I didn't march in Washington, DC yesterday. I don't think I know anybody who did. To be honest, I'm pretty sure I totally forgot about the protest. I didn't see any headlines or TV coverage; not until I came on this site and started looking at diaries did I realize how big a deal it was to people here.
I bring this up not to denigrate those who were there, or even to weigh in on any of the related arguments going on in other threads. But it strikes me again how modern-day progressives are so bound to the past, the glory period of liberalism, and how we so consistently misapply its "lessons." The '60s not only help trigger a right-wing backlash by its excesses; they've also hamstrung our efforts to further liberal ends, or even defend those earlier successes, ever since.
The whole concept of "a protest march" is a relic of that mindset and an example of our mis-learning. We never consider why the tactic worked then, so we don't even come close to grasping why they fail now. Marches have become about collective personal expression, rather than sending a message with intended consequences.
Not that there's anything particularly wrong with that. I joined the street protest just before the war began in February 2003, and marched the Sunday before the Republican convention here in New York last year. In both cases, I felt like it was important for me to be there, and I had some hope--as everyone in a march does--that a message would indeed be sent, just by the numbers involved. That this hope isn't logical (as I'll try to explain below) doesn't mean they weren't well-intentioned or sincere.
The Washington Monthly had an insightful article about this disconnect earlier this year. Writing of a "counter-inauguration protest staged by a few dozen people this past January, the author notes:
As with most demonstrations today, the march wasn't planned to accomplish a concrete result by demanding the passage of a particular piece of legislation. Instead, its organizers had focused largely on two things: affirming the protesters' right to protest, and enriching their experience of the protest. While in the past a march was judged successful if it affected a political outcome, today's protests are judged on how they affect a protester's sense of self.
She goes on to describe the paradigm of the "self-expression" march:
In 1995, the Million Man March brought marches back onto the national stage in a dramatic way. The first event of that scale organized in decades, the demonstration drew nearly one million African-American men and boys to Washington. Many federal workers stayed home in anticipation of disruptive protests. But a funny thing happened. The marchers hadn't come to demand passage of a legislative agenda or to bring pressure to bear on national politicians. Instead, they had gathered to make a promise to themselves--and to each other--to improve their lives and their families.
...
The press didn't quite know what to make of the Million Man March--there was no precedent for a march designed primarily to allow participants to encounter each other and pledge life change--so media coverage focused largely on the sheer number of marchers and on Farrakhan's loopiness. What they missed was the fact that the Million Man March was creating a model for a new type of demonstration. Most of the copycat marches since, including the Million Mom March, the Million Family March, and the Million Worker March, have had something of the same flavor. Even if they were ostensibly focused on a specific policy goal--and many don't even pretend to have that impetus--organizers have crafted marches to be fulfilling experiences for those who come to participate. Any impact on those outside the march seems to be an afterthought.
It's not totally fair to compare these identity-focused events to antiwar actions; they're probably more akin to charity events (e.g. Run for the Cure, MS walk). But the distinction is lost on the media, and the mass-protest spectacle was really staged for the media.
Let me rephrase this a bit: the mass-protest tactic was directed at the media. It was absolutely reliant upon the media to make its impact. For one thing, coverage of the event would include discussion of its cause, whether a specific outcome, like passage of the Civil Rights Act. or somemore less tangible, like ending the Vietnam War. This hopefully sparks an echo chamber effect, with families and groups of friends talking about the issue and potentially getting engaged on its behalf. The protest, or series of protests, helps set a public agenda; it contributes toward making the cause something many people care about, and something to which policymakers have to respond.
For another, the reporting of the numbers--100,000 at this event, half a million at another--underlines the point that many fellow citizens felt strongly enough about this issue to come out and spend a day on its behalf. This reinforces the significance of the issue.
Mass protest almost never accomplishes either goal anymore. The "protest as self-expression" argument, though I think it's correct, doesn't really explain this. Changes in both the media and the culture it mirrors and informs offer more powerful answers.
The media, simply, is a much more complex organ now than it was 40 years ago. Why is this so hard for liberals to grasp? Instead of three broadcast networks, you've got literally hundreds of stations, catering to an almost infinitely more differentiated audience. The only outlets that are likely to give significant coverage to modern mass actions are the CNNs, the CSPANs, MSBNBC and FOXNews.
That's because they're the only networks left who think their audience would possibly care. And given the politicization of these outlets, this is almost certainly more bad news than good--as one other thread noted, they choose what to emphasize, and shape the story thusly.
Of course, the cultural change reflects this transformation of the media landscape, and it's simplicity itself; this very site is its evidence. There is no consensus, no real or at least reachable Vital Center in this country anymore. We're almost totally atomized, broken into niches and clusters of affiliation. The echo chamber effect that was once possible in a unifed mass culture has now turned into a million little echo chambers: talk radio, progressive blogs, right-wing blogs, list-servs about baseball teams and digestive diseases and TV shows. It's the same reason why "nightly news" viewership and newspaper circulations are down: there's just too much competition.
The other reason is simple overuse. So many groups have mounted so many marches now that people tend to dismiss them all. Even if most marchers are "mainstream" in appearance and ideology, it's easier for the "freaks," the people with the giant puppets and perhaps the more extreme agenda, to get attention: they fit the preconceived notion of what a march is, now.
35 years ago the Moratorium against the Vietnam War could merit a Time magazine cover story:
I'm sure this was heady stuff; it signaled that the debate had reached the mainstream, and along with the deteriorating situation, it might have made it easier for suburban housewives and business leaders to grasp the point that this war was going badly and should abandoned. But it was a lot easier to do this when a few media outlets could command national attention.
Now it can't happen. And maybe the reason why despicable groups like ANSWER get involved with "organizing the march" is because they know their target audience a lot better than nostalgic liberals know theirs.