What Comes Next.
This is a faux photograph, as these are my friends Brendan and Ray at the Love Park Tea Bag Party (where out of a city of six million, in a downtown that just had 2 million people line the streets for the Phillies, in a park that have over 100,000 show up for John Kerry and Bill Clinton in 2004….. 300 people showed up for the tea bag party).
As I told a friend yesterday, these tea bag parties have been the greatest unintentional innuendo of all time. And it has been fun laughing at all these conservatives, because their complaints are idiotic, illogical, insane and inane. But that is just me as a liberal Democrat talking, and maybe their own hyprocrisy does not bother them. But let us liberals now offer them some advice, and I will let ‘thereisnospoon‘ speak for me again. Because we all on the left side of the aisle have been where the right is now.
For many of you [teabaggers], these poorly attended, ill-considered events are your first foray into real citizen activism, and your first venture into the art of the street protest. Insofar as you have taken the opportunity to do in some small way the work that progressives have long done (and usually moved beyond in recent years), I applaud your efforts. It certainly beats slapping a useless yellow ribbon on your SUV and calling it an act of patriotism. For better or for worse, Americans have had a chance to see your ideas, such as they may be, on full display.
Personally, I believe (and the polls would suggest) that your doing so works to our advantage rather than yours, but that is neither here nor there.
Instead, what I want to address here is not what you did during your protests, but how you feel now. You’ve said your piece and waved your signs, marched in front of the taxpayer-funded buildings and heard the car honks voicing the approval of your compatriots speeding by on your taxpayer-funded roads. You took time off of work (if you haven’t found yourself laid off in the new Bush economy) to make yourself heard.
And now you’re back at home. Perhaps you’re working at the last minute to fill out your belated 1040, frothing at the mouth and cursing the fates with every stroke of the pen. I want to address the sense of helplessness you feel right now. The knowledge that, in the long run, nothing you did today made the slightest difference.
I know because I’ve been there. You may recall that about half of America disapproved of George W. Bush’s plans to invade Iraq. There was a huge public outcry both here and around the world: by some accounts, some 36 million people across the globe took part in 3,000 major demonstrations against Bush’s Iraq policy between January 3 and April 12, 2003 alone.
Over the years to come, millions of Americans repeatedly engaged in protests against the invasion, the war, and the occupation. They did so in numbers that dwarf by far the pittance that showed up to your tea parties–and they did so without the help and support of entire cable news organizations and the biggest voices in AM radio. Starting in about 2005, they did so with the support of a majority of American public opinion behind them in opposition to the war; by contrast, polling shows that your negative views of Obama’s economic policies are a small minority.
And none of it mattered in the least. All those people, myself included, speaking all that truth to power, accomplished precisely nothing.
Because at the end of the day, the American people had elected George W. Bush as president. At the end of day, the American people in their infinite wisdom had chosen to elect a majority of Republicans to represent their interests in the House and the Senate. At the end of the day, our traditional media outlets were controlled by a small cabal of corporate owners, and the journalists were each and every one scrambling for access to the very politicians whom they should have been holding accountable.
Public opinion was irrelevant. Protests were irrelevant. All that mattered was the individuals who controlled the levers of power. The only thing that mattered, in the end, was elections.
Having observed that grim reality, some of us (like Cindy Sheehan and those in Code Pink) were determined to dig in our heels in the pursuit of the sort of self-righteous hostility that only true political irrelevance can bring.
The rest decided it was time for effective mobilization in the pursuit of winning elections.
And now you know the rest of the story (doing my best Paul Harvey impression). This is the key to this tea bag movement right here. This is the conservatives’ defining moment: the decision they make right now. Do they continue in pointless protests a la Code Pink? Do they continue being the Party of No, shouting their opposition on talk radio and cable TV without any new effective plan of their own? Do the more extreme among them resort to violence and terrorism?
Or do they begin to mobilize like we did to win an election? It will be a harder road for them than it was for us, since two thirds of America disagrees with them now whereas two thirds of America agreed with us then and now. And patience is not a strong conservative character trait.
