My Thoughts On The Glenn Beck Rally

[12thMan]

One of the greatest, well two greatest, things about living in Washington D.C. is we're home of the Washington Redskins. The other being Washington D.C. is the epicenter of American politics. Anyone or anything that matters has to come through D.C. to get the attention of the nation.

This weekend I attended one of the two MLK rallies, but not the Glenn Beck rally. However, a couple of my friends went to the Beck rally. They went not out of any allegiance or genuine support for Glenn Beck or his ideology, whatever that truly is, but out of curiosity and to get a sense of the pulse of the crowd. One friend sent me a text message from the Beck rally, as I was listening to Al Sharpton speak at the other one, whom I no big fan of either, saying they were singing the Black National Anthem at the Beck rally on the Mall. I knew right then and there that this guy is about to explode in a way unimaginble. Anytime a white man in America can gather African Americans to sing that song, he's tapped into something worth paying attention to. But that's a thought I don't want to explore right here and now.

A couple of things I noticed while riding Metro and observing those who attended Beck's rally, there wasn't the usual hateful signs and, for the most part, these seemed like your run of the mill concerned citizens, not your angry Tea Party types. Now I know that a large segment of the crowd certainly identifies with the Tea Party, and there were undoubtedly some good old boys there who don't like Obama, but the rally didn't have a strong Tea Party or political overtone from what I understand.

What I'm starting to realize, irrespective of my personal views of Beck's politics, is that he matters. The National Park Service have yet to release any official crowd size estimates gathered at the Mall, but I've heard numbers ranging from 87K to north of 100K. So basically, if you watch Fox news they'll report the crowd size around three hundred thousand and if you watch MSNBC they'll report a hundred thousand! Surely you know the drill by now, but that's not really the point here. Whatever the number, and it was a lot, Glenn Beck is suddenly a very influential figure in American politics. I suppose in a way that he wasn't prior to this large gathering and I dare say in a way that may thwart the liberal and progressive agenda in the future. That remains to seen.

In fact, Beck, and very cleverly so, neutralized partisan politics by talking about faith and God. Personally I'm not buying it, but guess what I don't need to. That's a subject that all Americans, regardless of political leanings or ethnic persuasion, can relate to and quite frankly stomach during a toxic political environment such as the one we're seeing in Washington right now.

Here's the thing, Genn Beck can talk about faith and God in a way that say, Tim Pawlenty as a presidential candidate, cannot. He can gather a crowd and rally thousands that Mitt Romney wouldn't even dare dream about. Ben Jealous, President of the NAACP, and Al Sharpton combined barely filled a high school football field of supporters just ten minutes away in a tribute to MLK. Even Sarah Palin and all of her groupies wouldn't have mustered a crowd that large.

What I'm getting at is that you don't gather that many thousands on the hallowed grounds of the Mall and still don't matter. It's going to be more diffucult for the liberal media types to dismiss Beck and portray him as some right wing loon who just wants to stir up hate and divide the American people. And as many of us on the left would hate to admit, this guy is starting to fill a void that has existed in our country for the past ten or fifteen years. That being the American people simply want nuts and bolts leadership and they want to feel they identify with their leaders. I think that's the void that has been left by the the previous Administration, the current Congress, Democrats and Republicans, and has proven to be a very difficult task even for President Obama, who just two years ago generated a Kennedyesque buzz across the country.

Now I don't expect this thread to go anywhere after, say, the third page or so I just wanted to voice my thoughts on this weekend's events after some reflection. I think we're experiencing a real political and cultural shift in our country right now and I think the ride is just beginning.