As Becky reported, I attended the Stewart/Colbert rally on the Washington Mall yesterday. The value in the event, for me, was the opportunity to feel some camaraderie with folks who share my politics. I needed that confirmation that I am not alone in country full of right-wingers. And even though we didn’t stay for the whole thing–one can only stand being packed in like a sardine for so long–that goal was met and I consider the day a success.
However, Jon Stewart’s words left me cold. He engages in what Jules Boykoff calls “civility fetishism.” His concluding speech amounted to a lengthy tone argument, condemning “both sides” for their shouty, divisive rhetoric. He drew a false equivalence between the far right and the far left, lumping all “extreme” media outlets together to condemn them and comparing the Tea Party’s antics to those of us who’ve identified the Tea Party as racist. Political moderates are correct (and uniquely sane) by virtue of being in the middle. They don’t get angry like those on the far left and far right. They don’t stage protests to express that anger.
I find it disturbing that Stewart’s biggest problem with the Tea Party crowd is their loud voices and hyperbolic signs. If they’d only bring it down a notch he’d take their complaints seriously. And if only progressives asked nicer, we’d get what we want. I don’t know if Stewart is truly that naive or if he’s trying to appease his conservative critics. Either way, it strikes me as supremely stupid.
There comes a point at which it’s foolish to assume good faith on behalf of your opponents. Reasoned debate is not possible with folks who do not value reason. Calls to “work together” for the good of the country make no sense when people want to take the country in opposite directions. This is the same problem I have with Democrats who believe bipartisanship is possible with Republicans who are hell-bent on maintaining the status quo or undoing the progress we’ve made. Sometimes, the other side is not just misguided or misunderstood. Sometimes they are legitimately villainous.
Well said, Sarah.
We are not talking about equivalents here. The right, and the TP in particular, is intent on making sure the privileged stay that way, and the rest of us will get the message that we are here to serve and keep our mouths shut.
Yeah, Olberman can be OTT, but his show isn’t presented as news. The same cannot be said for Fox and its so-called news programming.
I’ll give Williams the benefit of the doubt (although there are some thoughts that really should not be expressed in public). But saying the Jews own the media is prejudice in its purest form. So yes, Sanchez made bigoted statements, and that would make him a bigot, in my book.
Thank you for posting about this. Even though I’m not American I watch Jon Stewart and Colbert off and on and I was curious about the rally. I’m glad you found what you were looking for at least.
AH HA! Yes, that’s exactly how I feel. I was there, and my sentiments echo yours. I commented as such on Becky’s post.
Yep, that’s totally how I feel as well. Saw this linked on Dan Savage’s blog:
http://exiledonline.com/the-rally-to-restore-vanity-generation-x-celebrates-its-homeric-struggle-against-lameness/
Thoughts?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Elanor McInerney, Pursuit of Harpyness. Pursuit of Harpyness said: Dispatches from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear http://bit.ly/aUxWp9 [...]
I love Jon Stewart, but I think you’re absolutely spot-on here. Even Samantha Bee’s piece about asking veteran protesters for advice showed this up – Ok, Code Pink are a little bit ridiculous, but they do not have the strength of the Tea Party, and they are at least all about love and peace and whatnot as opposed to hate. And how many anarchists are there in the US today? Not many!
I suspect he draws the equivalencies as a way of trying to criticize the Right without seeming too ‘biased’ but I think he just weakens his point, really. And I know I’m not alone, the German media totally saw it this way – the Tagesschau news program reported on the march as a liberal rally to support Obama and didn’t mention anything at all about ‘sanity’!
@baraqiel That’s a great link. I’m going to stew over it.
I skimmed that piece that baraqiel linked to, and I don’t agree. To me that’s a typical piece of left/liberal self-criticism of the sort that is exactly what drives middle America away from us. The TP and its ilk appeal just as much because of their certainty as their message. People are frightened and confused, and they want some answers they can rely on.
