weapons and methods, much like AIM (American Indian Movement) taking over Alcatraz in 1973 and then "Wounded Knee 11", which they were pushed into by the FBI's COINTELPRO and use of divide and conquer paid goons from the Pine Ridge reservation.
Perhaps we need to follow suit; I mean, I keep hearing "non-violent revolution" but I've seldom seen such a thing -even Ghandi's followers shed their own blood in his name as he nearlt starved himself to death.
Do you really think that the right cares how many die? And remember the so-reveling hubristic statement by Alexander Haig, "Let them march in the streets as long as they pay their taxes (for the war machine)"!
Ironic indeed in the current "no more taxes" mentality flogged to death by both subject God-bothering-babes, who flout the matriarchal Christian mentality by dominating (at least in public) their spouses.
Strange ol' paradoxical scene -innit?
It's the old "nose to the grind stone" or "pull yourself up from your own boot straps" mentality. Americans root for underdogs if the underdog meets certain criteria.
In sports the criteria is a white guy, perhaps undersized or not particularly quick of foot or as athletic as the African Americans. This "average Joe" is a blue collar type who brings his lunch pale to the playing field every game.
The businessman (also typically white)succeeded by....ripping people off with some sales gimmick-so uniquely creative and American. But that is OK if the guy came from nowhere-his wealth was not inherited.
In the political arena the dynamic is slightly different. As long as the politician is Republican it can be an African American(see Alan West-R-Fl.) or a woman-Palin/Bachman. They qualify as the "Average Joe/Jane." I mean who would think that a woman or a Black man would be a conservative who believes in the old days, when people worked hard and did not expect a hand out.
This is still a dominant philosophy of middle America.
Thanks for the clarification, but I still can't wrap my head around some of these right wing women evangelists who travel the country giving speeches that a woman's place is in the home and should subordinate herself to her husband.
I know about feminism; I worked for passage of the ERA, and for legalization of abortion. I fought for childcare. I don't appreciate being labeled. And I wish there were some of those women around today speaking out as abortion is being more and more restricted.
So what about Hillary? Perhaps she did not appeal because she is not a beauty queen, or because she knows what she's talking about. Sarah Palin stooped to some real dirty tricks during the election, and contributed to the downgrading of the electoral process. And then she left her job in the middle of her term. How independent, how libertarian!
I don't agree with the premise; and how anyone could include Malcolm X in with genuine fascists is beyond me. We don't have schools and streets that are named after American fascists.
As for Ms. Bachmann - well, I wager Ms. Wolf was one of the smart kids. Ms. Bachmann, however, was not (and still isn't) and it apparently effected her profoundly. She compensates for it by insisting she is - the less she knows about something, the more certain she becomes about it, to the point of imagining facts to substantiate her baseless pretense.
The fact that either of these people draws favorable public attention is a national disgrace.
The feminist movement of the '70's—of which I was a part--was absolutely not socially conservative, or supportive of the armed forces or identified with conservative "religion".
Bachmann and Palin remind me of Phyllis Schlafley, who was a conservative activist and author who campaigned against The Equal Rights Amendment. discrimination.”
Much like Palin and Bachmann, Schlafley wanted to lead and be taken seriously and to enjoy the personal freedom and independence that feminists fought for, but she advocated against many of the issues and principles that feminists were supporting: equality for women, blacks, gays; equal pay, day care, family and medical leave in the workplace, stricter laws for rapists and perpetrators of domestic violence, and better advocacy for women experiencing abuse, to name just a few.
Palin and Bachmann's positions, much like Schlafley's, are hypocritical.
Sure, there's reactionary populism in this country--she left out the infamous Huey Long and George Wallace (he really went far when he tried to run)--but to try and connect it to feminism as we've understood it for the past 50 years is like calling Phyllis Schlafly a feminist or Andrea Dworkin a fashion model.
Sometimes, political correctness should be scrapped in favor of telling the truth; this is a piece of nonsensical crap. Palin and Bachmann are popular with their male neanderthal audience because they are objects of desire, period. What the porn biz calls MILF's. They're popular with hard right females because...jeez, I haven't the faintest idea??? Maybe because they represent in their rhetoric and public BS the fundamentalist homemaker, the submissive wife and mother, who happens to be out campaigning, flying around the country, and making speeches every other day, not to mention trying to squeeze every buck they can out of their base. Get real.
I think she must proceed from this analysis to the most important point, which is how to deal with this rhetorical style, which Palin and Bachmann have found so appealing and effective. That is the biggest challenge. How to discredit and refute them in terms that their audiences can understand. And necessarily this must be a better kind of rhetoric, since rhetoric is all those audiences can respond to. Obviously reasoned arguments leave them cold. History is full of demagogues who sway large crowds of people, and not all of them are odious like Coughlin and McCarthy.
As to what they have that makes people like them so much, how about...STUPIDITY? The one thing our citizens can not get enough of.
Sigh.
make them so appealing to the American public?"
Simple: no brain !
Feminism was one of the most powerful social and political movements of the last century and to extend the aims and successes of feminism to women like Palin, Bachmann and their supporters is to negate what feminism stood and stands for.
It's a great mistake to speak of individual choice and freedom when referring to women who are reactionary, blindly egocentric, hard and brittle.
