Sarah Palin reminds me of the mothers I knew growing up. My classmates' moms had the same big-but-not-too-big hair, the gaudy necklaces with religious or patriotic themes depending on the day, and the self-satisfied look when they'd tell you just how little you knew about what you were talking about. If I'd seen Sarah Palin at a bake sale, a church potluck, or a PTA meeting in my youth, the only thing that would have identified her as “not from around here” would have been the accent. She could fit into any sideline of any soccer field in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania — or anywhere else in middle America. Like Yankee Candles, Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and motivational quotes framed and rendered in cross-stitch, seeing Palin reminds me of home.
Palin's everywoman pose has kept her in the national spotlight well past her political expiration date. Palin has grown into a media empire spanning the bookshelf to the television set. Through the most embarrassing Vice-Presidential debate in history, ethics inquiries, a gubernatorial resignation, being forced out of FOX News, and enough reality show appearances to make J.Wow envious, there's no denying that Palin has endured.
She's nothing if not a survivor, and she's looking to pivot yet again. The reality show star/Tea Party kingmaker-era of her career seems to be coming to a close, and she's building a TV channel on YouTube called The Sarah Palin Channel. Instead of tweens vlogging about how many scarves they have in their closet, we get a Palin-sized dose of folksy vitriol. Most of the content is offered at $9.99 a month (that's more money than Netflix streaming) and includes Palin talking into a webcam. Sounds terrible, right? Don’t worry, last weekend, I became a member so you don't have to.
I opted to go for the monthly membership rather than the yearly subscription of $99.99.
The channel currently offers roughly eight hours of content, so I think I made the right choice. To put things in perspective, the channel currently has a shorter run time than the Lord of the Rings trilogy. For what it's worth, LOTR offers more realistic characters.
After a day of binge-watching, I've consumed every piece of content on The Sarah Palin Channel. Palin's message is more of the same of what you've heard in media sound bites. You have all the old talking points:
- Anti-immigration screeds (It's Time To Fly Them Home)
- Obama Impeachment Drum-banging (We Can't Be Afraid of the I Word)
- Evidence of Rugged Folksiness (Moose Meat: It's What's For Dinner)
You have the standard fodder for the Sarah Palin Drinking Game:
- Use of the phrase “Liberal Media:" 14
- Sinister stock photos of Obama: 9
- American flags worn: 6
You have some pretty folksy pull quotes:
“Yeah, we got Al-Qaeda on the run. Runnin’ right towards us!”
“Anything’s better than the corruption we’ve got. Fix it. Fix it more than just a smidgen.”
“It amazes me that political economists are claiming there’s no inflation. They must not go to the grocery store. And they must not fuel up their own truck. Those of us who do, we see the inflation.”
“You got to ask yourself what’s the President going to do while the boys are out of town? You know, like that old saying ‘The cat’s away, the mice will play.’ The cat being Congress.”
“In our economy, there are more pie eaters than pie makers.”
And of course, you have the former governor taking the Ice Bucket Challenge.
There's an absurd beauty in watching her stretch a few ideas to the absolute breaking point. Because she has so little to say, we are treated to banal anecdotes, uncomfortable footage of her puttering around the house, and irrelevant fan mail questions about her genealogy, salmon fishing, and Van Halen.
It's the small moments of my day with Sarah that stick with me. It's one thing to watch her perform a one-woman show for five minutes, and another to watch her attempt to keep the act going for over eight hours (with more to come!). It's in these lovely moments that we see the woman behind the curtain, the limits of a constructed identity pushed past its breaking point. Here is what I learned from watching The Sarah Palin Chanel for an entire day. Please take a look, if only so that the sacrifice of a Saturday and $9.99 won't have been in vain.
"The Giver" is about how Ronald Reagan was right.
You can ask Sarah anything.
There's a three minute video of Palin explaining this painting.
Palin can even dodge questions she posed.
Sarah Palin is the master of making an audience believe she's refuting an argument without actually addressing the argument she's trying to refute. This entire attempted takedown of Elizabeth Warren is a master class in avoidance, and the best moment is her response to Warren's statement, “We believe that fast food workers deserve a livable wage. And that means when they take the picket line, we are proud to fight alongside them.”
Quoth Palin:
Wait, I thought… fast food joints? Don’t you guys think they’re like of the devil or something? Liberals, you want to send those evil employees that would dare work at a fast-food joint that you just don’t believe in? I thought you wanted to -- I don't know -- send them to purgatory or something so they all go vegan. And uh, wages and picket lines, I don’t know. They’re not often discussed in purgatory are they? I don’t know why are you even worried about fast food wages? Well, we believe in America where minimum wage jobs, they're not life-time gigs. They are stepping stones to a good job with sustainable wages. Teaches work ethic. We believe in helping Americans climb the economic ladder, not get stuck on the first rung. A strong economy with good paying jobs, it comes from free enterprise, not from a top-down big government command and control economy.
If there is an argument for or against fast food workers deserving a livable wage here, I don't see it. She’s so good at dodging questions, she can dodge questions she asks herself.
Sarah's son has interesting taste in bedroom decor.
Palin "really really really" needs you to know she has a killer moose chili recipe.
Bristol Palin has a #blog on the site where she #engages with #millenials and #genZ
The graphics guys could only find two stock photos of President Obama.
Palin knows why the media is so liberal.
If you've wondered how the vast liberal media conspiracy got its start, Palin is here with the scoop (she did receive a degree in journalism from the University of Idaho, after attending and dropping out of five other colleges, after all). You see, according to Palin, the media has been liberal "for eons," and it all starts in college:
I don’t think the media has turned liberal. I believe that the media has been liberal for eons... Most college kids are a little bit liberal. But then they get out in the real world and they get jobs and they have families. And they realize, 'Ahh, you know, government isn’t the answer. It's too often the problem. Hey government back off. And trust us as individuals. We have the wisdom. And we have the work ethic. And we can solve our own problems. Government. You just screw it up.'
That applies, I think, to just about every aspect of any course offered in college except journalism. Journalism students seem to never have gotten out of that liberal, utopian, man-created mindset. Journalism students so often don’t get out there in the private sector so much and have to produce and create a product that they sell. They write so often what their editors want them to write. Their editors for the most part are liberal. And It’s the journalism students themselves who just inherently who allow their bias -- their liberal bias -- to stick with them, and affect their job forever and ever. Whereas, again, the rest of the world, no, college graduates, for the most part, they get out there and realize, oh, okay, got to work hard now. Now I understand what capitalism is all about.
It's hard to figure out what Palin thinks about vacations.
The channel has a "Word of the Day."
In the 21st century, you pay to be advertised to.
A picture of Ronald Reagan in a cowboy outfit hangs above a picture of Todd in her office.
I watched a seven minute video of Sarah Palin feeding her son.
The Fashion Game Is Strong
On a cheerier note, this is perhaps the most important thing I learned. Allow me to leave you with the five best outfits Palin wore on the channel to-date.
Jeweled "Hooah" lapel pin game strong.
Time Bandit shirt, (but definitely not a reference to Terry Gilliam movie, right?) game strong.
Camo shirt with "Girls with Guns" across the chest in pink glitter game strong.
Fur-lined vest with Oscar the Grouch tee game strong.
Weird fringe-y green shirt with jeweled American flag necklace game strong.
