Who Says They Aren't Patriotic?
Nov. 5th, 2008 02:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
le_bebna_kamniTonight I had the most amazing experience -- so amazing that I'm not even really sure how to begin to describe it.
Tonight matt_arnold and I made a trip into downtown Ann Arbor to see what kinds of celebrations were occurring. At first, I was a bit bothered -- true, the bars were busy, but I had expected something more. After all, I've escaped several riots over alcohol and basketball games (although to give Ann Arbor credit, this was at MSU), so surely something as important as an election would get people to take to the streets.
But the streets seemed remarkably dead -- where was everybody?
And then we saw them...or rather, we heard them first. A huge mass of people cheering and playing drums and musical instruments -- in a remarkably well-orchestrated fashion, I might add, for such a large crowd. It stretched out for several blocks, and I couldn't even begin to estimate how many people were there -- and at one-o'clock in the morning, no less! The police came at one point and tried to block off the streets, but people just ignored them and kept on marching, and when the police figured out that they weren't causing any harm they let everyone carry on.
We followed the crowd, which would run for a ways, then walk, then congregate at an intersection and sit on the ground for several minutes until at some unannounced signal everyone would stand up and continue on to the next unplanned stop.
And the energy was amazing. People were hugging each other, even people they didn't know. Some would climb up on light posts or building overhangs and bang drums and lead cheers.
But the thing that absolutely amazed me was how patriotic they were. People everywhere were carrying American flags and waving them high in the air. The crowd would frequently break out into singing the National Anthem, or "When the Saints Go Marching In", or even reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. And yet this is the kind of experience that we have been told for so long is somehow exclusive to people in the right wing, that leftists are haters of the country.
And I can honestly say that until tonight, I really believed that. After all, this group of people I saw tonight were the same kind of people who, just a year ago, I might have heard saying that they hated what the U.S. was doing and that they didn't trust the government.
But tonight I realized that it just isn't true. The people I saw tonight have always been patriotic -- but in a country that is intended to be run by its own citizens, they felt like the country was no longer following that role for them because they weren't being represented. The right-wingers who, for the past eight years have been called the true "patriots" were simply the ones who felt like they were being represented -- and it's easy to love your country when you feel like it's doing what you want.
Clearly this election will disenfranchise many of the people who were reasonably satisfied during the Bush years. I suspect that in many ways, they will feel more disenfranchised in the future than the people who voted for Obama have felt in the past eight years -- and that says a lot.
I make the last remark because the signs are there that the McCain supporters are far more polarized than, say, the people who supported Gore or Kerry. When Gore conceded the 2000 election, people were disappointed -- even critical -- of his choice not to fight the Supreme Court decision. But he wasn't booed by his own supporters the way McCain was. Yet McCain wasn't even conceding a contested election. And in spite of the fact that, based on Obama's record in the Senate, he's shown himself to be a fairly centrist leader and not an uber-liberal wunderkind, McCain's supporters have largely painted him with as a radical socialist who will wreck everything the free world stands for.
So now that the shoe will be on the other foot, I wonder how patriotic McCain's supporters will be in the coming years. Will I see them waving flags and singing about how great our country is, in spite of the fact that a majority of people elected someone the McCain's supporters don't see eye-to-eye with? Or will I be sitting in a coffee shop with my more conservative friends, listening to them making the same speeches about how the country is going to hell and they don't trust the government that I heard from my liberal friends over the past eight years?
Tonight matt_arnold and I made a trip into downtown Ann Arbor to see what kinds of celebrations were occurring. At first, I was a bit bothered -- true, the bars were busy, but I had expected something more. After all, I've escaped several riots over alcohol and basketball games (although to give Ann Arbor credit, this was at MSU), so surely something as important as an election would get people to take to the streets.
But the streets seemed remarkably dead -- where was everybody?
And then we saw them...or rather, we heard them first. A huge mass of people cheering and playing drums and musical instruments -- in a remarkably well-orchestrated fashion, I might add, for such a large crowd. It stretched out for several blocks, and I couldn't even begin to estimate how many people were there -- and at one-o'clock in the morning, no less! The police came at one point and tried to block off the streets, but people just ignored them and kept on marching, and when the police figured out that they weren't causing any harm they let everyone carry on.
We followed the crowd, which would run for a ways, then walk, then congregate at an intersection and sit on the ground for several minutes until at some unannounced signal everyone would stand up and continue on to the next unplanned stop.
And the energy was amazing. People were hugging each other, even people they didn't know. Some would climb up on light posts or building overhangs and bang drums and lead cheers.
But the thing that absolutely amazed me was how patriotic they were. People everywhere were carrying American flags and waving them high in the air. The crowd would frequently break out into singing the National Anthem, or "When the Saints Go Marching In", or even reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. And yet this is the kind of experience that we have been told for so long is somehow exclusive to people in the right wing, that leftists are haters of the country.
And I can honestly say that until tonight, I really believed that. After all, this group of people I saw tonight were the same kind of people who, just a year ago, I might have heard saying that they hated what the U.S. was doing and that they didn't trust the government.
But tonight I realized that it just isn't true. The people I saw tonight have always been patriotic -- but in a country that is intended to be run by its own citizens, they felt like the country was no longer following that role for them because they weren't being represented. The right-wingers who, for the past eight years have been called the true "patriots" were simply the ones who felt like they were being represented -- and it's easy to love your country when you feel like it's doing what you want.
Clearly this election will disenfranchise many of the people who were reasonably satisfied during the Bush years. I suspect that in many ways, they will feel more disenfranchised in the future than the people who voted for Obama have felt in the past eight years -- and that says a lot.
I make the last remark because the signs are there that the McCain supporters are far more polarized than, say, the people who supported Gore or Kerry. When Gore conceded the 2000 election, people were disappointed -- even critical -- of his choice not to fight the Supreme Court decision. But he wasn't booed by his own supporters the way McCain was. Yet McCain wasn't even conceding a contested election. And in spite of the fact that, based on Obama's record in the Senate, he's shown himself to be a fairly centrist leader and not an uber-liberal wunderkind, McCain's supporters have largely painted him with as a radical socialist who will wreck everything the free world stands for.
So now that the shoe will be on the other foot, I wonder how patriotic McCain's supporters will be in the coming years. Will I see them waving flags and singing about how great our country is, in spite of the fact that a majority of people elected someone the McCain's supporters don't see eye-to-eye with? Or will I be sitting in a coffee shop with my more conservative friends, listening to them making the same speeches about how the country is going to hell and they don't trust the government that I heard from my liberal friends over the past eight years?
