Forward Progressives — Sarah Palin Shows Her Stupidity Once Again: Obama Risking “Impeachment” Over Debt Ceiling

Forward Progressives — Sarah Palin Shows Her Stupidity Once Again: Obama Risking “Impeachment” Over Debt Ceiling:

I'm not sure I would write Palin off as merely stupid.  She is a True Believer and for her Tea Party audience her rhetoric does not have to be logical, it only has to be certain.  (See Hoffer).  This is a great (i.e. classic) example of fanatical rhetoric.  

Here's part of what I wrote about Sarah Palin's rhetoric in February 2010 (after we saw her speak at The Tea Party convention in Nashville):

Much ado about Sarah's rhetoric . . . and why it matters.

 “. . . With that said, however, I will acknowledge that based on the evidence from our ongoing research, I do think Palin and the Tea Parties are rhetorically dangerous because of the fanaticism they breed toward the US Government, and in particular, the irrational hatred and fear they exploit and nurture toward out current President, Barack Obama. She clearly stated in Nashville that her motives are to start a revolution . . . The problem with Sarah Palin is that she herself is a True Believer . . . I honestly think she has no clue what she is doing, and I honestly think she believes she is doing a really great thing for America. (You betcha!) . . . someone with very little solid education about human history recklessly running strategy and calling rhetorical plays without full consideration or even awareness of the potential consequences. And wish as we might, she is not going away - indeed, her voice is getting bigger, thanks to Fox News.”

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USA Today - "The Tea Party shutdown"

From the October 2nd USA Today editorial clarifying that the government shutdown is not the result of both parties in Congress behaving badly; rather the shutdown is entirely attributable to the Tea Party "fringe".  The editorial board notes:

This shutdown, the first in 17 years, isn't the result of two parties acting equally irresponsibly. It is the product of an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, controlled by a disaffected base that demands legislative hostage-taking in an effort to get what it has not been able to attain by the usual means: winning elections. 

Call it the Tea Party shutdown. The group will wear the badge proudly.

Pressed by this uncompromising fringe, Republicans leaders in the House are making demands that are both preposterous and largely unrelated to budgetary matters in return for keeping government running. Most absurdly, they want President Obama to undermine the health care law that he ran on in 2008 and 2012, and now considers his signature domestic accomplishment.

No president of either party could accept that kind of badgering. No president should. (Emphasis mine).

More fanatical (as opposed to useful or practical) Tea Party opposition to the symbolic Obama devil - in this case "Obamacare".  And USA Today also points out that this is coming from the "disaffected base" of the party - which is a primary component of a fanatical movement (the disaffected audience) according to Eric Hoffer.

A reporter for MSNBC (find name) similarly noted last week that those in opposition are "True Believers" who really do believe Obamacare is dangerous - it is not merely a political strategy to oppose the Democrats.  

Which is even scarier - because as Hoffer so clearly outlines, fanatical movements cannot be persuaded by reason and logic because they are not concerned about the rational basis of a policy position. There can be no compromise for them because they are on a "holy quest" that is more important than any practical policy concern.  True Believers will sacrifice anything for their Holy Cause and for the Tea Party this is opposing "the devil" Obama and all of his works (e.g. Obamacare).

 So in this case, what gets sacrificed to the "holy cause" that Hoffer explains is the American budget and the entire functioning of the government.  Nevermind how much this hurts workers and citizens who are furloughed or denied access to federal landmarks because of the shutdown.  The Tea Party doesn't care:  we are just collateral damage in their holy quest to oppose their devil (i.e. Obama).

My 2 cents:

If Speaker Boehner is waiting for this disaffected base to come around and support a straight vote on the budget, it will never happen.  He'll have to take a stand and split the party into two distinguishable components:  The GOP (who cares about America and Americans) and The Tea Party (who care about nothing but their fanatical quest to oppose President Obama).  Perhaps faced with the choice of being part of the un-American Tea Party or part of an American GOP, there could be a shift for some into the "American" brotherhood.

Symbolically, rhetorically, that is the only solution to the fanatical Tea Party problem in the GOP and Congress.

Don't hold your breath.  Everytime Boehner has had a chance to jettison the Tea Party and elevate the GOP he has balked.  I can't help but wonder - what are they holding over his head that he is so paralyzed by their influence?  Is remaining Speaker of the House so important that he will collude and empower the fringe in order to assure his position - thus refusing to become part of the solution (the American GOP) and joining the problem (the anti-American Tea party).  Is he really that weak?

