By Ralph De Toledano the Last Published Work of the Late, Great Conservative Writer and Historian
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Election though all newborns look alike. Pictures of the new twins from the most cele- Maternal Flame brated breeding stock—Jolie and Brad Pitt—went for a reported $14 million. Sarah Palin’s family-friendly appeal. An obsession in politics with breeding is both very old (hereditary monarchy) By Steve Sailer and very contemporary. The main quali- fications of the current president and WHY, IN ONE UPROARIOUS week of with a broken arm after being thrown 70 this year’s Democratic runner-up are that American politicking that not even H.L. feet. Did I mention he’s part Eskimo? they are, respectively, the scion and con- Mencken would have expected, has the Mrs. Palin’s instant ascent to frontier sort of ex-presidents. More subtly, obscure governor of Alaska, Sarah folk hero explains some of the unhinged Obama launched himself at the 2004 Palin, outraged roughly one half of the hatred felt by Obama supporters. They’d Democratic convention by devoting the country and overjoyed the other? been fantasizing about their genetically first 380 words of his famous speech to What intrigues people about elections nuanced man of the future, their political detailing the two stocks from which he aren’t the platform planks. Deep down, Tiger Woods, when they were blindsided was crossbred. He implied that, like the political contests are about picking sym- by a figure out of America’s buried past, a heir to a dynastic merger of yore—think bolic champions. Just as Barack Obama, merrily comic Wild West character in the King Henry VIII, offspring of a Lancaster- recently of the Illinois legislature, has tradition of Annie Oakley and Calamity York marriage that ended the War of the excited tens of millions by his emphasis Jane. She’s already inspired hundreds of Roses—he is the one we’ve been waiting on his bloodlines, by his implication that one-liners in the Chuck Norris mode—“As for to end the War of the Races. (Obama national racial reconciliation is “in my head of Alaska’s National Guard, Sarah left out the part about his mom being 17 DNA,” the overstuffed life story of the Palin taught troops how to scare a grenade when his polygamist father, who already caribou huntress and mother of five into not exploding”—the modern equiva- had a family, got her pregnant.) (and soon to be grandmother at age 44) lent of all the yarns about Davy Crockett. To the outrage of Obamaphiles, Palin embodies the oldest boast Americans The even more fundamental reason has horned in on all that subliminal sym- have made about their homeland: the underlying all the fury on one side and bolism with her own old-fashioned Amer- fecundity of the frontier. amusement on the other is that this ican brand. She’s had five kids while Compared to Obama’s much-lauded brouhaha centers around female fertility. throwing out the crooks and nepotists. but tedious life, cautiously plotted in In more than a few liberals, she sets And now she has a 17-year-old pregnant countless Chicago backrooms, the off the same creepy stalker behavior that daughter engaged to a strapping 18-year- Alaskan-sized lustiness of Governor Michelle Malkin has endured for years. old hockey player in one of the few places Palin’s full-throttle biography—the only- Palin has the accent of Francis McDor- left in America where a young man with a in-Alaska factoids about her keep piling mand’s classic character Marge Gunder- strong back can support a family. up like an Old West tall tale—always son, the heavily pregnant lady sheriff Thus, Blue State whites are alarmed leaves me laughing. who shoots the bad guy in “Fargo,” but, and enraged to be reminded that Red Consider, for example, Palin’s husband as Obama has discovered, Palin has an State whites can afford to outbreed them. Todd. What kind of man could be married old point guard’s sharp elbows. The little- Frontier fecundity is hardly a new to a woman so hormonally exuberant, studied but no doubt sizable Nerd Bloc is concept. In 1751, Ben Franklin pointed with her dual archetypes straight out of a excited by pictures of an attractive out that America’s low population den- Camille Paglia reverie: half Alaskan woman shooting big guns, just like in sity meant higher wages and lower land Amazon, half Venus of Willendorf? their favorite Angelina Jolie movies. prices, which in turn allowed earlier Exactly the kind you’d expect: he works Human beings can’t help feeling marriages and more children. as both a North Slope oilfield roughneck strongly about making babies. Look at In this century, the fundamental engine and a salmon fisherman. He’s also won the celebrity gossip columns. The who- painting low-density areas