But we don’t roll that way. We lefties, tending to be educated and self-aware, learned early on to question ourselves constantly. We doubt, we debate, we introspect. And whereas to us that looks like necessary critical thinking, to those not used to that approach, it looks like waffling, intellectual masturbation, and lack of commitment.
It is good and important for lefties to rally to our cause and stand firm for it. Our sense of humor is legitimate (and our signs were great). Our frustration with the unfocused, disproportional anger exhibited by the right is correct. If we choose to react with joy, connection, and laughter, that’s a reason for celebration, not attack. Although I don’t agree with some of Stewart’s final message, I was happy to be among people who are intelligent, thoughful, funny, and patriotic. We have nothing to be ashamed of. I’ll take post-modern irony over Koran burning any day.
I was at the rally on Saturday, too. I feel the same way you do about the vitriolic right wing, but I don’t think Jon Stewart is kowtowing. He’s being strategic and going to great lengths to model reasonable behavior in the hope that others will follow his example.
It’s not useful to look at Tea Partiers as a faceless, monolithic enemy. Yes, their rhetoric is often hateful and completely unhinged, but it’s important to try to understand the fear that’s motivating them so we can combat their ignorance. (With that said, I really need to follow my own advice. Those folks drive me nuts.)
Of course, we also need to motivate voters to make sure the wingnuts don’t get voted into public office. This rally was held on the Saturday before election day for a reason. Stewart and Colbert are trying to fight cynicism and complacency from the center to the left, which is critical. Take me, for example—disillusioned with Obama, not jazzed about the Democrats, I need something to drive me to the polls.
I don’t know. I thought his whole “take it down a notch, America” was a plea for us to recognize the humanity of the other side, which I think is appropriate, due to how polarized a lot of political issues are becoming these days. While I do agree that extreme conservatives are more guilty of acting unreasonable than extreme liberals (especially with the whole ground-zero mosque thing, ugh), I know that I’m still guilty of indulging in “all republicans are xenophobic racists” thoughts from time to time.
And, as someone who comes from a southern, staunchly republican family, I’m glad that Stewart tried to reach out to both sides instead of just pointing out how unreasonable extreme conservatives are being. The last presidential election was hard for me because I felt really isolated from the rest of my family, and I partly blame the direction that our political culture has been going in for quite some time. This is the increasingly common message: it’s okay to generalize one side and then openly hate them. It hasn’t made for pleasant familial holidays, let me tell you.
Stewart is right: we don’t live our lives as only liberals or conservatives, and to me the most disappointing thing has been the fact that we needed a comedian to throw a rally just to remind us of that.
@Kate – Please don’t take any of this as a personal attack — I don’t mean it to be at all, it’s just that you happen to be the person representing these views here.
There are two things that you said that I really have a problem with. The first is this:
“model reasonable behavior in the hope that others will follow his example.”
This is a failing strategy. The far right will *never* follow this example. Lying, manipulation, threats, and so forth are all fundamental parts of how the far right in the US operates and have been for decades. This is because it works. They have been very successful with these tactics and they aren’t going to give them up as long as it keeps working. Given that, the left needs to find a way to effectively combat *those* tactics, not trying to convince the right to play fair.
The second:
“I need something to drive me to the polls.”
I know that this is a very common view, but it just makes me sad. Why? Why isn’t being a responsible and involved citizen in a republic enough of an incentive to vote? (Again, I don’t just mean this for you personally, but for everyone who feels like simply being able to vote isn’t enough of a draw.)
baraqiel, I tend to agree with the blogger at your link. Not to that extent though. The rally was irony overload: people dressed like Tea Partiers, carrying intentionally misspelled signs, etc. It was funny but funny won’t win elections and it won’t result in progressive legislation. Part of the problem is that the left values “civility” so much that it refuses to stand for anything. They are not aggressive enough because it’s not nice, or something. It blows.
