It very much surprised me to see that a lot of commenters on the Awl think that Maud Newton is essentially creating a leftist version of nonsensical Obama/Wright controversy in her piece about Sarah Palin and fundamentalist. No, she really isn’t.
I don’t know what goes on in Palin’s head, but the language that she uses is very similar to the lunatic, apocalypse-obsessed evangelicals that I’ve been dealing with for the past twenty years, first as a friend and ally to a group that was singled out to be persecuted by these bastards in a small Southern town, and then selling them their books from 1998 to 2010.1 It absolutely terrifies me to shelve in the Faithpoint category, as some zealot invariably singles me out to share some revelation about the imminent End Times. Yes, they’re almost always stalwart Palin fans these days. She does speak their language and is speaking to them. Making the connection between Palin and these people is fair.
Maud Newton has mentioned for years on her blog about how she grew up in this environment. She recognizes this better than most.
- There have been interruptions in service. [↩]