Sarah Palin, the Queen Bee of the Tea Party Crusaders, appeared in Des Moines Friday night to lend a hand to the Iowa Republican Party. As usual, she used the front of that hand to scrawl jingoistic talking points and the back of it to slap Democrats.
However, some of her remarks may have extended beyond the typical Palinese, right-tuned, dog whistle, into a rather disturbing appeal to a repulsive, racist and violent band of neo-nazi cultists:
“I don’t know how the machine works. I don’t really know who they are who strategize and organize up in that hierarchy in the GOP machine…
I don’t know who organizes the efforts that is needed to put obsessive partisanship aside when it gets in the way of just doing what is right for the American people and those internal power struggles that need to be set aside for the good of The Order.”
Let’s just set aside her absurd claim that she, as a former governor and candidate for Vice-President, has no connection to the inner workings of GOP machine politics. I’m more interested in what she means by “the good of The Order.”
Commonly used, the phrase “the order” is associated with totalitarian regimes that demand subservience and single-minded acceptance of the decrees of entrenched dictators. It refers to the social benefits of enforced conformity and obedience. It represents a philosophy wherein the order of tyranny is preferable to the chaos of democracy. It is highly unusual that an American political figure would employ that phraseology and its underlying implications.
Even more disquieting is that The Order is also the name of a notorious and violent white nationalist organization. It was founded in 1983 by Robert Mathews, a Mormon convert (like Glenn Beck) and fan of the white supremacist group, Aryan Nations. It’s name was inspired by a similar group in William Luther Pierce’s racist and anti-Semitic novel of race-war, “The Turner Diaries.” The Order’s primary goal was to carve out an Aryan state in the Pacific Northwest. They financed their operations with robberies and counterfeiting, and they were responsible for the murder of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio talk show host in Denver.
Palin’s comments were a part of a prepared speech, so this was not an extemporaneous gaffe where she may have meant to say “for the good of the party (or the country).” This was a very explicit reference to something that must have some meaning for her. But given the known meanings that I cited above, it’s hard to imagine that she has some other definition of which only she is aware. Which leads to the possibility that this was a deliberate communication to a specific subset of her followers.
Palin also addressed the media in her speech:
“We have got to hold the press accountable when you know that they’re making things up and telling untruths. We have got to do this together. And, by the way, I’m the biggest proponent of freedom of the press in this country, our young men and women in uniform willing to fight and die for our constitutional rights, including that right to that free press. It’s why I’m hot on this lamestream media issue. It’s why I’m adamant that they tell the truth. How dare anyone disrespect our troops’ sacrifice by claiming the right to print and to say anything, without a corresponding responsibility to truth?”
In an award winning feat of false association, Palin connects what she regards as dishonesty in the press with disrespect for the troops. If you gave her the chance she would connect everything from jaywalking to bed-wetting with disrespect for the troops. And if not telling the truth was the measure of one’s respect, she would be guilty of high treason.
How dare she anoint herself as the arbiter of what people have the right to print and say? She is one of the biggest purveyors of disinformation on the current political scene. And to make this even more surreal, she also thinks she can decide who is, or is not, a journalist:
“And in this kind of strange, unaccountable day of anyone and everyone getting to claim that they are a journalist, you have got to ask yourself, who are they really, when the media uses, say on deep, deep background, anonymous sources to cowardly attack someone, their record, their intentions?”
She has presented herself as a journalist in the past. Although she did eventually obtain a degree after attending five or so colleges, the only job she ever held was on a local weekend newscast reading sports scores. She demonstrates her total ignorance of journalism by disparaging anonymous sources, a rare but necessary part of reporting. Even worse, she obviously doesn’t know that sources on “deep background” are always anonymous.
All told, this was another atrocious Palin speech that exposed her as a laughably bad media analyst. But the truly shocking revelation was her affinity for The Order, and whatever that phrase means to her. Because, intentional or not, it’s going to resonate with the sort of militia-minded hate groups that populate the Wyoming woods.
my guess – by definition, a wild one – is that by “the Order” she means, simply, “order,” as in “for the sake of community” or “in the interest of society as a whole.” (I said it’s just a guess.) If she had said “for maintaining order” or “for the good of us all” she would have been clearer, which leads me to suspect some sort of brain short circuit reset her rhetorical formation mid-thought, resulting in the shocking statement she inadvertently made. Palin’s sentence construction is so confused, ungrammatical, and verbose (how about that “efforts that is needed” which manages to be the latter 2 in one phrase) that it’s often difficult to decipher what she intended to say. That’s why my translation is sheer guesswork, or am I giving her way too much credit?
Yup — hard to tell when it’s a failure of language or a failure of ideas….
Or a failure of intellect; or a failure of comprehension; or a failure of ethics; or a failure of potty training. Any way you look at it, it’s a failure.
I agree with Daphne that there is nothing nefarious in Palin’s use of the phrase, and merely her continued tendency to grab phrases and non sequiturs out of the air.
Except this wasn’t “out of the air.” It wasn’t an interview or off-hand comment. It was a prepared, pre-written speech. She and her handlers had plenty of time to go over it. How could they miss such an obvious reference? What do they think it meant?
Cmon Mark, you’re reaching here – don’t go off the deep end.
But it’s so much fun.
You’re very interesting when you’re reaching, so keep it up…
yes, there’s a script, and assuming she stuck to it rather blows my theory. But given her personality and the fact that she’s as insipid as she is egotistical, how likely is it that Palin went off script, that through a toxic juxtaposition of brain glitch and overconfidence, she improvised the line as she looked up at her adoring fans and lost track of the script? I’m in the unusual position of giving her the benefit of the doubt here, since, like you, Mark, I agree it’s hard to fathom that her handlers would have written the line, aware of the implications while Palin wouldn’t know better. Of course, it’s equally as likely that Palin committed the classic gaffe of expressing her honest belief. In either case, I doubt that part of the speech was approved before she delivered it.
She is probably referring to the “NEW WORLD ORDER”