Underbelly, unfortunately it’s not everyone in the country who needs to take it down a notch. Progressives aren’t stomping heads or making death threats against lawmakers or killing doctors and it wasn’t progressives going absolutely bat-shit at town hall meetings last year (or ever). There’s a lot wrong with progressives but the people who need to hear Stewart’s message most are not Stewart fans and they weren’t at the rally.
But that ignores the other portion of the loyal base, the urban poor. They take Democrats at face value regarding their balancing act between equality and liberty that’s ostensibly more egalitarian than that of the GOP (and this belief is reinforced when they actually receive some sort of wealth transfer or increased opportunity through a government program), and they lack the cultural factors that working class whites do that repulse them from redistributive policies and multiculturalism. Moreover, I don’t think it’s realistic to think that these folks have a stronger grasp of the wonky mechanics of public policy, foreign policy, or economics than your average teabagger. They dig the brand, for whatever reason.
So maybe to the educated liberal class, it can feel like they’re amorphous because the coalition between them and the urban poor doesn’t need a lot of maintenance. What does, though, is the relationship between this base and the working class white who oscillate between parties. Since this demographic can’t seem to stay put (Reagan! No, Clinton! No, Bush! No, Obama!), what’s the incentive to come up with an ideology that might scare them off the next time around? I think that’s the reason the party leadership doesn’t take elements of the solid left and really run with it (and come on, after hearing a real liberal agenda from the stump, lefties wouldn’t cluck skeptically but rather weep with joy–remember Howard Dean?) But it freaks out Joe Sixpack, who you unfortunately need to win an election.
@SarahMC: Irony is what we do, just like frothing at the mouth is what they do. People behaved exactly as I would have expected, and good for them. I wouldn’t want to presume that the people at the rally are not otherwise engaged in the electoral process, although I might be disappointed if I really asked everyone.
The Democratic Party has been guilty, especially the past 2 years, of doing exactly what you describe. We are reluctant to fight back for fear of looking mean or something. The reality is that Obama has done an amazing amount, especially given the intransigence of the Repubs and the cowardice of his own party members. But the Dems haven’t brought home the message. We should be saying it over and over until the public begins to understand it.
@underbelly: I do, in fact, live my life as a Democrat/progressive/liberal. To me, those labels describe a comprehensive system of values and ethics. I may be an exception among voters, though.
@baraqiel: No offense taken. In fact, I don’t disagree with you. But if progressives don’t lead by example, then the discourse is just two polarized teams shrieking at each other. Then the people who win are either the most sensational or have the most money.
I am acquainted with some people who spout the far-right talking points, and they are not evil, just human beings who are scared and uninformed and sometimes being selfish. It’s by understanding them that we can win (some of) them over. Many are closer to the center than you might think and simply using the angry rhetoric of their friends and family and religious institutions and Fox News. Heck, I am angry at the state of things, but I know better than to blame it on gays or immigrants or Muslims.
As for needing a reason to get to the polls, I don’t understand how anyone can be optimistic about American politics right now. If Democrats couldn’t muster the chutzpah to stand up to the right when they were in power, then the only thing to do is change our crappy two-party system–a prospect that is, frankly, daunting.
So now that I’ve actually read the piece…I think the writer was unnecessarily personal about Ms Hanks, but gee…if he’s right about Gen X/Y’ers, that’s terrible, and terribly sad. Did we really teach our kids that it’s better to be cool than to be committed?
Actually I have to take issue with whoever says that Olbermann’s show isn’t presented as ‘news’ and ‘fact’.
Honestly if you come here from a country outside of America all the news outlets on both left and right come across as insane, ranting and hysterical. And Olbermann often presents spun stories as accurate ‘fact’ without mentioning that they’re being spun a certain way – it’s not as bad as Fox by any means but it’s not credible journalism. I actually do not watch US television news because it has no balance at all.
