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COLUMN: After the election, don't forget to complain
Okay, I admit it -- I'm an Event Junkie -- especially political events. I love noise and crowds and signs and chanting and people shaking their fists and calling for change.So last weekend, we packed the kids into the car and headed into the District for Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity.
I'm not generally a fan of sanity in politics (it makes for very boring news stories) but I am a big fan of comedy and costumes and snarky signs.
Though the rally was ostensibly about “taking it down a notch” and creating an environment for civil discourse, what I saw was even better: 200,000-plus people complaining very good-naturedly about the system, about the opposition, about fear-mongering, about intolerance. about stupidity and about large crowds.
I truly love to see Americans complain and I loved this crowd in particular because they have a lot to complain about and they were extremely cheerful and clever about it all. There was no anger and no heated slogans; just a lot of pointed social commentary disguised as comedy.
A man stood all alone in the middle of a street holding a sign declaring “Barack Obama promised me a pony.”
A college kid under a tree held a sign that read “I'm mad as hell! So I'm going to make a cup of tea to help me calm down and then talk things out reasonably.”
Americans didn't invent irreverence, but this crowd is working hard to perfect it.
There's no point pretending this was a nonpartisan event -- these were liberals three days away from an expected Election Day Massacre. They were disaffected and they were disappointed, but they were not at all depressed.
During Election Week, a lot of people may warn you that “if you don't vote, you can't complain” and that “voting is your most important right as an American.”
I've always disagreed with both of those platitudes.
Voting is not your most important right as an American -- complaining is.
The right to peaceably assemble, to dress up as a giant teabag, to carry a sign that says “Down with signs!” or to stand in front of a national monument and call the president names -- these are our most important freedoms.
And that's what I took my kids into the District to see -- democracy in action. They're both under 2 but I've been carting them to Tea Party protests, political conventions, gay pride marches, public hearings and last weekend's rally because I want them to grow up watching Americans from all sides doing what they do best: speaking out.
Democracy isn't just about voting one day a year. It's about showing up, speaking out and poking fun at your leaders, your opponents and yourself. It's about complaining when times are bad and complaining when times aren't as good as they could theoretically be.
There are many, many places in the world where they get to vote, but they certainly don't get to complain. Communist China, Saddam's Iraq, fascist Argentina, Nazi Germany -- history is littered with examples of places where citizens vote freely but disappear when they complain about the results.
So whether your sign calls Barack Obama a socialist or Glenn Beck a nutcase, wave it with pride and freedom and irreverence.
And in the aftermath of this year's election, whether your side won or lost, don't forget to exercise your right to complain. Just be sure to do it with a sense of humor.
- Tara Slate Donaldson is the editor of 'The Gainesville Times” and prefers not to write columns.
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