So we will have to wait and see I guess.
I’m also baffled as to why conservatives are following some of the least effective methods of the left. I don’t think street protests are very effective at all, except telling people “I’m mad.” Like some of the anti-Iraq protests, it was difficult for organizers to get protesters into a unifying theme. The Civil Rights protests were indeed very effective because of their uniformity of purpose and the over-the-top violence and hatred exhibited by the law enforcement and counter-protesters. It basically brought attention to a great evil, which some people knew very little about.
The world has changed since then. We’re much more connected and these protests really lacked a unifying theme besides not liking Obama.
I asked myself the same question last night – What next? The real problem for tea baggers is that they don’t have a cohesive message – other than being against Obama. (And why they keep pretending they’re not escapes me, since it’s the only thing that unites them.)
Even when they organize, they’re disorganized. Tea Parties could just as easily been called bitch sessions – feels good to vent, but then it’s over.
The other problem with these tea parties is a complete lack of solutions. They know they are really, really angry, but offer no alternatives. What do they want to happen? How will they make this happen? What next?
UI, jinx! Great minds, and all…
Jon Stewart said it best – losing is supposed to taste like a sh#t taco.
TPM has some pictures from various rallies around the country. My favorites are the “Billionaires for Bush” in the DC rally.
Here’s Nate Silver’s analysis of the attendance. Around 250K, but probably a little higher. I don’t think any of the Delaware numbers are in there.
Pictures from Philly. It sounds like they had very pitiful attendance. Plus, people in costume!
Heh, Pandora. I think our minds also melded with Atrios:
Don’t forget, to be innovative, one must be thinking out of the box and willing to change.
Now, does that describe modern-day:
-1) Conservatives
-2) Progressives
It’s really that simple. Innovation isn’t a hallmark. The most daring move is tweaking something that’s already been going on for who-knows-how-long.
Conservatives, by their very make up, are afraid of change. They are conservative because they are traditional, seeking to preserve the status quo.
In the past, they have found new ways to present their message, and in the past, the country found itself in a conservative mood.
And none of it mattered in the least. All those people, myself included, speaking all that truth to power, accomplished precisely nothing.
Wake up. This is B.S. THE PROTESTS MATTERED AND TEHY ACCOMPLISHED ALOT! Did they end the war immediately? No. Did it help keep the issue in front of the American people? Yes. Did it show the world that millions of Americans cared? You bet. Did it help people speak out when they saw others speak out in numbers? Absolutely. Did they provide a forum and a visible political base for antiwar politicians? Sure did.
To accept the idea that peaceful street protests are “obsolete” is to buy into the corporate media meme that only “they” matter. The villagers hate protests. If you don’t think that the protesters helped end the war, then just imagine what would have happened if the protest hadn’t occurred. Politicians and pundits would have acted like the whole world supported George Bush’s war.
Protests help shape public opinion and help get people into activist groups and motivated to get to the ballot box. So please don’t buy into the media and politician’s message that protests don’t matter anymore. They are only saying that because they hate them.
Thousands of people marching in solidarity in the street still make a difference. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
A1,
I think protests matter but I think organizing, giving time and money to candidates, voting and running for office make much more of a difference. Communicating your message is the first step. The big question is whether protests are an effective way to get the message out. When they’re a mess of conflicting ideas, it doesn’t help all that much. I certainly think the media matters a great deal to getting the message out, that’s why the blogosphere was created and has thrived, to get around the corporate filter and get the message out.
UI,
I agree that all of the things you listed are critically important. But when election day is over and you don’t have millions of media dollars, you can take to the street or other forms of peaceful protest. It brings people together in ways that nothing else does, including and especially blogging.
I think the war in Iraq would have ended along time ago if everybody who was against it had taken to the streets everyday with constant marches on Washington and other cities. The chant of “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today” heard day and night inside the White House helped drive LBJ from office.
Blogging is no substitute for sneakers on the street.
DD you got front paged at DKos again with this.