The Rally Lived Up to Its Promise of False Equivalence

The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear happened this weekend. It was surprisingly as apolitical as Stewart and Colbert had promised, and perhaps even anti-political. They never even said to go vote, which, in a non-partisan fashion, would have absolutely been the right message. As exciting as it was, in this regard, the rally may well have done more damage than good.

First, as I pointed out before, the promise of this rally was one of pure false equivalence, basically between Fox News and MSNBC. This is something that gets me consistently lecturing people in real life, something that Jon Stewart knows better than to do, and something he usually doesn't do. Keith Olbermann, in response to the rally, said two things: 1) The message of ratcheting down the tone was not lost on him, and so he is suspending the "Worst Person in the World" segment. (Kudos to him for being responsive - this is a great move.); and more importantly, 2) he called out Jon Stewart on the false equivalence between MSNBC and Fox. This might seem self-serving, but he's absolutely right. In a way, Stewart's lambasting of both sides is, ironically, his own form of fearmongering rhetoric about the health our of discourse. Here's the Olbermann clip. It's well worth watching.




The second problem I'd like to highlight is something that Lester Feder wrote about in the Columbia Journalism Review: The net effect of the rally may well have been to persuade a couple million people that it's perfectly reasonable to disengage from this meaningless, worthless discourse.

While it may be heartening to progressives that Stewart’s turnout walloped Beck’s, they should be deeply concerned about the event’s message to the people the movement must rely on to advance the causes it cares about. By relentlessly parodying the divisive tone of political debate without offering an alternative model for politicking, the event’s net effect is to make walking away from the political process seem like a rational decision. Or, even worse, a principled one.

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Frustration with divisive politics and distaste for the drudgery that is the bulk of political work are perfectly legitimate. But creating a “parallel universe” where satire is a stand-in for engagement is the political equivalent of Never-Never Land for citizens who won’t grow up. Stewart may be right that a reasonable person should be fed up with over-the-top political rhetoric, but they can do a lot more than “care.” The only way to change the tone of the political process—and the pundit operations that serves as its midwife—is to prove that an alternative model works. That means it’s not enough to feel bad or laugh, though it’s understandable to need a break from politics to recharge. If you want things to be different, though, you have to get involved in the process and, yes, choose sides.

Without an alternative vision of politics, this probably was the takeaway for a lot of people - politics and politicos suck, so why bother? The Rally could have been a lot more helpful if the hosts had asked people to get involved, not necessarily on one side or another, but to go and debate reasonably, to remain engaged, because we can be better than this. Instead, I have to tell you now what Stewart and Colbert didn't even bother to say:

GO VOTE TODAY.