Donald Trump was arguably the most polarizing president of modern times.
Few would dispute that there are currently tens of millions of Americans who are overjoyed that heās out of office, just as there are tens of millions who are beside themselves and hope that he (or a like-minded alternative) will win the 2024 election.
In either case, a far smaller subset understands and appreciates that there might never have been a Trump presidency without Sarah palin. It was her 2008 juggernaut vice presidential candidacy that jumpstarted a populist conservative renaissance in America, and Trump, ever the acute political observer, surely was paying attention and taking notes.
Now, Palin is making a political comeback by running for Alaskaās sole congressional seat, empty since incumbent Don Youngās death in March.
Conservative Americans had been searching for a new Ronald Reagan ever since the end of his second presidential term. His vice president and immediate successor, George H.W. Bush, was a competent leader and manager but lacked Reaganās vision, charisma and commanding presence on the world stage.
The next Republican president, George W. Bush (the elder Bushās son), mobilized conservatives with his Reaganesque moral conviction but didnāt have as strong a supporting cast as did Reagan and his father, and his eight years in office had the misfortune of being sandwiched between 9/11 and the Great Recession.
In Palin, Americans found a conservative populist voice that excited them. She wasnāt a country club Republican like the elder Bush. She wasnāt dry, like Bob Dole, or gruff, like Dick Cheney. She was a young, vibrant hockey mom, and everything Republican ticket headliner John McCain wasnāt: warm and energetic ā but, unfortunately, she also wasnāt experienced.
The smug, pseudointellectual left, which often reveals its own ignorance when calling conservatives stupid, didnāt waste a minute pouncing on Palin.
On Sept. 11, 2008, seven years to the day after the 9/11 attacks, Palin sat for an interview with ABC Newsā Charlie Gibson. Clearly intending to perpetuate the stereotype that she was a know-nothing hick from the wilderness, Gibson began by strongly implying that Palin lacked the requisite experience to be vice president and that her lack of hesitation in accepting the nomination was āhubris.ā Gibson then peppered Palin on how many times she had traveled outside the U.S. and whether she had ever met a foreign head of state.
Failing to rattle her, Gibson tripped her up by asking how she felt about the Bush Doctrine. āIn what respect, Charlie?ā Palin replied, probably unfamiliar with that doctrineās substance. Offering no help to fill in the blanks, Gibson simply said, āThe Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq War.ā Rather than handing Palin a life preserver, Gibson handed her an anchor, hoping it would expedite her political drowning.
Many forget that it was McCain himself, heralded in both major political parties as a foreign policy expert, who raised the point that because of her role as Alaskaās governor and that stateās proximity to Russia, Palin had acquired some rather unique foreign policy experience. It didnāt matter: Late-night comedy got into the act, and to this day, many believe that Palin really bragged about her foreign policy qualifications because āI can see Russia from my houseā ā words actually uttered by comedienne Tina Fey portraying Palin in a Saturday Night Live skit.
McCain never had much of a chance to win the election, with or without Palin. Much of the nation had grown tired of eight years of Republican policies that included the invasion of Iraq and the start of the Great Recession, and McCain, though styling himself a political maverick, was not offering a different platform. Moreover, in Barack Obama, the Democrats had their own vibrant, charismatic candidate who was more mainstream and centrist than a lot of conservatives still realize.
To some extent, the criticism that Palin didnāt know enough about Politics outside Alaska to render her suitable to be a heartbeat away from the presidency was warranted, but ignorance of specific facts doesnāt make a person stupid. (For instance, most Americans canāt speak a word of over 90 percent of foreign languages. Does that make them stupid?)
Already lambasted in 2008 for not having known that prior to the end of World War II, Korea was a single country, Palin made a gaffe two years later when she said that our Korean ally is North Korea instead of South, delighting progressive media outlets for weeks on end.
But that was a dozen years ago, and even more importantly, sheās not running for vice president this time. Sheās running to represent the people of Alaska, and if thereās one thing Sarah palin knows, itās Alaska.
If she wins, the obnoxious left will no doubt continue to lampoon her, and, who knows, Fey may revive her Palin character indefinitely.
But itās a dangerous risk for leftists to take, because most of them realize that Palin is not the oppositionās gift that keeps on giving. Sheās got the Trumpian brand of populism that most Americans ā whether or not they care to admit it ā support, without Trumpās proclivity for polarization.
Those with insufferable Trump Derangement Syndrome simply refuse to give the former president any credit whatsoever for his positive accomplishments, instead obsessing over his flaws ā not only the real ones, but also the multitude of fabricated ones.
But people donāt hate Sarah palin; at worst, they think sheās dumb, and so when they take off the blinders and see her for who she is, thereās a good chance theyāll actually acknowledge that the anti-Palin contingent overplayed its hand.
On balance, sheāll probably emerge as a good ambassador for the modern Republican brand.
And thereās even a chance that a sliver of those who bellow that Vice President Kamala Harris is treated so horribly by powerful misogynistic men will realize their own hypocrisy; their silence about the same being done to Palin leaves no audible sound remaining except crickets.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.