How bizarre that one of America’s foremost political celebrities would so fundamentally misunderstand the nature of celebrity (though one must admit that Palin uses exceptionalist logic in almost everything she does). No single politician today—not even Obama—has so adroitly crafted her or himself as a celebrity figure and icon as Sarah Palin. From her reality television show, to her guest commentator position on Fox News (including having a TV studio built in her Alaskan home), to her Twitter and Facebook missives, to her book release tours, and even to crafting a family vacation/media circus entourage/ bus tour road trip of America’s historical sites, Palin has mastered the modern art of celebrity production and sustainment. If Palin farts (metaphorically, though perhaps literally), we can be assured it will receive media coverage somewhere.

So it seems particularly strange that she doesn’t understand the darker side of that celebrity. That is to say, with such spectacle presentations, fabrication of attention, insertion into people’s lives, and fawning, worship and adoration that is characteristic of celebrity culture comes the opposite: the outright hatred for all that (and in very personal ways). Most celebrities realize (if only from their fan and hate mail) they are loved and loathed at the same time, that people love their achievements but also (and at times simultaneously) revel in their failures, fatness, fakeness, and so on.

But perhaps Palin actually does understand this. While it is still strange that one of America’s most venomous and hate-filled politicians would take umbrage at others returning the feeling, perhaps she does understand that part of the media/celebrity game is that celebrities benefit from crafting such antipathies, and it is simply part of celebrity culture. What is Keyshia Cole without Lil Kim, David Letterman without Jay Leno, or Rosie O’Donnell without Donald Trump? Perhaps Palin does understand that such battles are the fuel that celebrity runs on.

But what makes political celebrity different from strictly entertainment celebrity is that the ideological yoke is always present. For right-wingers, to witness an attack on Palin is to be personally attacked as well (in ways that, say, attacking Lady Gaga simply doesn’t register). Similar to religious beliefs, political values and beliefs run deep. Feeling under attack, of course, is the bread-and-butter of the contemporary Republican Party. For over two decades, media pundits such as Rush Limbaugh (and now politicians) have perfected a victimization rhetoric built on binary oppositions, and in the process, using such rhetoric to transform political opponents into ideologically justified mortal enemies. One can find an audience, raise money, craft movements, be elected, and overthrow governments based on hatred. And it is central to Palin’s celebrity and brand as well.

Celebrity hating and oppositions have value in politics too. Why are Hollywood celebrities always a much more frequent target for right-wingers than, say, Senator Bernie Sanders—a true-to-life, living and breathing socialist who actually has political power? Because most Americans don’t know or care about legislative politics. What they care about is symbolic politics, and celebrity brands are the apex of symbolic meaning and value in a consumer society. Palin, in fact, does know this well, for it is one of the primary reasons she shed her duties as governor of Alaska mid-term (who the hell needs those tiresome burdens?) to embrace more fully and commit more time to her primary job as symbolic figure.

Political celebrity is an important part of contemporary American political culture. Politics can be as profitable as any other form of entertainment, and there are many such people—Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, et al.—for whom politics is central to their celebrity brand. For Sarah Palin to reject the anti-fandom that comes with such celebrity is disingenuous, for what she knows better than most is that it is damn good for business.

Rarely has there been a reality contestant as polarizing as Palin, whose lineage has created both fervent fandom and intense ridicule during her surprisingly long tenure on Dancing with the Stars. On tonight’s finale she was labeled as “the shy girl next door who has transformed into a dancer and become a surprise contender,” but in truth she’s a weak dancer who beat out stronger competitors thanks to substantial voter support. That support have been broadly labeled a right-wing conspiracy (without much “real” data available to justify this), while her detractors have taken to shooting their televisions in protest.

However, this sort of controversy is a regular occurrence on shows like Dancing with the Stars or American Idol. In fact, the very first season of Dancing with the Stars in 2005 created a similar controversy when Kelly Monaco, an ABC soap star, defeated John O’Hurley despite many viewers feeling he was the superior dancer (as would be natural in any close vote). ABC, of course, capitalized on this fairly innocuous controversy by airing a special “Dance-Off” for charity, which O’Hurley won. American Idol, meanwhile, has had numerous contestants who “went home too early,” including eventual Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson and eventual multi-platinum recording artist Chris Daughtry.

These controversies are natural, I would argue, considering reality television’s tenuous relationship with the basic principles of democracy. Ryan Seacrest refers to the winner of American Idol as “Your American Idol” to suggest a sense of ownership, while So You Think You Can Dance? crowns “America’s Favorite Dancer,” as opposed to its best dancer, in each of its seasons. Both shows suggest that they are turning over a life-altering decision to the American public, as agency over the future of a young singer or dancer is transferred to the voters’ telephones (and their parent’s texting plan).

And yet this agency is seen as problematic when mixed with larger questions of credibility. If the process of voting has viewers exercising their democratic rights, then the existence of judges is meant to introduce some level of meritocratic consideration of talent. While shows like American Idol wholly turn the vote over to the people, shows like So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars give judges considerable power over the outcomes – in the case of Dancing with the Stars, 50% of the power – because dancing is considered to be technical enough to require an expert’s opinion (whereas singing is something we all think we can judge, even when we are actually tone deaf).

This all seems particularly silly for Dancing with the Stars, as we’re talking about democratic engagement and legitimacy in a series about C-List (at best) celebrities competing to win the mirrorball trophy (which is exactly what it sounds like). However, we can’t deny that this particular season became a legitimate national media event, with Palin’s supporters emphasizing their democratic right to support their candidate while her detractors argued that her inability to actually dance makes her continued presence a detriment to the series’ “integrity.”

