View Full Version : Political Theater
So at a standard traffic-blocking demonstration, a politician being led to a shady spot to have her ticket written poses as if she was wearing handcuffs and boasts of “putting her body on the line”. Is this:
Legitimate protest?
Smart, if somewhat cynical fund-raising?
Virtue signaling at worst, of a sort of honest homage to the civil rights era at best?
The moral equivalent of “stolen valor”, with risk-free posturing in the place of wearing unearned medals?
According to her it's showing respect to the police - who, you know, she ignored regarding blocking traffic - not some moral principle - but traffic.
ApatheticNoMore
7-22-22, 1:43pm
I think the whole question is utterly irrelevant. I don't think politicians actually CAN risk arrest in the same way normal people can. Because their privilege protects them from the consequences. Laws are for little people.
So I think there is not a lot of point in whether the arrest was "real" or not. In some sense none of it is really real.
So kinda, who cares, it's some kind of semantic debate or something, angels on the head of a pin. I mean maybe good for them for making a statement, there is nothing wrong with politicians attending a protest of course, but I just don't consider it requiring great bravery regardless.
I also don't think of traffic being blocked as being particularly horrible.
Oh it was definitely performative art. All participants were escorted off the roadway and issued a citation with a $50 fine. No jail, no court appearances, just put a check in the mail, just the same as being cited for driving 35mph in a 30mph zone. And yet, the media savvy among the group clasped their hands behind their backs as if they were under restraint while smiling at the cameras. Plus, it must not have been a public protest since approximately half of the people cited were members of Congress and I wouldn't be surprised to find that the remaining folks were staffers. It looks more to me like a stunt orchestrated for the cameras.
I'm sure photos will be used in future fundraising efforts to imply they were willing to undergo the degradation of being arrested and escorted off to jail in pursuit of whatever principles their campaign requires of them.
I can’t help but think that if someone of a different political stripe were to perform the same pantomime the late night comedy shows would be all over it.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.