red and high- the state’s snowmobile championship, is-sleeping-with-whom stuff can’t com- density areas blue is what I call Afford- the 2,000-mile Tesoro Iron Dog race, four pete with the pregnancy news. Stars able Family Formation. Where wages are times. He only finished fourth this year now auction off exclusive rights to the high compared to home prices, people because he had to ride the last 400 miles first photos of their offspring, even can afford to marry earlier and have 14 The American Conservative September 22, 2008LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED more children. For instance, Todd Palin, from the Mexican border means that to Ben Franklin a quarter of a millennium who is not a college graduate, earned blue-collar wages are high. ago: restricting immigration benefits $93,000 last year between fishing and oil- Not surprisingly, Alaska is second Americans. The political implications of field work. (He would have made even only to Mormon Utah in total fertility the Baby Gap should be equally clear to more, but to avoid the appearance of con- among non-Hispanic white women, with Republican leaders today, but there’s little flict of interest for his wife in her deal- 2.28 babies per lifetime, 38 percent evidence that John McAmnesty has ings with oil companies, he stepped higher than in crowded California. noticed. down from a management position to a This Baby Gap helps paint the electoral In Palin’s case, having this much of a unionized rank-and-file job.) According map red or blue. In 2004, Bush carried 25 life might be too much for a president. to ACCRA cost-of-living data on Best- of the top 26 states in the total fertility rate (Margaret Thatcher once told my wife Places.net, the standard of living you can (expected number of babies per woman that she was glad she had twins so she enjoy in red Wasilla, Alaska for $93,000 per lifetime) among whites, while Kerry could get having babies over and done would cost you $159,000 in blue San was victorious in the bottom 16. It’s all with and get back to work.) Still, John Francisco. Due to its remoteness and about the ratio of land and resources to McCain, who lost five planes yet survived frigidity, Alaska isn’t a cheap place to live, people. Even excluding Alaska, the coun- and who picked up the GOP nomination but housing costs in exurban Wasilla are ties that Bush carried in 2004 are four by the random chance of winning in only 35 percent of what they are in San times as large in area as Kerry’s counties. winner-take-all states, may have stumbled Francisco. Moreover, Alaska’s distance The policy implication of this was clear into another piece of luck. “Must reading. The writing is at Ralph de Toledano's best, better than which no one gets. It focuses on the historical and the contemporary, casting a sharp light on the players and the events of our deeply troubled times.” —WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. “de Toledano's most ambitious work. connects the dots and timeline of the planned decline of Western Civilization. Those dots lead ultimately to the Institute of Social Research… The ‘Frankfurt School.’ ” —Wes Vernon, renewamerica.com CRY HAVOC The Great American Bring-down and How It Happened! By Ralph de Toledano The last published work of the late, great Conservative writer and historian. Order today! Send check or money order for $22.00 (includes shipping and handling) to Or order online from www.amazon.com Anthem Books For more information, contact PO Box 20163 Washington, D.C. 20041 mailto:[email protected] “For the last five decades, de Toledano writes, war has been declared on America and its most important educational, cultural, and economic institutions. “Perversity is increasingly a way of life,” he charges. “What was once obscenity is the ordinary currency. The current obscenity is God, morality, the family. Rape and murder fill the newspapers. The Bill of Rights is a scrap of paper, attached to a decaying and ignored Constitution. Education is a medium for dissolution, abolishing learning. The media is steeped in prevarication and nihilism.” —Human Events LICENSED TO UNZ.ORGSeptember 22, 2008 The American Conservative 15 ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Conservatism Connerly Cashes In The anti-preferences activist gets rich off of affirmative action. By Michael Brendan Dougherty THIS WAS SUPPOSED to be a banner know. He and the nonprofit organizations Connerly’s nonprofits employ him for year for Ward Connerly, the former Uni- he founded helped three such measures 30 hours a week and two others full time. versity of California regent and the pass—in California in 1996, Washington The nonprofits then hire him from Con- Right’s most visible anti-affirmative- in 1998, and Michigan in 2006.