What's wrong with America

(Jeff Kopaloff/Film Magic, via Us Magazine)

Bristol Palin is making a career out of getting knocked up in high school (another proud product of "abstinence only" sex education). This teenager, a single mom, is atypical, however. Because she has a famous mother, she's not struggling to raise a kid with no husband and little education. No, she's reached that treasured goal of all "real" Americans: she's a celebrity!

Weirdly, this complete failure at teen-aged abstinence has become a spokesperson for the abstinence movement. And this despite her comments  in February, 2009, on Fox "News":  "But I think abstinence is, like -- like, the -- I don't know how to put it -- like, the main -- everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it's not realistic at all."

Clearly, evidence means nothing to these people. (And yes, even as an 18-year-old, Bristol was a celebrity worth an "exclusive" interview on Fox. Insane, isn't it?)  Everyone should be abstinent or whatever - she talks like her mother, doesn't she? Of course, Bristol has the excuse of being just a teenager.

But like her mother, Bristol is finding celebrity life to be very lucrative. Oh, I'm sure she's not raking in millions, as her mother has since quitting half-way through her first term as governor. But Bristol is also working the speakers' circuit, and making $15,000 to $30,000 per speech. You wonder what she has to say that's worth so much. But, of course, she's a celebrity. That's all that counts, right?

Later in 2009, according to Wikipedia, this 18-year-old founded her own lobbying company. (Yes, think about the implications of that!) And now, apparently, she's joined other celebrities on Dancing with the Stars. I don't watch it, but this is from The Daily Dish:

A reader writes:

I'm not a huge fan of Dancing With The Stars, but I've been watching it regularly this season ... and have been stunned at the results on a weekly basis. Bristol Palin gives a lot of effort, but she is a terrible dancer. Clearly the worst of the whole lot; it's not even close. I know that in the past, this can work to your advantage for a few weeks. After all, this show is a popularity contest. But week after week, Bristol ends up in the bottom of the judging and nevertheless continues to get tons of votes. Care to guess who's doing the voting? People like my in-laws, who think she's "adorable" and "trying so hard, just like her mother."

This is what scares me.

You may think I am being trite and that this is just a silly TV show, but I truly think it's a microcosm of the 2012 election season. For Bristol, it doesn't really matter that she can't dance. The point is, her fans adore her. They don't care that she's a walking contradiction - an unwed mother who now flaunts her "abstinence" all over the country for $15,000 dollars per speaking engagement. They just know that they "like" her and, more importantly, they love her mother.

These people don't seem to care that they are being fooled by Sarah. They don't seem to care that their heroine doesn't read books, know policy, or practice rational thinking. They don't seem to care that she is little more than a vindictive, petty, hypocritical Queen Bee with a paranoid streak. All they know is that she's "trying so hard" and she's "just like them." Bristol Palin is Sarah Palin.

The whole Palin family (and I definitely include Levi Johnston in that) is making a career - a very, very lucrative career - out of being poor white trash. But the Wasilla hillbillies were never poor. Heck, Sarah was governor, if quite briefly, before she realized how much more she could make free-lance, telling ignorant hicks whatever they wanted to hear.

Do these self-described "family values" fans care about how Sarah has raised her own family? Of course, not. No more than family values hypocrite David Vitter, who just won re-election - easily - to the U.S. Senate, has taken a hit from patronizing prostitutes. No more than "abstinence only" fans care that their spokesmodel gives the complete lie to their beliefs.

Besides, the Palins are celebrities, and celebrities are worshiped in America, at least among a frighteningly large segment of the population. What does evidence matter, compared to being famous? As long as those celebrities keep telling suckers what they want to hear, that they're right and all those eggheads with a good education and professional experience are wrong, they'll continue to rake in the rewards.

All this boils down to skepticism - or, rather, the lack thereof. Gullible people believe what they want to believe. It's entirely faith-based thinking. Evidence doesn't matter a bit, because they will dismiss any evidence that doesn't fit their internal worldview. And they will often accept the most ridiculous, the most laughable of claims - like President Obama being a Muslim or a Kenyan - if it does fit what they really want to believe.

So celebrities are all about image,... and nothing about substance. Tell the mark what he wants to hear and maintain a glamorous facade. That's all it takes. And as PT Barnum knew, a sucker is born every minute. Bristol Palin is taking after her mother, and both are raking in the money. What does that say about us?

(from Comedy Central's Indecision)