The Rally to Restore Sanity and the Election to Preserve It

By Michael Bryan

I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity. The Tucson gathering, that is. You can get an idea of the turn-out from the photos I took and posted to Facebook. 

It was a great deal of fun and I saw a lot of people who might not otherwise be interested in actually participating in politics giving an ear to three hours of fairly sophisticated political satire. I think that's encouraging. It's something. Which is better than nothing.

However, I did gather an entirely subjective and non-scientific impression that it really was a very Democratically inclined turn-out in D.C., and likely in the all the satellite rallies. I'm really not sure if a message of sanity and civility in our political culture has much resonance on the right. You know, sanity has a well-established liberal bias, after all.

In any case, I did not note ANY prominent conservatives at the local rally. It could just be that everyone is too busy walking and phone-banking as the election looms to bother with this thing, as commenters here and on Facebook pointed out. But more the 250,000 people thought it was important enough to show up on the National Mall, and a few hundred here in Tucson. That so many people devoted some time to emphasizing the message that our political culture is a mess and our media is making it worse has got to be significant.

What's the significance? My guess is this: there is a deep reservoir of calm, common sense in the American people. They see that the overheated rhetoric, fear-mongering, jingoism, and out-right lies that pervade our politics and media are not addressing our very real problems. And that pisses them off a little. Exasperates them a little. And maybe, just maybe, makes them want to do something about it a little – like vote. Or walk. Or phone-bank. Or donate to a candidate who's not insane. 

I'm all for doing a little. That's why this blog exists. That's why I started Drinking Liberally in Tucson. So that people who might not otherwise do anything, might do a little. And by doing a little realize they would like to do more, and can do more. And might realize that they can make a big difference just by doing just a little.

Here's your chance. Organizing for America, President Obama's ground game, is tracking GOTV efforts across the country and plugging folks into those efforts. You can see what's going on in Tucson and other locations on the website.

Let's leave the GOP reeling in shock about how badly their polls and generic ballots and self-agrandizing predictions turned out for them on election night.