Taking It to the Greenwich

So tonight, thanks to my friend Chip, I heard about this reading of Tony Kushner's "A Bright Room Called Day" at the Geenwich Jazz Club. I went and it was scary how relevant the play, written in protest of Reagan's ignoring the AIDS crisis, is in our current political climate. Of course, by drawing parallels between Right Wing Mayhem in the US and Nazi Germany, Kushner makes leaving the country seem like a viable and even honorable option. So I got some problems with the actual text. But I respect the hell out of Elizabeth Cobbe and all the fine actors who participated for putting the production together. Brava.

After the reading, there was "the last chance to cry in our beers about Nov. 2." Hmmm. Some people brought up the recount. Some voiced the need for a more sustained mobilizing effort. Some lamented that the 49/51 divide couldn't really be bridged with the lack of funding and energy the liberal left seems to suffer from. I'm a little tired of post-mortems. I, for one, believe that there was election fraud. But more than anything, I think that liberalism's problem is not that we can't tailor our message for, as Howard Dean puts it, the guys driving pickups with Confederate flags on the back window. It runs a bit deeper than that.

I'm not a sociologist. I didn't even minor in psychology, but I think smart cool people and democracy will be unsuited for one another until we disabuse ourselves of the notion that we (if I may lump myself in with the smart and cool) are one of a kind.

With liberals'/cultural creatives' (whatever) two kinds of people theory (abjectly oversimplified), there's everybody else and then there's you. Republicans, conformists, red staters, whatever you want to call them have been raised on a steady diet of common think, not standing out, espousing the norm, the median, the mode. Progressives, more often than not have been told “you're exemplary!” “do your own thing!” Their parents appreciate the avant garde. We valorize diversity. Their (our) identity is in part predicated on the notion that "there is no one else like me." So of course we all keep our liberal (and thus exceptional) beliefs to ourselves. And then those stupid motherfuckers who think 51% is a mandate run roughshod all over us. And we fucking let them. I think this is due in part because risking the reality that there are other people "like me" threatens us more than Bible thumpers, because at least we get to complain and belittle them.

I dunno. There are plenty of theories; I have at least 40.