I never knew much about Michelle Bachmann; I knew she was conservative, an evangelical Christian and Tea Party champion. For a long time, I just thought of her as a Midwestern Sarah Palin. Now that she is a presidential candidate, the details of Michelle Bachmann have become much more defined (and a whole lot easier to find).
On her official campaign website, Bachmann lists her top priorities as a constitutional conservative as follows; “restore our economy and create millions of new jobs,” “repeal Obamacare and its unconstitutional mandates,” “achieve deep cuts in spending to reduce America’s debt,” “strengthen the family and defend marriage,” and my personal favorite “rebuild respect for America as the shining city upon a hill.”
The first three priorities are the usual classic conservative dribble you’d expect from just about any Republican candidate. The kind of stuff you’ll hear Sarah Palin belt out like the Pledge of Allegiance.
The last two however, are not as simple as cutting spending or repealing legislation. They are driven by social beliefs and interactions. How can anything the President does strengthen the family or defend marriage? Obviously this is in reference to Bachmann’s well-known feelings against same-sex marriage.
No law can make a family any stronger, and I still have trouble believing that marriage needs to be defended from anything. Bachmann knows this, she could care less whether or not families are strong, and she knows that marriage is a legal action, and not an institution of any meaning, other than which people apply to it. Bachmann only cares about the appearances of the family, and the definition of marriage.
Bachmann deals in appearances, in her conservative, evangelical Christian doctrine’s definitions. These are also relevant in her final point. America is not a company, or a celebrity. There is no PR campaign that could ever make a long lasting impact in the way that people feel about America. She believes that America’s appearance to the rest of the world actually means something, or would serve to solve any type of problem.
This is the scariest detail of Bachmann, she actually believes in her doctrine. Palin merely uses talking points; she doesn’t know what half the things she says really mean. She says them because she knows that they will get her airtime. Michelle Bachmann knows what kind of logic goes into the conclusions that she draws. Her ultimate goal is not in any kind of practical action, she doesn’t care about the way things are, she only wants to change the way things seem.
This type of priority, towards image and status, is not productive towards a democratic society. It serves only to put the people in a state of manufactured patriotic comfort. It doesn’t matter what America does, all that matters is how America looks while doing it. If the United States is the best country in the world, then it is a good fixture in the world.
Thankfully, Bachmann is just a Scary Palin; her hard-line views will never win her the Republican presidential nomination or any kind of majority support. Much like Palin’s own “views,” her partisanship and appearance driven ideology would never bring true prosperity or peace to the United States.