A Long-Expected Tea Party, Contd.

Part 3: Faith

“Two viewpoints are always tenable. The one, how can you improve human nature until you have changed the system? The other, what is the use of changing the system before you have improved human nature?” -George Orwell

Beck was certainly tuned into his inner Jerry Falwell. We heard a lot about how faith in God’s grace would save us, as a nation. We heard that this was what the great men around us—he pointed to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the memorials for World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War had depended on, and what they had given their lives for. We heard how Beck himself was but a humble man, called on by God to take up his mantle. Surprisingly, there were absolutely no references, explicit or veiled, to the politicians of the Democratic Party whom Beck usually accredits with opposing all of these ideas. As I heard his speech, I was startled to notice how much the crowd loved it; people were cheering and applauding all through the speech. These were supposed to be the disillusioned third-partiers. Didn’t any of this seem phony to them? Didn’t it bother them that Beck was calling on the memory of Lincoln, who as president suspended habeas corpus, to support a platform of individual rights? What about the fact that he was invoking the memory of MLK, a black leader with communist sympathies, presumably to assist him in ousting another black leader whom Beck has accused of the same sympathies? And why, exactly, is a Mormon telling me about Jesus and Moses and acting like he and I have an identical theology?

It occurred to me as I reflected on these questions that conservatives and liberals often have profoundly different approaches to social problems. Liberals believe that our social ills are caused by problems in the structure of our society. Thus, climate change can be solved if we pass a few more laws, our financial system’s problems will be solved if we create an agency in charge of making sure they don’t happen and crime will go away if we put more money into the school system, pass stricter gun control laws and put some sort of welfare system into place. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that society’s problems are caused by people acting in immoral ways. They point out that, after all, we had agencies in charge of regulating the financial system; the problem is that they were downloading porn instead of doing their jobs. This attitude shows itself in a profound belief that conservatives have in the ability of individuals to bypass laws and regulations designed to curb their bad behavior, and their concern in making sure that society behaves morally, seen in issues such as prayer in schools, abortion and gay marriage. Obviously, this characterization is a simplification, but a useful one nonetheless.

Furthermore, there probably is a generation gap in terms of the connotation that terms like ‘the greatest generation’ conjure up. I was raised on Medal of Honor, Catch-22 and Letters from Iwo Jima, whereas some in the crowd had themselves fought in World War II, and I’m sure that many others, like my father, had relatives, who they are immensely proud of, who did fight against the Nazis. I grew up in the age of the invasion of Panama, the Kosovo conflict and the Iraq War, all conflicts that tend to promote the image of the military as merely a tool of American foreign policy, and one that is often poorly used, at that. Not to say that I have no respect for our nation’s servicemen and women and their courage and self-sacrifice, but I am skeptical of the claim that our soldiers are ‘protecting our freedom’ and I believe that the virtues of a civilian, or even a pacifist, may be equal or even superior to the virtues of a military man. Needless to say, many people at the rally have a more positive view of the military than I do, and much in Beck’s speech that seemed to me to be sentimental malarkey must have seemed to them to be an affirmation of their most deeply held values.

And what about the Mormon thing? Beck was certainly being dishonest, I think, by going so far out of his way to divert attention from his Mormon faith. Let me be clear—I do not believe that Mormons are Satanists, or that Mitt Romney should be excluded from the White House for his faith (he should be excluded because he is stunningly immoral and opportunistic, even for a Republican). However, I believe that the New Testament was the final revelation of God, and that the idea that Joseph Smith received further revelation from God is an onerous falsehood. And Beck’s willingness to distance himself from his faith to reach a larger audience does not speak well of his character. But, the willingness of the crowd to accept the religious pontifications of a Mormon does speak well of the commitment to acceptance and tolerance.

I think the rally and Beck’s speech makes sense when you compare it to an Obama rally from 2007. At both of them, a charismatic speaker uses a carefully honed collection of platitudes that speak to the most deeply held values of his listeners and promise them that the future will be better, and they can get to that future through hard work and the electoral process. In both cases, the crowd is disaffected. They believe that the politicians in Washington don’t represent their beliefs and values and that the president is making enormous mistakes that will permanently damage the country. That someone could really whole-heartedly buy into the promises that a demagogue in those circumstances makes is still a bit beyond my comprehension, however. My inner cynic reigns supreme.