The crowds at Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear were insane – in size and by and large nothing to fear.
I arrived at D.C.’s National Mall close to the crack of dawn and already there were thousands – it was estimated that 150,000-250,000 people turned up in total.
Many took the opportunity to make protest signs appropriate for the rally’s theme, as well as appropriate for the event’s unusual mix of protest and humor (or you could say for an event protesting the lack of humor in America’s current polarized political climate).
Some of my personal favourite signs from the day included: Make Awkward Sexual Advances, Not War, I Think Therefore I Am Not Glenn Beck (one of the more infamous right wing pundits on Fox News) and Listening To Your Gut? It’s Not God, It’s Just Gas!
A more serious and pointed sign referred to the “tea baggers” (a nickname for the extreme right wing Tea Party Movement) as “hypocritical bastards” – the woman carrying this was rebuked by a fellow rallier, who said the sign was not “in the spirit” of the rally. This seemed to be the case as the event was for at least a majority of the time neither partisan or very serious.
Between several musical performances from surprise and uber-famous guests, including The Roots, Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens), Ozzy Osbourne, Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock, Stewart played the reasonable straight man to Colbert’s fear mongering persona. It was pretty much a variety show of comedy and music, with the comedy often lacking (I felt) the biting satirical edge of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, with the exception of Daily Show correspondents Wyatt Cenec and Jason Jones having a brilliant comic meta-moment, satirizing the spin that reporters (like me, for instance) often put on political rallies.
Other memorable moments include Yusuf Islam being interrupted singing his classic Peace Train by Ozzy Osbourne appearing out of nowhere to peform the substantially less peaceful and, of course, less saner, Crazy Train.
It was only during the rally’s final minutes that Stewart took a more earnest and political tone, doing a closing speech in which he emphasized the need for reason, non-partisanship, compromise and an end to the country’s ideological divisiveness fueled by America’s cable news networks (such as Fox News and the liberal leaning MSNBC).
“Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, Liberals or Conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do-often something that they do not want to do-but they do it. Impossible things every day that are only made possible by the little reasonable compromises that we all make,” said Stewart.
The majority of rally participants, I spoke with, agreed whole heartedly with Stewart’s message and delivery. Though a handful of people I spoke with felt Stewart missed a chance to convey a more in depth and action-provoking message.
Activist and editor Tegan Jones said that while she enjoyed the rally, she wished that Stewart had offered his mic over to people who could talk about what we can do to effect positive changes in our communities.
“He had a big stage. He had hours of national cable television that he could have dedicated to a real message,” said Jones.
