Michael Kazin: Jon Stewart Isn't Enough
[Michael Kazin is co-editor of Dissent and a professor of history at Georgetown University. He is completing a history of the American left to be published in 2011 by Knopf.]
Demonstrators have been coming to Washington since Coxey’s Army trudged up the steps of the Capitol during the depression of the 1890s. So it was probably inevitable that the traditional repertoire of protest would, by now, have grown rather stale. These days, passionate orators, earnest singers, and fist-shaking marches down the National Mall rarely matter much. The “One Nation” rally held by the NAACP, labor unions, and other liberal groups on a perfect day in early October barely managed to fill the lawns around the Reflecting Pool and offered no coherent message other than hostility toward the Tea Parties and their favorite candidates. Most of the nation probably didn’t even know the event had occurred. In contrast, Glenn Beck’s call to “Restore Honor” drew twice as many people, nearly all of whom were united by the strong twin desires to crush the left and praise the Lord. Still, even with its clear purpose and large turnout, the rally slipped from the limelight very quickly.
This weekend, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s massive “Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear” was, at least, a novel sort of political demonstration. And I do mean political. Granted, Stewart and his merry band of satirists, as promised, presented themselves as the bards of civil discourse and didn’t suggest how people should vote this year—or whether they should vote at all. They talked, and/or joked, about how to think, not what to think. Yet nearly every sign I saw and conversation I had, or overheard, among the masses gathered near the Capitol confirmed what should have been obvious to anyone who has ever watched The Daily Show or The Colbert Report: This was a liberal crowd of mostly young, white people who voted for Obama and are contemptuous of his conservative opponents....
Read entire article at The New Republic
Demonstrators have been coming to Washington since Coxey’s Army trudged up the steps of the Capitol during the depression of the 1890s. So it was probably inevitable that the traditional repertoire of protest would, by now, have grown rather stale. These days, passionate orators, earnest singers, and fist-shaking marches down the National Mall rarely matter much. The “One Nation” rally held by the NAACP, labor unions, and other liberal groups on a perfect day in early October barely managed to fill the lawns around the Reflecting Pool and offered no coherent message other than hostility toward the Tea Parties and their favorite candidates. Most of the nation probably didn’t even know the event had occurred. In contrast, Glenn Beck’s call to “Restore Honor” drew twice as many people, nearly all of whom were united by the strong twin desires to crush the left and praise the Lord. Still, even with its clear purpose and large turnout, the rally slipped from the limelight very quickly.
This weekend, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s massive “Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear” was, at least, a novel sort of political demonstration. And I do mean political. Granted, Stewart and his merry band of satirists, as promised, presented themselves as the bards of civil discourse and didn’t suggest how people should vote this year—or whether they should vote at all. They talked, and/or joked, about how to think, not what to think. Yet nearly every sign I saw and conversation I had, or overheard, among the masses gathered near the Capitol confirmed what should have been obvious to anyone who has ever watched The Daily Show or The Colbert Report: This was a liberal crowd of mostly young, white people who voted for Obama and are contemptuous of his conservative opponents....