Alex Pearlman
Journal Alumni
“Comedian/pundit/talker guys” Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert brought over 250,000 people to the National Mall in D.C. to explain that the country is “living now in hard times, not end times,” and to call for a restoration of sanity in political discourse.
Some of those hundreds of thousands of people came to the rally with a purpose: to campaign for something, such as the group of “pissed off” anarchists who staged a black bloc they called the Million Molotov March, or notorious cyber activists Anonymous who had an event to wear their Guy Fawkes masks to.
But most attendees didn’t fit that mold – not that they necessarily fit any mold, which was the point. It was a display of every possible American demographic and many attendees were there to voice their dismay with U.S. politics, the president, the war, education, race relations, or the assault on grammar. Some just wanted to watch some funny comedians, a couple of decent musicians, and feel like they were a part of something.
Kyle, 28, from North Carolina, shared a porta-potty roof with this reporter across from the National Gallery of Art. He said he’s “not really that politically active, but, you know, I vote…” and that he had driven up with two friends to support his favorite comedians/news anchors and “have some fun.”
Tim, 21, a junior at William & Mary said, “I’m here for moderation. My mom’s a Tea Partier, and I happen to be along the lines of ‘just chillax everybody,’ because, quite frankly, everyone’s too stressed out. Two parties, no solutions. But this just proves that even though the Tea Party can come here and be rallying and all that bullshit, and everyone’s arguing on Fox News and CSPAN, this is a whole bunch of people who are just like, ‘everyone, shut up!’”
The Roots, John Legend, Vampire Weekend, and Green Day all played before Stewart and Colbert came on stage to start off their event.
Colbert, who appeared from his “fear bunker” under the stage, wore a ridiculous Evel Knievel costume and ran around screaming wildly, after he emerged from his Chilean Miner Rescue Pod.
Ozzy Osbourne and Yusef Islam (né Cat Stevens) played a dueling duet of train-themed songs (“Crazy Train” and “Peace Train”), and other notable personalities took to the stage and jumbotron.
A mock-debate about reason vs. fear ensued because Colbert declared, in ever satirical character, “every point [Stewart was making] must have a counter-point.”
They were in their third or fourth costumes at this point, and Stewart attempted to convince Colbert’s wild, conservative character that “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.”
But Colbert did explain why he’s filled with enough fear to base a march on the premise: the media, specifically political punditry and sensationalist news gathering, which was illustrated by two video montages. The first of the clips were from Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and other political news operations. The second showed clips from mostly local news channels reporting on killer bees, the danger of flip flop sandals, and other seemingly benign “dangers.”
“Fear” and “Sanity” are words that got tossed around a lot on Saturday, but they are subjective ones. This made it easy to relate to the content of the rally, or for attendees to make us their own ideas about who or what “sanity and/or fear” referred to. Still, Stewart and Colbert gave the crowd some examples of each, just to be fair.
Medals for Reasonableness and Fear were bestowed on Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Gallarraga, Velma Hart, pro wrestler Mick Foley, the mainstream media, (The New York Times, ABC, NPR, and others for not allowing their staff to attend the rally because it may be perceived as being biased, Anderson Cooper’s tight, black t-shirt and Mark Zuckerberg.
Stewart then closed up the whole affair by explaining himself and his intentions in a “sincere” speech.
“This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and we have nothing to fear – they are and we do,” he said.
“There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats. But those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume,” he said and continued to place blame the lack of reason that inspired the rally on the “24-hour political pundit, perpetual panic conflictinator.”
Purporting, “if we amplify everything, we hear nothing.”
The numbers of people who came to the rally last Saturday on the national Mall more than doubled those that showed up for Glenn Beck’s Rally to Restore Honor months before. And the supporters there weren’t the only ones who participated.
The Twitter hashtag #Rally4Sanity updated rapidly with new Tweets for days before and after, and over 1,200 satellite rallies were held in 80-plus countries, many of which had their own websites, Facebook event pages, and Twitter handles. Reddit.com’s idea for Stephen Colbert to hold a “Rally for Truthiness” finally came to fruition.
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