In which The Gay Recluse considers a Palin administration and shudders.

One difference between George W. Bush (and McCain) and Sarah Palin is that Palin is genuine to a degree Bush or McCain is/was not.

Watching Bush (as much as we prefer not to) we get the sense that he — a Connecticut blue blood who went to Yale and Harvard, after all — has always been faking the Texas act, in part because he’s not exactly a nimble speaker — lol — and in part because he knew it was politically advantageous to act like a good ol’ boy.

His true constituency has always been the super-rich, i.e., the recipients of his tax cuts. McCain is basically the same.

The social bullshit — gay marriage, most obviously, but the usual range of demeaning policies toward women, ethnic minorities and the poors — was like the nuts and cherry on his conservative sundae. (Which is not to say we don’t hate him for it.)

Palin, however, is completely genuine. We get the sense that she actually believes 100 percent of the white-trash shit that comes out of her mouth! Which of course is why she’s exciting (and polarizing): everyone would like to be a believer on some level, because it represents a return to an easier (albeit more childish) existence. This is also why it’s so easy to mock her.

But this is hardly a quaint picture of small-town life. As the New York Times reported this weekend, Palin is deeply suspicious of outsiders and operates her government like a thug.

We once saw a movie about gay holocaust survivors, and we were struck by what a few of them said about Hitler; how he was considered a joke by many thinking people, who thought it just was kind of funny to imagine such a stupid idiot in power. What we realize now is that Palin is the closest thing to Hitler this country has produced in a long time (at least at this level of power). We are totally complacent as a country.

In this respect, a Palin presidency — and let’s just assume for a second that McCain kicks it about five seconds into his administration — would be revolutionary.

Because there’s no doubt she would in fact happily slit the throats of many Republican insiders, the sort of chess players who are most interested in money and addicted to the power it brings. Let’s call it “Night of the Long Knives II,” shall we?

Palin’s administration would be filled with demagogues and fellow believers. It would obviously have all the trappings of a theocratic state.

The Republican party right now is in crisis: there are many who (with good reason) are frightened of Palin, but there are just as many who will do anything to maintain the level of power to which they have become addicted.

There is some reason to think — e.g., critical articles in The Times, AP, etc — that corporate America understands the danger she represents.

But like so many things impulsively set in motion, this too could gather an improbable, illogical momentum; it’s not just that she energizes the crazies, or even the complacency she inspires on the left (in many cases, because she’s a she) but also because her election would fulfill a certain desire for self-immolation common to political dynasties throughout history.

The point is: if she gets elected, the real losers are going to be George Bushes and John McCains — i.e., corporate America — who are suddenly going to find the access to power quickly walled off.

It’s almost enough to want to see her win, knowing that it would truly be the end of a horrible era, never mind that it would be the start of another that would be even worse.