I would argue that these are women who have profited from feminism and yet remain orientated to the old school, male-dominated world, and THAT is precisely what makes them appealing to many ultra-conservatives. They are products of a consumer-orientated, chauvinist society in which women have to toughen up to reach the top yet resemble a perfectly turned out housewife.
It never ceases to amaze me that these two women are considered good-looking, but it seems in the US good looks are widely measured by characters in soap operas (bland and sterile-clean, fake). However, what kind of criteria is this? It's self-defeating and petty to even discuss whether they are good-looking or not - which male politicians have their looks or their wardrobes discussed endlessly?
.....
I'd like to see a woman for whom feminism is as necessary as food for the hungry debate this with Naomi Wolf.
I see them struggle daily. Their liberty is that they can multi-task, sweeping with either hand.
Lets hope that the common sense of the US people will prevail.
Willy loots
The truth is, It is no longer a nation for the people, by the people and of the people. Politics belongs to the rich, corporate CEO's, judges, police and penal systems and dirty politics and a national news media that feeds on the insane of the day. Palin and Bachmann are looked at by the media as a reflection and brings in revenue for their existance and the crazier it gets the better! Also, America's love it's underdogs especially when it comes to the like of Billy the Kids, Jesse James, a culture that exist to this day!
The GOP, that greedy crowd manipulated by anyone that waves a hundred bill in front of their faces no longer have the edge on women. At least that can be said about Palin and Bachmann is they have outperformed their male counter-parts on who can be the greediest, the nastiest and the most obnoxious!
And sadly, most Americans love that!
I am surprised at Ms. Wolf. Where is child care, reproductive rights, education and caring for the children of our society. I was very active in child care particularly, in the women's movement and I always recognized that the majority of women wanted economic freedom and most were educated upper middle class women that had great gifts and intellect and wanted to fully live their lives. The womens movement has failed poor women in some important ways. Forty years ago we passed the first Comprehensive Child Development Act and it was vetoed in 72 by Nixon. The religious whack jobs that want government in our bedrooms and bodies are not feminists unless there are no core values.
that is why, for weeks, i have been saying: obama / clinton next ticket. can't lose. a woman to go against a woman. clinton is not sexy, sorry hillary, but she is damn smart. and i want a smart woman in charge of the red phone....
The world as it has existed for millenia is patriarchal which attempts to reverse this truth by elevating the male half of the species to superiority over the female half. Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin and Margaret Thatcher are no more feminists than Mahatma Gandhi was a militaristic warlord. If Wolf's assertion were true that these right wingers are simply "reactionary feminists" (an oxymoron if ever there was one) then Joe McCarthy was simply a "reactionary humanitarian."
Kathy Sloan
National Organization for Women (NOW)
Board of Directors
Equating Palin and Bachmann with feminism is an oxymoron, and I'm sure she knows that fact. This is exactly how feminism gets bashed time and again--for being "hateful" of men, for being anti-"beauty," for being "too critical," of other women. Bullshit!! There is nothing sexist about disagreeing with those women who seek to destroy all of the rights that women of real courage have fought long and hard for. If Palin has her way, my daughter will have nothing when she grows up--no career, no reproductive rights, no autonomy!
This "article," by Naomi Wolf makes me literally ill. I guess writing defending teabaggers pays better.
If Obama's policies are "intelligent," then there is no particular reason to fear the designated idiots and official wackos like Palin and Bachmann. People want change, and can be made to settle for devolutionary change if no progressive change is available.
The same thing that made Hitler look appealing to the German public.
Marking a segment of the population, the "Liberals", as inherently evil and trying to force their unmoral lifestyles on the true "Patriots"... you know... those "Conservatives" that are God's chosen one's that this Country was founded on?.... lol
In the end.... praying on the ignorance of the American population by telling lies... of course they are not lies when they come from the mouths of sociopaths.
It reminds me of the effort in the 1960s to get this group of humans to stop calling Black men 'boy' or 'uncle.' The beat goes on. Palin and Bachmann are acquitting themselves admirably. They have my vote singly or as a ticket.
The inclusion of Malcolm X makes for a interesting bit of conversation. Just who in this readership knows anything about Malcolm Little of Omaha, NE? I doubt that any ever met him or spoke with him. This same male dominated system is what you are relying on to 'report' the facts about Malcolm. What a joke.
And Bachmann is even more overtly ignorant of African American history. Her recent comment about the founders working tirelessly to end slavery ignored the reality that blacks were identified as 3/5 of a person in the constitution and had no rights. Recall also that Bachmann signed the National Organization for Marriage “pledge” holding that “a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American president.” The pledge has since been rewritten but Bachmann has not explicitly retracted her support of the passage.
In a successfully pluralist society, doesn't everyone have the potential to feel marginalized?
I think that in the U.S. that's what demogoguery harvests: a feeling that "dammit, people like ME should have more say in things" or "...be treated with more respect." Seeing it from that angle highlights the role that citizen-as-narcissist (a stance encouraged by free market structures and an ideology of rugged individualism) plays as well.
Women who are benefiting from years of the Women's Movement and then proceed to try to compromise or eradicate those same hard won rights are the female equivalent of the Black Power movements ID ing of "Uncle Toms."
Bachman and Palin probably don't KNOW whether they are feminists or not, but take it from one who has been there, they are most assuredly NOT!
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