How Palin Taps the GOP's Economic Fears

This is part three in a series. Click here for part one and part two.

Not every Republican lives in Greenwich and earns millions.

For non-wealthy Republicans - as for non-wealthy Americans generally - the past half-decade has been a terrible time. Perhaps they have seen their house collapse in value. Perhaps they have lost their home altogether. Perhaps their retirement portfolio lost its value. Perhaps they have lost a job. Perhaps their child cannot start a job. Perhaps they have been hit by all of the above.

Or maybe they got lucky. Maybe they escaped any particular disaster. Yet they still face a reduced future. To repay its debts, the nation will need to export more. That means a reduced dollar, which in turn means that Americans will find it more expensive to buy globally traded goods like gasoline, grain, and coffee. Their state government is raising fees and cutting services to balance its books, so they can expect to pay more for worse roads, schools, parks, and hospitals. A big question mark hangs over the retirement guarantees extended by the federal government. Will Social Security and Medicare be there for them in anything like their current form?

Nor were things going so well even before the disaster.

Now they feel themselves living in a hostile culture, under a president who describes himself as a Christian but never goes to church, and who manages to symbolize both the ascendency of the educated elite and the displacement of native-born whites by non-white immigrants.

In this inhospitable climate, they have had many reasons to feel that the GOP does not speak for them.

They had reason to feel that the GOP did not speak for them during the years leading up to the disaster, when they were told that the Bush economy was "the greatest story never told," despite the stagnation of their wages.

They had reason to feel that the GOP did not speak for them during the crisis, when Republicans bailed out Wall Street and the big car companies, while leaving distressed homeowners to fend for themselves.

They have reason now to feel that the GOP does not speak for them, as it coalesces around a plan to eliminate their deductions and curtail their Medicare in order to enact a big tax cut for people much higher on the income ladder.

They feel victimized, embittered, deeply mistrustful of every established institution except the military. And they are hungry for a candidate who pungently expresses their victimhood, bitterness and mistrust: Donald Trump? Herman Cain? Michele Bachmann? But of course, nobody does it better than the candidate who has made victimhood her core message: Sarah Palin.

Tweet