How does he not get that Americans love a hero more than they love House Speakers?  Directing his party to do a straight up and down vote on the budget and the debt ceiling for the good of America makes him a hero.  Not doing so just makes him a Tea Party tool.

Glenn Beck Bringing Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories To Tea Party Rally | Blog | Media Matters for America

Of course he is.

Glenn Beck Bringing Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories To Tea Party Rally | Blog | Media Matters for America:

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"We need to read Eric Hoffer . . . "

This particular rhetorical criticism project began April 15th, 2009 - the day I was late to my rhetoric class because I was fascinated watching the tea party protests on the noonday local news in Nashville. I was also following blogger Oliver Willis as he began live tweeting from one in Washington, DC. And all I could think about this rhetorical phenomenon as I drove to class was: "we need to read Eric Hoffer."

I began reading and discussing Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" with my rhetoric classes in the Fall of 2001. After 9/11, we spent a great deal of time talking and making sense. And one thing that just didn't make sense was the fanatical nature of Al-Qaeda. It also seemed to me that we needed to be mindful of our own nationalism; that our collective bonding in the face of such horror must not deterioriate into blind fanatical rhetoric and behavior of our own. So, because it helped us make sense of this rhetoric of our time, we would read Eric Hoffer's classic analysis of fanatical social movements at the end of every semester through the spring of 2004.

I've since changed Universities, and I've been teaching other courses since then, so I didn't include Hoffer in my course syllabus when I was assigned to teach a rhetoric course again last spring. It simply didn't seem as necessary to consider his work that winter because fanaticism per se was not so much in the public eye then. Mostly it was celebration and exultation following the election of Mr. Barack Obama as POTUS. And President Obama's rhetoric is not True Believer/fanatic rhetoric. It may be many things, but it is not that. So, I edited Hoffer readings and discussions out of my syllabus in favor of trying some different learning activities that are currently more in vogue with educators (i.e. group projects).

But then came Rush "I hope he fails" Limbaugh . . . and the army of True Believers that followed him. They had a very clear fanatical "devil" = any and all things un-American. And that's fine as far as it goes - I am pretty passionately patriotic, too. But they weren't standing up for American values, they were standing against a very specific un-American devil = the President of the United States, Barack Obama (and his leagues of evil liberal minions).

Jon Stewart captured and confronted the spirit of this developing rhetorical community quite well when he said on the April 7th Daily Show episode "Baracknphobia": "I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing...See, when the guy you disagree with gets elected, he's prob going to do things you disagree with...That's not tyranny, that's Democracy. See, now you're in the MINORITY. It's supposed to taste like a shit taco."


This demonization rhetoric characteristic of True Believer movements intensified throughout the spring, reaching it's first peak and public organization with the Tea Party protests on April 15th, once again prompting a "perspective by incongruity" from Jon Stewart on "Tea Party Tyranny".

To make the President of the United States and the US Government into an Un-American rhetorical devil like this is the hallmark of True Believers and Mass Movements, ala Eric Hoffer. And it was this rhetoric - this increasingly vehement, vitriolic, vengeful and intensely political action - toward our constitutionally elected leaders in the spring of 2009 - that made me throw out the vogue but bland course syllabus and start seriously discussing rhetorical current events with my students again. We voted to scrap the group projects and read Eric Hoffer and take a closer, academic look at this rising mass movement against the POTUS and US Government as our real time rhetorical criticism for the remainder of the semester.

My co-blogger, @coviner, was one of those students - and he has done great research on this topic with me since then, culminating in two conference papers that have used the tools of rhetorical criticism to dispassionately and academically investigate this rhetoric. He began by analyzing popular Conservative pundits, and then turned his attention to the tea parties and other rising true believer voices. His analysis of their ideographs and my application of Hoffer's ideas to this rhetorical discourse community form the core of our ongoing rhetorical criticism project seeking to understand the new social movements that have grown since the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

As luck would have it, the first Tea Party Nation convention is being held in Nashville, and we have the opportunity to study some of the discourse first hand. Thanks to our generous and adventurous assistant Dean of Liberal Arts, and the University mission to support student-faculty scholarship, we have two tickets to their dinner, to enrich and extend the rhetorical analysis we've established this far. We'll share that experience here - as well as some other insights from our ongoing rhetorical criticism project. We invite and welcome your thoughts and ideas, too.

Next up . . . a summary of Eric Hoffer's theories of True Believers and Mass Movements as a method for rhetorical criticism.