And I find it astonishing that nobody seems capable of presenting a straight-forward, unbiased, unspun news report on any cable channel because as a journalist, that’s really what it should be about.
Also I disagree strongly with the ‘they’re shits, so we should be shits too’ argument. While Republicans are frequently batshit insane and incapable of compromise and while I do agree that this administration has failed to push things through regardless when they had the advantage (which lets be honest is what a republican house would do) one of the things that has most turned me off politics since living here is the partisanship on both sides.
In that sense I agree with Stewart, I find American politics incredibly depressing because it’s all about people ranting without fact and yes I do find that on both sides, regardless of the fact that I agree with much of the shouting on the left. Honestly though it just makes me feel tired.
Then again I don’t believe journalists should be allowed to be members of political parties so my view is probably a bit off on this site anyway.
For the record, I don’t watch MSNBC either. I stick to my trusty Internet sources and listen to NPR on the radio.
I don’t think “we” should be as shitty as the far right, but I do think Democrats need to develop some guts and stop being so concerned with how they are perceived by knuckledraggers who wouldn’t vote for them if you paid them.
It’s comforting to know you’re wittier than your opponents and solidarity IS the reason I went to the rally, but laughs don’t win elections and they don’t pass legislation.
I think laughs, if used properly, can help win elections. Otherwise, how did the Daily Show become such a cultural influence? And why do so many politicians (including Obama) go on the show? Sure, some of those thousands at the rally were hipsters trying to out-pomo each other, but consider the historical influence of satire.
SarahMC – oh I’m in complete agreement that the Democrats need to develop some guts – its ridiculous that when there’s a Republican presidency they just push their agenda through while the Democrats bang on trying to be bipartisan. My comments weren’t really directed at you so much as at the some of the later comments, I possibly didn’t make that clear.
So, you Gen X/Y’ers, is that article right? Are you really more worried about being cool than being engaged and possibly being wrong?
“There’s a lot wrong with progressives but the people who need to hear Stewart’s message most are not Stewart fans and they weren’t at the rally.”
That doesn’t mean that the moderate conservatives weren’t listening. And maybe those moderate conservatives will be more willing to shun the head-stomping, muslim-hating conservatives and vote with people who’d like to respectfully disagree. Maybe I’m being naive, but I feel like moderate conservatives would be more willing to see through the fear-mongering bullshit if us liberals would stop generalizing as idiots who cling to their guns and religion. Just sayin’.
*generalizing THEM as idiots. whoops
@underbelly: +1. Totally agree with everything you’ve said in this thread.
I was also at the rally and was surprised to see a lot of liberal bloggers I respect came away with the same message and frustration that you did, SarahMC.
I thought the message Stewart was trying to send was that it’s important to have strong beliefs and we don’t have to compromise on those beliefs, but both sides owe it to each other (and to everyone who does not have those same strong opinions)to work on the things that fall in the middle and not make every decision a test of ideological purity or nothing will ever get done. And in that, I would argue that the left is not currently as bad as the right, but it feels like we are heading in that direction.
We would like our representatives and the people we interact with to be perfect, but if we hold everyone to a standard of perfection then everyone will eventually fail. We have to let people make mistakes, and show their ass occasionally, and live, and grow, and learn stuff.
Our ability to know things about people has now completely outstripped our ability to let each other be human. I’m sure that it will catch up, because these things always do, but in the meantime I feel like we should work on going easy on each other. But that is, of course, just my opinion.
Reading this post, I am glad that turning-up-to-a-polling-booth-to-have-your-name-marked-off-the-electoral-roll is compulsory here (coz technically it’s not compulsory voting!).
I’ve been keeping an eye on elections, watching the PBS NewsHour on SBS (Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse, and largely publically funded, tv channel), and reading the newspaper. I thought this article by an academic was interesting, http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=4&newsstoryid=5927
His politics is conservative, but he isn’t painting the mid-term election likely Republican win as a triumph for the Republicans.