Without Sarah Palin, there is no Donald Trump.
So it makes perfect sense that the former President threw his support behind the former Alaska governor’s House candidacy Sunday night.
“Sarah shocked many when she endorsed me very early in 2016, and we won big,” Trump said in a statement announcing his endorsement of Palin for the seat that was held by the late Rep. Don Young. “Now, it’s my turn.”
Palin was among the first – and highest-profile – Republican figures to back Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. She threw her support to him in advance of the Iowa caucuses that year, which Trump lost to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
“Are you ready for the leader to make America great again?” Palin said at a rally in Ames, Iowa, in January of that year. “Are you ready to stump for Trump? I’m here to support the next president of the United States – Donald Trump.”
On its face, Trump’s endorsement is then returning the favor. Palin was with him when almost no one thought he could actually win, so now he is going to support her in a crowded – 50 candidates! – special election House race.
But the connection between Palin and Trump goes much deeper than just an endorsement.
Consider how Palin positioned herself as governor of Alaska and as John McCain’s running mate in 2008. She expressly ran against the Republican establishment. She lambasted the press and positioned the mainstream media as out to get her. She regularly veered away from political norms – “going rogue” she called it – and touted her willingness to do so as evidence that no one owned her.
Sound familiar?
The seeds of Trumpism were planted and maintained by Palin. She was, in many ways, Trump before Trump.
Palin nodded to those similarities in her endorsement back in 2016. “He’s been going rogue left and right,” she said of Trump at the time. “That’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system.”
What Palin did was prime the pump for Trump. She ultimately lost her attempt to beat the party establishment, but in so doing, she prepped a whole lot of voters for the outsider message that Trump touted during the 2016 presidential race.
Trump drew that specific link in his endorsement. “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,” he said. “They were out to destroy her, but she didn’t let that happen.”
There’s a tendency to see Trump and his successful 2016 campaign as sui generis. That he built a movement based on anti-establishment rhetoric and unconventional political tactics where one never existed before.
That’s simply not accurate. Almost a decade before Trump ran, Palin was putting in place the elements – distrust of the media, indictment of the GOP establishment – that were at the core of Trump’s candidacy and his appeal to Republican voters.
What Palin is clearly hoping now is that the ground she once tilled for Trump remains fertile enough for her to get elected to the House. Getting Trump on board should take her a long way toward that goal.
