In this essay, Sarah Palin's nomination as vice-presidential candidate becomes an object of investigation. I suggest that Palin's ‘woman narrative’ ruptures unconscious gendered identifications that persist for secular, progressive women. This rupture de-stabilizes the way we organize ‘us and them,’ but it also allows us to re-think this organization. As we shift the ways that we think about ‘us and them,’ we may find more constructive answers to a prevailing global discourse that links force, sanctimony and sin.