If you have watched the news at all in the past few days, you have surely seen numerous images of protesters at the National Mall in Washington, DC. You might recall that these protests were promoted by Glenn Beck on his popular evening show on Fox News, and in general expressed reactionary sentiments opposing the Obama Administration. Good. Yes, for the very fact that they were protesting, I commend them. One of the things I lament about the United States is that it has a weak tradition of spontaneous democratic demonstrations. It is a rarity in America to seen people demonstrating at all, in contrast to some European societies, where protest is a normal mechanism of the democratic process.
The multiplicity of political ideologies represented at the 9/12 protests was remarkable. From the borderline anarchists, to the radical libertarians ("Ayn Rand was right!"), to vaguely apocalyptic Christians ("Only God Can Save Us Now”), the protest represented a thorough cross section of the right half of American polity. A good many of the protesters had something approximately constructive to say. They were making an argument, and proposed some sort of solution, albeit in a polemical, bumper-sticker sort of way.
What was saddening, however, was the large proportion of signage at the protest that could be best described as “hate mongering.” The favored devices of this group were vulgarized Obama campaign portraits and malapropism of the political vernacular. For example, it seems that roughly half of the protesters believed Obama to be a socialist, while an equal proportion deemed him a fascist, despite the oppositional locations of these two ideologies on the political spectrum. I realize that this is confusing, especially since Mussolini began his career as a socialist journalist, and Hitler's party was poorly named the National Socialist German Worker's Party, but nonetheless, the use of fascism and socialism as interchangeable terminology is an indicator of the cheap populism drove many of these protesters to Washington and an ineloquent expression of the urgency of the current situation in the eyes of right wing radicals.
Overwhelmingly, the protesters identified Obama as unamerican, or foreign. Predictably, the media's use of the term "Czar" to refer to Obama's personal advisors has been a stumbling block for many in the Beck camp. It seems that some have believed this term to be referring to a new administrative post in the style of 19th century Russian absolute monarchy. Attempts to associate Obama with Muslim radicals ("ali Bama"), or to question his very nationality ("Where's the birth certificate?") were also widespread at the 9/12 protests. The strict Manichean divide between what is seen to be Good and Evil, Obama and “True America,” is frightening. True America is one that is capitalist, rural, white and patriarchal. It will rewrite history to prove its authenticity, and it will allow no middle ground in its struggle to protect an illusory status quo. This no-compromise attitude is what propelled the French Revolution into chaos and brought German crowds to a frenzy on the Night of Broken Glass. This line of thought is what should be making people nervous, not the moderate social democratic policies of the administration.
