Lynn Vincent is a perfect choice for chronicling Palin's version of Palin's life. I'll check out the book when some editor elevates to the level of a cartoon (as opposed to merely cartoonish), but I'll be surprised if she doesn't dwell on her role as a member of the GOP evangelical culture of perpetual victimhood.
Max Blumenthal, who wrote Republican Gomorrah: Inside The MOvement That Shattered The Party, has osme observations on this in his interesting "How Sarah Palin Made Herself INdispensable WHle Destroying the Republican Party" (www.huffingtonpost.com). For Blumenthal, Palin is a creature of (because she so perfectly epitomizes) "the political psychology of the movement that animates and, to a great degree, controls, the Republican grassroots -- a uniquely evangelical subculture defined by the personal crises of its believers and their perceived persecution at the hands of cosmopolitan elites."
"By emphasizing her own crises and her victimization by the 'liberal media,' Palin has established an invisible, indissoluble bond with adherents of that subculture -- so visceral it transcends any rational political analysis," Blumenthal suggests.
He explores the Culture of Personal Crisis that's so ingrained in the wingnut culture that for them personal crisis is not something merely episodic but a crucial component of their world view.
Bristol Palin's drama -- young evangelical girl meets boyfriend, has sex, produces baby (points highlighted by Palin when she trotted the kids, including Trig, out at every opportunity; nothing if not an opportunist, our Sarah) -- is not at all unusual in the evangelical community, within which "evangelical women like Bristol Palin lose their virginity, on average, at age 16 -- earlier, that is, than any group except black Protestants."
Indeed, as Blumenthal points out:
Another recent study by sociologists Peter Bearman and Hannah Bruckner notes that over half of evangelical girls who have pledged to maintain their virginity until marriage wind up having sex before marriage, and with a man other than their future husband. Bearman and Bruckner also disclose that communities with the highest population of girls who attend so-called purity balls, where they vow chastity until marriage before their fathers in a prom-like religious ceremony, also have some of the country's highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases. In Lubbock, Texas, where abstinence education has been mandated since 1995, the rate of gonorrhea is now double the national average, while teen pregnancy has spiked to the highest levels in the state.
Hence Palin's ability to consolidate "her bond with the movement in [a]...very personal way."
Blumenthal sees Palin untethering herself in the fall of 2008, as the financial collapse materiaolized and McCain's campaign disintegrated. That's when he sees her "going rogue" and, against McCain's wishes and instructions, attacking Obama with her special brand of narrow, ignorance-fueled hate well designed for the tastes and prejudices of her intended audience.
