SEVEN COME ELEVEN, SNAKE EYES WATCHING YOU.

Oh, thank fuck, there’s a transcript, I don’t have to listen to her psycho Tupperware party pitch. Though from what I did hear on C-Span, I have to say Sarah Palin's delivery today was a lot more focused and easier to follow than it was at CPAC ’14, where she performed Kabuki versions of ancient wingnut tropes. Well, of course, Palin’s a pro — she knew this time the audience was not those weary shock troops of the movement, looking for a little pep talk, but the restless masses who might follow Trump — people who have the same bitterness in their souls as the CPAC attendees but don’t know the cues and need a little more reason-why. Sure, she hauled out the “weak-kneed, capitulator-in-chief” routine, and shouted hopey-changey; she had to remind the crowd who she was. But the heart of her speech came out of a slightly different tradition:

He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system. The way that the system really works, and please hear me on this, I want you guys to understand more and more how the system, the establishment, works, and has gotten us into the troubles that we are in in America. The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class, and that’s why you see that the borders are kept open. For them, for their cheap labor that they want to come in. That’s why they’ve been bloating budgets. It’s for crony capitalists to be able suck off of them… 

Look what’s happening today. Our own GOP machine, the establishment, they who would assemble the political landscape, they’re attacking their own frontrunner. Now would the Left ever, would the DNC ever come after their frontrunner and her supporters?…

It’s a little too easy to say “stabbed in the back,” though Dolchstoßlegende is certainly part of what she’s peddling. The “crony capitalists” bit is the tip-off. What do you do with a Party of Business that, eight years after they left the economy a smoking ruin, still can’t bring themselves offer anything better than tax breaks for the rich and Social Security cuts? You talk about the betrayed ideal of true capitalism, not crony capitalism but the real deal.

This is not so much an indictment against the nameless other as an excuse for previous Republican disasters: Last time was fucked up, but this time we’re going to make it work! Capitalism is, in the ideal, a hit or miss proposition, at least if you believe (as Republicans must) that your current losing streak is something that's gotta break because baby needs a new pair of shoes. And as a cartoon capitalist of the old school, Trump is just the man for this approach: His career may have been, in its own small way, as much a bankruptcy-prone disaster as the Bush economy, but look at him with his expensive suits and his swagger, he came out smelling like a rose!  Despite their famous optimism, Palin and Trump aren't offering a sure thing; they're just telling voters they may as well put their chips on them, so at least in the interval before the croupier sweeps those chips away you can enjoy the promise and presence of a winner.

UPDATE. Comments are, as ever, a joy. Hearing La Palin cry, "the permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class," redoubtagain adds, "whereupon she pledged to donate all of SarahPAC to Trump. (Oh, that's not in the transcript? Never mind.)"

Even better are the conservatives whining, like Neil Young on "Tired Eyes," it wasn't supposed to go down that way! At The Federalist, Robert Tracinski:

We have been tempted into embracing as our leaders and spokesmen a series of media personalities whose main selling point is that they are outrageous and controversial and like to stick a finger in they eye of the Mainstream Media and infuriate “the Establishment” and the “PC Left.” 

All of which is well and good, if it is in pursuit of a coherent pro-freedom ideology, by which I mean a coherent view of the world and of the role of government as embodied in a broad and consistent political agenda. That’s what Rush Limbaugh used to do.

Remember when it was all about the mega-dittos, man?

But when we embrace these media personalities, the danger is that we will end up just having the outrageous and flamboyant personality, without the coherent ideology...

...namely, tax breaks for the wealthy and persecution of minorities! And Trump and Palin had to spoil it! You and I may not deserve what's happening, brothers and sisters, but at least the pig-fuckers are getting a bit of agita as well.

UPDATE 2. OK, here's the line of the day, and possibly the decade, from former CNN correspondent Erick Erickson:

Sarah Palin gives Trump legitimacy.

They'll be putting us in camps soon enough, but for the time being this is really fucking funny.

UPDATE 3. National Review's David French is upset that his fellow conservatives are piling on his wife's former meal ticket:

I’m not saying she’s beyond criticism or that one should support Trump because of her endorsement.. but perhaps we should consider that the combination of her personal relationship with Trump, her personal experience suffering from years of the most vicious and personal attacks directed at any current or former politician in the United States, and her deep convictions regarding policy priorities for the next president have led her to this decision. In other words, she’s not simply hunting for headlines — she’s doing what she thinks is best for the country she loves.

You can almost see the looks of incredulity on readers' faces, ratcheting from bemusement on "personal relationship with Trump" to squinting disbelief on "suffering" to gaping incredulity on "deep convictions" until finally, at "best for the country she loves," they explode in laughter. Well, everybody gotta eat.