It Wasn't like Woodstock...

It wasn’t like Woodstock. There was no mud, everyone was fully clothed and there were no drugs except possibly an occasional dose of Viagra or Geritol. And it wasn’t like the anti-war protests or civil rights marches with their clear ideological messages.

No the FreedomWorks, Teabag crowd in Washington on Saturday was nothing like those other gatherings. It was a display of discontent by people who had complaints about anything and everything, who ranted about imaginary socialistic programs not to be confused with the real ones from which they derive special benefits. It was an event for malcontents who took their over-heated, Glenn-Beck-induced rhetoric to the national stage where its incoherent message could reach the zenith of unfocused, scatter-shot rage.

Perhaps in its quivering excitement, the crowd missed FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe’s observation that something would have to be done about entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. He wasn’t specific so his words just hung out there without attracting a lot of attention as attendees reveled in their shining moment. There were no cries of “hands off my Medicare” when he spoke, and probably not much thought given to what he actually meant. These were not folks given to serious reflection about the meaning of words that aren’t wrapped in a slogan.

Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, was introduced as “a special treat” and greeted with cheers when he said “welcome to Waterloo,” his goal of defeating both health-care reform and the president clearly in mind. Republicans Eric Cantor of Virginia and Mike Pence of Indiana also spoke - - Pence especially beguiled by the rally’s theme, ‘fighting for freedom,’ as if we had suddenly become enslaved when President Obama took office.  No-one it seems took a moment to consider that without the freedom to dissent, these insufferably dull-witted politicians wouldn’t have been able to appear and speak such drivel. They should have been ashamed, but lest we forget - - they have no shame.

One of the more curious speakers was from  “The Ayn Rand Association” who told attendees emphatically that it's “your life, you’re not your brother’s keeper”, that neighbor who didn’t save and got himself into financial trouble. But if most of the audience had even a clue about Rand's writings they might have recoiled at the terrorist act of her hero in The Fountainhead who blew up buildings that didn’t conform to his original design. Oh well, Rand was just making some kind of point, sort of like Ann Coulter who said she regretted that Timothy McVeigh didn’t target the NY Times building in NYC instead of the one in Oklahoma. Fiddle de Dee.

The weekend’s message was less focused than we had been led to believe. But it wasn’t just about health-care reform and government spending. More disturbing, subterranean currents were in play. With respect to diversity, one would have had to comb the outermost reaches of the assembled throng to find a person of color. The most visible black faces were a woman who shouted from the podium “Charlie Rangel, pay your taxes” and an entertainer who intoned a bastardized version of “New York, New York” where Frank Sinatra’s rendition is played when the NY Yankees win at home.

Scary people like a woman saying “the Muslims are taking over” and others holding a giant homemade cross emblazoned with a religious message of some sort provided insight into the personal fears and biases characterized by a crowd of overwhelmingly white demonstrators, eerily reminiscent of angry white crowds from the past. For some the only things that seemed to be missing were pointy hoods and long white robes.

Tea-baggers and Republicans in general are unlikely to support health-care-reform of any sort. Newly minted hero Joe Wilson, for example, insists that undocumented workers could receive taxpayer-financed health care unless enforcement measures are included in proposed legislation, procedures that would undoubtedly target brown people - - an image that stirs up memories of Justice Rehnquist’s forays into Arizona polling places where he harassed black voters, ostensibly to make sure they were properly registered.

Such are the troubling perceptions that linger in the wake of last weekend’s event. Oddly, Republicans are ‘astonished’ that charges of racism have surfaced in response to some of the behaviors in Congress and on the part of protesters. But members of a party that long embraced a “southern strategy” as a major component of its political modus operandi, shouldn’t be all that surprised that supporters carry on the tradition.

Correction: Remarks by the speaker from the Ayn Rand Association were incorrectly attributed to Andrew Langer of the Institute for Liberty previously. The reference to Mr. Langer has been removed with apologies.