If there were such a thing as The Daily Show generation, I would be a member of it. Jon Stewart took over the late night show on Comedy Central when I was in college, the time in my life when I started to form my political outlook. The show got me through graduate school (or, I should say, George W. Bush’s presidency, which almost perfectly coincided with the eight years I spent getting my PhD), the time in my life when I learned how to articulate and substantiate my political outlook. As 9/11 happened, as the nation’s unity shifted into vitriolic division, as the Bush administration launched two wars using justification that proved to be unfounded, and as American political discourse became increasingly absurd, The Daily Show became a source of catharsis. Watching the show, I didn’t have to feel weird or crazy for getting upset when “you’re either with us or against us” got branded as patriotism, for observing the irony in Sarah Palin's admiration for her daughter's "choice" to have her baby, for cringing anytime anyone who's not a murderous dictator gets compared to Hitler. In a time when the most insane politicians and pundits seem to get the most power and attention, The Daily Show has been one of very few voices that articulated what I often felt alone in feeling and thinking.
So it's no surprise that I was one of the estimated 215,000 people who attended Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear this past Saturday. I wasn't sure if was going to turn into the progressive response to Glenn Beck's rally, if it was going to be an irony-fest for smug hipsters, or if it was just going to be one giant party. From where I was standing, it wasn't really any of these things. True, I got the sense that people in attendance identified themselves as liberal, since the overtly political signs largely poked fun at Christine O'Donnell, FOX News and the Tea Party. But people weren't there to push any particular political agenda. I didn't see anyone promoting any political candidates, in spite of the fact that the rally took place just three days before election day. I didn't even overhear any political discussions amongst the other attendees around me. I was pleasantly surprised by the age range of the people I saw. While my early morning bus to D.C. was full of college kids, I ended up sitting near a lot middle-aged folks, some of whom admitted that they didn't even watch The Daily Show. The energy was positive. People just seemed happy to be there, making room for each other, making sure that their signs weren't obstructing someone else's view, sharing snacks. This really was a gathering of reasonable people who wanted to make themselves visible as the non-insane majority of America.
I applaud Stewart's closing speech, his "moment of sincerity" in which he condemns both our political process and the "24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator" for projecting images of ourselves as angry, fear-mongering monsters incapable of compromise. Stewart was very careful in condemning extremists from both sides, saying at one point, "Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one's humanity but their own?"
This is where I think Stewart missed an opportunity to talk about the substance behind the rhetoric. While extremism on any end of any political spectrum is never a good thing, we need to acknowledge that it is not the extreme left that is currently holding the microphone. It is not the extreme left that is calling President Obama is a fascist, claiming that that health care reform is tantamount to a Bolshevik takeover, that all Muslims are out to destroy America. I can't think of a single Marxist who is actively subverting our Constitution (never mind that Marxism in and of itself is not extremism), but people like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter have made careers spewing racist and homophobic beliefs every day. Let us not forget, too, that our Congress still has room for former unabashed Klu Klux Klan members, such as Senator Robert Byrd, who died earlier this year. Our political terrain is so tilted to the right, that even "moderate" people are voting for laws that undermine a woman's right to an abortion, allow law enforcement officers to racially profile people, keep gay and lesbian Americans from getting married and serving in the military. Pundits and politicians from the left dare not suggest that we reduce defense spending, insist on a public health care option, grant citizenship to immigrants who have labored their whole lives in this country. There's no political payoff to stand by liberal policies, but it's politically safe to concede to conservative ones. No radical leftist party has gotten the kind of clout that the Tea Party has.
Stewart is right in saying, "When we amplify everything, we hear nothing." I would add that, right now, it seems like only one side is being amplified, and that's the only side we're hearing. Perhaps if there were an insane leftist ideological machine that was equally as influential as FOX News, we would get a better sense of where to locate the actual middle. Maybe people will realize that the liberal counterpart to FOX isn't NPR or even MSNBC. Maybe people will realize that Obama really is more of a centrist than he is a liberal. Maybe people will see that some reasonable and moderate people do dig the theories of Karl Marx, and some reasonable and moderate people are a little bit racist and homophobic.
The "Wall Street bailout" is one example of where right-wing fear-mongering has dictated what positions we're even allowed to take on any issue. Those hell-bent on taking down Obama and the Democrats have used it as an example of how "big government" is turning our country Socialist. There hasn't been a radical counterpart to this position, no prominent ideologue jumping for joy over the extent to which the government has to step in to solve our problems, nor any famous anarchist opposing the bailout with the belief that our financial system should collapse. The Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was actually signed into law by George W. Bush, not only prevented a complete collapse of our financial system, but has also been paid back in full and with interest. TARP was not at all a leftist conspiracy for a government takeover of Wall Street, but somehow it has been framed as one by the insane right. As a result, Obama gets no credit for following through on it, but John Boehner gets a lot of airplay decrying it and calling for it to be shut down. (Never mind that in 2008, when Bush was president, Boehner cried on the floor of Congress, begging his colleagues to vote for the bailout.)
Or, another example is the debate over the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. When the leftist position is one that is merely advocating for equal rights to all American serving in the armed forces, there isn't room in the political spectrum for someone like me, who is disturbed by the policy, but is even more disturbed by the fact the Department of Defense is the nation's largest employer. There isn't room in our political spectrum to even suggest a downsizing of our military industrial complex.
I can appreciate that the purpose of the rally wasn't to promote any particular political agenda. The rally may not have been as successful if it did. I just wish that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had spoken more about the substance behind the rhetoric in addition to rhetoric itself. The problem in this country isn't that insane people from both sides of the political spectrum are yelling too much and making it impossible for anyone to compromise. It's that insane people from the right are the only ones yelling while everyone else is staying quiet. And their yelling is also setting parameters of what everyone else is allowed to support or reject. I don't believe that the solution is to encourage the insane left to do some yelling, but I do think we need to readjust the barometer before we all agree to "take it down a notch." We need to restore not only sanity, but an idea of what "moderate" really means. In today's political terrain, I get lumped in with the insane radicals, simply because the middle bar is so skewed to the right. And while I have no problems with identifying myself as a radical, I have to insist that my concerns are entirely reasonable and that my ideas for what would be better for this country are governed by careful thought. I may be a radical, but I'm also a sane one.
