Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s political analyst.
[I]t was hard not to admire Ki Walker as he stood on the balcony at the rear of the House Chamber the other day chanting, “Strange things are happening” while the Rev. Robert Potter of Peacham was delivering the benediction ending the inauguration ceremony.
And just as hard not to pity him.
Not because he was rude to Rev. Potter, who managed to complete his prayer despite the interruptions.
Not even because he was doing no good for his cause – getting the Legislature to pass a single payer health care plan – because he wasn’t doing it much harm either; for the nonce, that cause is dead anyhow.
But because he was so confused about what he was, about what he and his hundred or so fellow protesters were.
No one could doubt his grit or his resolve. There he was, without allies (the allies having been blocked at the doorway by Mayors Chris Louras of Rutland and Thom Lauzon of Barre) braving scorn and ridicule by continuing to chant despite the obvious disapproval of those sitting next to him on the balcony and the lawmakers and other officials on the floor below.
Chanting with a pretty nice voice, too, and in tune, even if the sing-song mantra wasn’t much of a melody.
Still, there is no denying that confusion. As advocates of single payer health insurance, Walker and his fellow protesters no doubt put themselves on the left side of the political spectrum. From Teddy Roosevelt to Teddy Kennedy, universal health insurance has been constantly associated with self-identified progressives.
But last Thursday’s demonstration at the Statehouse was out of the playbook of the political right. It had more in common with the New York City police officers turning their backs on Mayor Bill DeBlasio than with the auto workers who sat down in the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, in 1937, or the black college students who demanded to be served at that Wilmington, North Carolina, lunch counter in 1960.
Sen. Dick McCormack, the Windsor County Democrat who is in favor of single payer health care, called the protests “fascist.” That’s a little much. These demonstrators are not fascists. Fascism is based on tribal supremacy. One of its mottos is “blood and soil” – our blood and our soil are superior to yours. Vermont’s single payer enthusiasts display no such attitude.
But in terms of their methods, McCormack was not entirely wrong. Over the years, it has been forces of the far right more than the left that have been eager to disrupt official proceedings with their bodies and their voices.
Not that leftists have never used those tactics. Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, anti-war and other leftish students tried to shout down speakers they didn’t like. They mostly (though not entirely) stopped, perhaps because of the warning of one of their heroes, the late Allard Lowenstein, who told them “if the campuses are to be ruled by goon squads, they will not be left wing goon squads.”
Neither will anything else. It is always easier to rouse thugs to battle “them” – whether “them” are another race or another point of view – than to fight for justice and equality.
Last week’s demonstrators were not thugs. But there was an element of at least potential thuggery in their actions, especially later in the day when some of them occupied the otherwise empty House chamber, threatening to stay unless Speaker Shap Smith promised to hold hearings on a single payer bill.
Smith would do no such thing and both he and the police handled the situation very well, only arresting (and rather gently, from all accounts) the 29 protesters who refused to leave at 8 p.m., when the building closed. An interesting irony here: The establishment acting more liberally than its antagonists.
But think of the precedent. In a democracy, laws are to be passed by the elected representatives of the people in an orderly process. The public can participate in that process. People can go to committee hearings and express themselves, even loudly and rudely. They can buttonhole legislators in the hallways and try to persuade or even threaten them (with electoral defeat, not bodily harm). But in the end, the elected lawmakers have to make their own decisions.
Here a small a small, self-ordained, and apparently unrepresentative group of people said, in effect, “Do it our way or we will disrupt.” That’s an inherently fascist approach. These demonstrators were peaceful and harmless. Who can be sure that the next protesters will not be more aggressive?
The protesters were not only peaceful; up to a point they were respectful. Only a handful of them tried to interfere with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s inaugural address. Walker’s chanting did not start until Shumlin was finished.
James Haslam of the Vermont Workers’ Center, which organized the protest, later told reporters that his troops had thought that the ceremony would be over after Shumlin spoke.
Maybe. But then why did many of them (the ones kept out of the balcony by the mayors) keep repeating Walker’s chants? There was plenty of time for Haslam or another protest leader to let them know the ceremony was continuing.
And if Walker – who, remember, was in the chamber – did not realize that there was a man at the podium speaking – praying, actually – he is either incredibly dense or so wrapped up in himself and the certainty of his own virtue that he didn’t care.
And that is really why Walker’s chanting – and indeed the entire protest – was a right-of-center enterprise. It was primarily an exercise in self-indulgence. If it had a political purpose, it was self-defeating. If the protesters thought they were representing the people at large, they were deluding themselves.
But by all available evidence, they didn’t care. If they had cared, they might have taken enough time to make sure that their rhymes rhymed (“down” does not rhyme with “now,” nor “see” with need”). They had their point of view (quite possibly a correct point of view), and they were going to express it. They have a right to express it. But the elected executive and representatives of the people (all the people) have a right to do the people’s business in peace and quiet.
No, that’s insufficient, the people have a right – a need – to know that their elected officials have not just the right but the actual power to go about their business in peace and quiet. Not without public input to be sure. But unless the orderly processes of democracy can go on, there is no democracy at all, an affront to both real liberals and real conservatives.
The politics of the glorification of the self is fundamentally right wing. It is the glory of the right because it inspires its devotion to individual liberty, and its shame because it renders it indifferent if not hostile to collective action that can improve the lives of ordinary people.
And it was on display Thursday at the Statehouse.
