Jeb Bladine: Dontcha just love our messy U.S. democracy?
Last time I checked, our American experiment still was a democracy. And “the people” still were in charge, despite their occasional lapses in holding their government both responsible and accountable.
Reportedly, 5 to 7 million Americans participated in the nationwide “No Kings” protest on Saturday, including peaceful protest by an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 people in McMinnville. No Kings ranked among the largest protest events in modern American history — greatly newsworthy on most news value criteria that include impact, proximity, prominence, human interest, conflict and novelty/oddity.
The News-Register published six No Kings protest photos in its Monday e-edition, along with one from another same-day statewide political protest calling for the recall of Gov. Tina Kotek.
That prompted one anonymous reader to comment online: “Very disappointing both sides-ism here. The two events were nowhere near equivalent in either scope or purpose. But should make the conservatives in this county happy to see the News Register take the mainstream media approach to downplaying the current destruction of our country.”
That failure to recognize the reasonable connection of simultaneous passionate, statewide political protests was, at first, mildly annoying. But after all, free and unfettered comment is an essential ingredient to that ongoing American experiment.
Democracy — dontcha just love it?
No Kings protests purportedly turned out about 1.5 percent of the U.S. population, making it our largest one-day political protests since Hands Across America. Neither approached the estimated 10 percent of American population turnout for Earth Day in 1970.
The list of impactful American protests in the past century runs deep: Anti-war and anti-violence related to Vietnam, nuclear arms, Iraq, and 2018 March for Our Lives (Parkland shooting); anti-poverty reflected by the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign and 1986 Hands Across America; race and gender equality causes with, among many, 2020 Black Lives Matter, 2017 Women’s March, 1995 Million Man March, 1993 LGBT March, 1950s-1960s Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, March on Washington and Selma-Montgomery, 1917 NAACP Silent Parade and 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession.
Democracy, many have said, is messy. Occasionally, though, moments of unexpected clarity cause stunning turnarounds in the political landscape.
In one of those moments, U.S. Army attorney Joseph Welch asked U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
Another occurred when presidential candidate Hillary Clinton foolishly said, “You could put half of Donald Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables … the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”
Perhaps, yet another such moment happened when U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson characterized the “No Kings” supporters:
“We call it the hate America rally” … “It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the, you know, the Antifa people. They’re all coming out” … We refer to it by its more accurate description, the Hate America Rally, okay? And I’m not sure how anybody can refute that.”
It will be interesting to see reactions from the friends and neighbors of those millions of No Kings protesters.
Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.
Comments
Judy
I would not call it a "hate America protest", it was a love America protest! All the people throughout America took time from their chores and other family obligations to join with others because of concern for the state of our democracy. We are steadily losing it through authoritarian actions by the Trump Administration and it actually pretty terrifying. Most of us love our country, including our democracy and are greatly pained to see it being abused with people that live here being grabbed off the streets and imprisoned, disappeared and children who have been receiving food from us no longer getting it. So as more illegal things continue to happen to our citizens, the country will surely have more marches and demonstrations.The tax money we pay is not paying much of anything to benefit the people of the United States and it needs to stop!
Bigfootlives
Jeb, we live in a representative republic, not a democracy. For the love of God Almighty, I would expect YOU to know that! When did high school civics classes stop?
What evil authoritarian things is President Trump doing? Someone made the point, and it's gone viral on the web, so likely everyone's heard it, so I can't claim it. The President is not a king; he is doing exactly what he campaigned on, nothing more. ICE is rounding up illegal aliens. I'm sorry if that hurts everyone's feelings. You know why it looks horrific? Because we haven't done it in 20 years, and we let in 15 million people illegally cross our borders during the Biden administration.
What's really terrifying is Democratic politicians making websites that publicly make available private information about federal law enforcement officers. Physical descriptions, personal clothing, identifying marks, tattoos, personal vehicles, license plates, and known routes to and from work. Never mind that when Antifa comes across their vehicle with their wife and kids going to the store or school, I'll stop there. Antifa is just an idea.
What the President is doing is enforcing the country's laws; the disappearing nonsense is just that - nonsense. Hurting your feelings isn't a crime against humanity.
But democrats on the federal, state, and local levels are actively creating platforms to dox law enforcement officers and their families. Ironically, they already have the yellow star.