Four Reasons Why Jon Stewart's Restoring Sanity Rally
Is Great for Progressives

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet Posted on October 29, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/148662/

Given the way things have gone for progressives since
the election of Barack Obama, perhaps we shouldn't be
blamed for looking warily, as some do, at the spectacle
that promises to fill the national Mall tomorrow at the
rally hosted by Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and
Stephen Colbert. But with any luck, it will be a eye-
feast of hundreds of thousands of good-humored, well-
behaved Americans, there to answer the cynicism of
Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, at which the
notion that the election of a black president somehow
sullied the nation's dignity was dressed in sanctimony
and a display of patriotism so bombastic that it was
almost camp.

Yet progressives and liberals, ranging from left wing
to the just left of center, have expressed a range of
reservations, missing, I believe, the larger point of
this rally's potential for reordering our out-of-whack
politics, if only for a moment. But if that moment
lasts until the polls close on Tuesday, it will have
been worth it.

I agree with Code Pink's Medea Benjamin, for instance,
that Stewart has made a false equivalence between the
louder voices of the left and the right, setting the
right's casting of Obama as Hitler on an equal plane
with complaints that George W. Bush presided over war
crimes. (The latter happens to be based on the fact
that crimes against innocents were committed in the
prosecution of an illegal war.)

Nonetheless, there are pluses that trump any minuses in
the confab that will descend upon the nation's capital
tomorrow:

1. Brilliant framing: Restoring Sanity v. Keep Fear
Alive - If only the White House had messaging gurus as
astute as the writers on the staff of The Daily Show
and the Colbert Report.

Jon Stewart, whose on-air character is the stand-in for
ordinary citizens amazed at the absurdity of American
politics first announced his part in tomorrow's big
event as a rally titled "Restoring Sanity," an obvious
rejoinder to the travesty that was the "Restoring
Honor" event convened by Fox News host Glenn Beck in
August. There's even a little inside joke in Stewart's
title: Pundits who are obviously ignorant of the tenets
of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program painted
Beck's revival as a sort of giant A.A. meeting,
although it resembled nothing of the kind. "Restoring
Sanity," however, comes straight out of A.A.'s second
step: "Came to believe that a Power greater than
ourselves could restore us to sanity."

In his parody of a right-wing talk-show host, Stephen
Colbert quickly countered with his "March to Keep Fear
Alive." (In fact, the "march" and the rally are a
single event.) This framing pours all the recent right-
wing demonstrations that have flooded the capital into
the "keeping fear alive" category, while everybody else
is defined as sane.

2. The inevitable aerial-view photos - In the age of
Google Earth, the impact of demonstrations is told in
satellite photos. What made Beck's rally so impressive
was the view from above. The Stewart/Colbert rally is
likely to draw at least as many people -- people who
are coming to Washington to make the statement that
they stand against the kind of fear-mongering that Beck
represents.

One of the right's strongest strategies has been to
present their mobs of angry, fearful people as
representative of everyday Americans, while the
traditional organizers of liberals and progressives
have failed, since the close of the presidential
campaign, to gather comparable crowds in support of
their issues. The impact this has on the national
psyche should not be dismissed.

I've heard political organizers grouse that they'd
rather have people out in the field, knocking on doors,
than assembling on the Mall to hear a bunch of
entertainers. But the people who come to Washington
tomorrow probably wouldn't be knocking on doors if
there was no rally. And what these organizers fail to
consider is the impact this event will make beyond the
crowd that actually assembles. This gathering will be
carried into millions of homes, not just via the Comedy
Central coverage, but in mainstream news outlets across
the nation. People who have been considering voting to
be a hopeless exercise may think otherwise. They will
see themselves reflected in the crowd. And the sight of
hundreds of thousands gathered to counter the right-
wing juggernaut at an event named "Restoring Sanity"
gives hope that our politics don't need to be as crazy
as they've become. And that will help get people --
sane people -- to the polls.

3. Recasting liberalism as mainstream - Everybody knows
that Jon Stewart's audience is largely a liberal one.
Why, then, is he describing his rally as the "Million
Moderate March"? Perhaps because most Americans think
of themselves as moderate.

The Guardian's Michael Tomasky has dwelt upon this
question, and frets that when the liberal colors of the
"moderate" crowd are shown, Fox News will have a field
day with the most left-wing placards in the crowd. And
no doubt they will.

But the Fox News audience is not Stewart's target: it's
the millions of Americans who don't watch Fox. A show
of strength on their part should give mainstream media
pause before endlessly repeating right-wing memes about
the Restoring Sanity gathering. Whatever liberals do or
don't do, Fox News will find a way to distort either
their actions or inaction. Yes, we need to be
strategically smart, but hiding is not an option.

4. Energizing young people - More young people get
their news from The Daily Show than from any
traditional news source. And young people are the slice
of the progressive coalition said to be the least
likely to turn out for next week's mid-term elections.
Stewart's rally, held just ahead of the election, could
be the best turn-out vehicle possible for this
demographic. He only needs to ask them to vote, and
many who might have chosen to do something else that
day could turn out. These congressional races are
tight. An extra little slice of of the eligible voter
pie could make a real difference in some.

Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington bureau chief.

(c) 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights
reserved.

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