What Sarah Palin’s comeback bid says about the modern Republican Party

There’s nothing like a spate of primaries and an upcoming midterm season to remind you of how big the United States of America really is.

This week, all eyes are on Alaska – home of Sarah Palin – and Wyoming, home of Liz Cheney. These are two very different politicians with very different ideas. Palin, whose rise to fame as the gaffe-prone running mate of John McCain, has made a comeback after being officially endorsed by Donald Trump. Trump’s trashing of McCain – who was a popular, bipartisan-minded Republican and veteran, as well as a close friend of Joe Biden – lost him Arizona in 2020, when it flipped to blue. The 45th president referred to McCain, who was a Republican Arizona senator at the time, as a “loser” and added that “he’s not a war hero… I like people who weren’t captured”, when an audience member at an event brought up McCain’s years spent as a prisoner of war.

It was a puzzling move, because McCain was an unusually beloved senator. After his death, the Democrats ran hard on McCain’s friendship with Biden, and the state flipped. It’s something Trump should’ve seen coming, and could have quite easily headed off by backing the right candidate. But it seemed that pride got in the way of “Cadet Bone Spurs” yet again.

Despite professing her admiration for McCain, especially his novel and bipartisan way of doing Republican politics (when she ran as his potential VP, Palin repeatedly referred to McCain by his GOP nickname “the Maverick”), Palin couldn’t be further from his politics now. Having lain low after her catastrophic tenure as McCain’s running mate, she reappeared on reality TV a couple of years ago as a contestant on The Masked Singer. Obscured inside a pink and purple bear suit, she said during her reveal that she intended to be “a walking middle finger to the haters”. She got a warmer reception than Rudy Giuliani, who also appeared on the show not long after shilling for Trump in the 2020 election and whose reveal prompted two judges to walk right off the stage.

Despite the “walking middle finger” shtick, Palin has enough charm to get by on TV and to continue on in politics after flaming out so spectacularly next to McCain. Weeks before she and McCain lost the general election, Palin appeared on Saturday Night Live as herself alongside Tina Fey. She’d been relentlessly (and justifiably) mocked for her terrible press conferences by the show for weeks. The fact that she agreed to poke a little fun at herself – however lightly – was still a big deal.

Palin, like Trump, positions herself as an outsider-insider: an all-American “hockey mom” who lives in a state disconnected from the rest of the US, a passionate local politician but not a member of the establishment. Alaskans refer to the contiguous US – meaning the states other than in itself, bar Hawaii – as the “lower 48”. They roll their eyes a little at the perceived softness of those states, the way in which they don’t have to deal with bears, icebergs and overwhelmingly hostile terrain. Many rural Alaskans are distrustful of mainstream medicine, choosing instead to believe that a lifestyle of country living, isolation and fishing for their own food is a worthy replacement. They don’t see their real lives reflected in much of what goes on in Washington DC, and they are passionate believers in the second amendment; they are the “last frontier”.

Produce is expensive in the isolated territory, and stores like Target and Costco took a while to make their way there. And it’s often said in the state, according to native Alaskan and sometime Independent writer Summer Koester, that “most people who come to Alaska are running away from something”. Many vote first and foremost to be left alone.

“Sarah lifted the McCain presidential campaign out of the dumps despite the fact that she had to endure some very evil, stupid, and jealous people within the campaign itself. They were out to destroy her, but she didn’t let that happen,” Trump said in April of this year, when officially endorsing Palin. “I am proud to give her my Complete and Total Endorsement, and encourage all Republicans to unite behind this wonderful person and her campaign to put America First!” Palin herself endorsed Trump early during his first presidential run in 2016.

One wonders what McCain would make of the politics of the woman he once envisioned as his vice president. During his run against Obama, McCain famously responded to a racist audience member’s remark about the soon-to-be president by saying: “No, ma’am. He’s a decent, family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about. I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments, and I will respect him. I want everyone to be respectful, and let’s make sure we are. Because that’s the way politics should be conducted in America.”

It’s safe to say that McCain’s way of doing politics isn’t mainstream in his own party right now. Palin’s deviation from that is an interesting example of how many politicians are willing to simply bend when the wind blows, rather than holding firm in a storm.