Tea Parties and the Politics of Displacement and Dissent

By Raj Jayadev

San Jose – President Obama may have ushered in historic change to the White House, but the people who hate him turned my world upside down, or at least sideways.

The “Tea Parties” that occurred across the country this week brought out thousands of neo-conservatives to the streets, where they held coordinated demonstrations protesting taxes, the Democrats stimulus package, and the country’s “Socialist” direction lead by Obama.

And now, the new Right looks, sounds, and feels a lot like the old Left.

Since the moment of the inauguration, we all knew the Obama presidency represented a shift of who was in power, but we did not consider who then was out of power, and what they would do when displaced. Well, turns out conservatives do the same things liberals do when they are on the outside looking in – they get fuming mad, hold signs about there victim-hood, and gather publicly to amplify their shared sense of righteous indignation. The only difference is they play a lot of country songs, and get Fox News personalities to cheer them on.

In the heart of downtown San Jose, at Cesar Chavez Park, a couple thousands Tea Party attendees gathered to represent for their movement, or what a lot of the chants and speakers called a “revolution.” They held signs with President Obama cast as Hitler (with the mustache and classic “Heil” position) and others that read, “You want change, well bend over and take it!” There were stick figure visuals as well to help illustrate the point. There were seniors and youth there, San Jose Council members, AM radio hosts, and a woman wore American Flag contacts.

And while the Tea Party was less organic than it billed itself as (at the core of the movement is well-resourced national conservative advocacy organizations) the fact that thousands of people came to downtown San Jose for a protest is an indicator of historical significance. The only time I can recall seeing that many people come out to voice dissent in this city, and at Cesar Chavez Park, was during liberal anti-war rallies shortly after the Iraq war began, and the immigrant rights marches in 2005. Indeed, while the device of protest in not owned by the left, surely what was known to be possible—mass mobilization at a downtown park—was ironically informed by what watching was accomplished by those demonstrations.

On the left, one of the most consuming questions is: do activists loose themselves when they get in power, or take office? In short, does power turn you into what you once fought against, and can an active voice of dissent be made to be docile, silenced through seduction of being the dominant view and wanting to stay there? But, there is also the flip-side of that coin. Can a conservative suburban mom who was not that civically engaged become a picket-holding agitator when her world feels threatened? Turns out, the answer is an emphatic yes, and the assumed natural order of dissent will never be the same.

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