Of course, this is no different from the original concerns over Monaco’s victory on some level, but the political overtones are exaggerating this controversy. It is the overlaying of real democracy over fake democracy, a microcosm of national political tensions within a dancing competition featuring a daughter of a politician (Palin), an actress (Jennifer Grey) best known for a movie released over twenty years ago (however timeless it may be), and an actor (Kyle Massey) best known for his stint on That’s So Raven who the media has completely forgotten about (or, more likely, didn’t notice in the first place).

The stakes for tonight’s results show were non-existent, in reality: the series has too little legitimacy for an “undeserved” Bristol Palin victory to substantially alter its future prospects, and a Bristol Palin victory is not going to be a sudden turn in the tide of popular opinion surrounding her mother (or have any real democratic meaning, as James Poniewozik argues).

But the show, already a bizarre mix of hyper-seriousness and campy excess, was forced to address allegations of voter fraud and attacks on its legitimacy; the show even opened with an explanation of how the voting process worked, explaining the 50/50 model as if they were 24-hour newscasters discussing why Florida meant everything in 2000. For two long hours filled with novelty dance routines and advertising disguised as musical performance, the audience’s faith in democracy depended on the envelope in the hands of Tom Bergeron.

And then, in a single moment, it all fell away. Bristol was revealed to be the competition’s Ralph Nader, a spoiler rather than a contender, finishing in third place and denying ABC the final moments of tension which would have divided the nation along partisan lines. Instead, Jennifer Grey steps out of the corner to take the mirrorball trophy, a victory for dancing and for the series’ own twisted meritocratic democracy.

Bristol, meanwhile, steps back from the political edge: while she told the camera early in the episode that her victory would be a middle finger to those who hate her mother, her loss becomes a personal tale of the shy girl next door coming out of her shell. Like many politicians, she weathered apparent death threats and substantial critics to prove to the world that anyone can run for office or, in this case, put on colorful costumes and compete for a shiny disco ball on a stick.

And isn’t that what democracy is all about?

I understand why Fox would want her, and I understand why some people might see this as naturally as seeing Darth Vader returning to the Death Star after his pursuits throughout the galaxies. But upon reflection, it actually doesn’t make much sense if you are Sarah Palin or if you wish to see Palin elected to the presidency. The reason why is that television is not her best medium. With few exceptions (her Republican Party nominating convention speech being foremost among them), television has not been kind to Palin. Whether we are talking the early news interviews with Gibson and Couric or more recent ones on Fox News, or whether we look at the Saturday Night Live parodies or even her appearance on the program, she simply performs poorly in the medium.

She was, of course, a sports anchor years ago at a local news station, so the medium isn’t unfamiliar to her. And given her relative attractiveness, many viewers will go with appearances over substance. Nevertheless and more often than not, when she appears on television, she comes across looking like the bumbling airhead she is. Witness her appearance on Oprah, for instance. When asked about Levi Johnson, she could not have been more rambling and incoherent. In her interview with Bill O’Reilly, when asked if she was smart enough to be president, so comes off looking worse than George Bush:

O’REILLY: Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fact resume that’s based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I’m not saying that has to be me.

If Palin and her supporters have ambitions for higher office, she needs to employ the same strategy used by the Bushies prior to W’s election in 2000—keep her as far away from television cameras as possible.

The perfect medium for Palin, though, is digital/mobile media such as Facebook and Twitter, which she has used very adroitly over the last year. She is limited in what she can say with the comments, needing little in the way of substance to attract media attention. In the process, she can fuel the flames of any fire with such few words. Most importantly, these media give her supporters just what they want—the whiff of greatness and the brevity of appearances that so often sustain celebrity. Perhaps her commentator role on Fox can achieve the same result. But she does run the risk of allowing television as medium to display a bit too much.

The Gap has long had a knack for exploiting cultural detritus and ruining things you love. To wit:

Hey confused Xers and bored boomers, looking for attire to impress everyone else at the community center as you embarrassingly dally in a faux-fad? No? What if we sold it to you with egregious bullet-time shots? People like that sort of thing in 1998, yeah? Nice.

Hey most influential electronic musicians of the decade, want a shitload of money? Yeah? Ok if we let The Other Sister stiffly gyrate in front of you? Sweet.

There’s nothing really noteworthy about The Gap’s latest campaign, other than that it’s presently on television often. All your favorite warmed-over cultural touchpoints are there. The drum-machine. The not-so-coincidental Glee vibe. The flannel, dear God, the flannel.

There’s even a manufactured controversy. In between grooming pundits for various cable news appearances and supportin’ everyone’s favorite hockey mom, the American Family Association found time to launch a boycott of The Gap because of the ad’s shocking, SHOCKING tagline, “Happy do whatever you wannukah.” (What scamps!) Maybe it’s because I’ve seen this ad so many times admist the deluge of Sarah Palin coverage, but it seems there’s some basis for comparison there. On Wednesday, Jon Stewart asserted that we shouldn’t hate Palin because she’s a gerund-defying dolt, but because she’s a walkin’/talkin’ simulacrum, “a conservative boilerplate madlib…delivered as though it were the hard-earned wisdom of a life well-lived.” Gap holiday ads serve a similar function, passing off the discourses of Christmas consumerism as cheeky omnireligiousness. Look, I’m not trying to be cynical. I rocked the hell out of those khakis in my Dawson Leery phase. Just don’t be surprised if, the next time you stop by a Republic of Gap Navy, the store employees have been replaced by smart-alecky mannequins adorned in garish woolen garb. Sounds crazy, I know, but this is a crazy time of year.