Walk A Mile In The Other Party's Shoes.. Or Shirts
Political Poseur - Pretending to be a Republican in Blue California, By Richard Rushfield
This article is brilliant and hilarious. Richard Rushfield, of California, decided to wear the paraphernalia of each campaign in areas heavily supportive of the opponent. He went to malls, coffee shops, and the like, and staid away from places like campaign headquarters. He documents his experience as a ‘political untouchable’ in the excellent article (‘untouchables’ were people with diseases so bad that they carried a bell to warn others of their presence, so people could flee and the disease wouldn’t be spread, to the best of my knowledge). I won’t blockquote in order to better use space.
Inside The Republican Haven:
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“In my Kerry-Edwards shirt, I enter Red America certain that I am on the verge of inciting to rage a gang of angry yachtsmen who would soon be strapping me and my lefty leisurewear to their mizzenmast. Instead, I encounter only shades of indifference—head shaking, "crazy idiot" expressions from older, very wealthy, very white folks in Newport Beach; terse nods from the middle- to working-class citizens of Bakersfield, which seem to indicate that people here have much bigger things to worry about than whatever is on my stupid T-shirt. In Bakersfield, surprisingly, there's little indication that we are near the eve of an election: I see a total of two campaign bumper stickers, one for Bush and one Kerry, and one elderly lady with a huge Bush button pinned to the jacket of her pantsuit. Despite a recent visit from Dick Cheney, presidential politics seems to have bypassed Bakersfield, and the locals are not about to let a mere T-shirt drag them into the muck.
“Toward the end of the day, I find one person on whom the election has a deep hold. Strolling past a sunglasses booth in the mall, I am spotted by a tall and exceedingly thin man in his early 20s, with a buzz cut that makes him look ominously like a shock-therapy patient. As I walk by, he fixates on my shirt and begins to follow me, seemingly mesmerized by the power of my Kerry-Edwards logo. I look back and see him trailing behind me, mouth agape, his eyes glued to my back. Whether the shirt identifies me as his leader or whether it is his Manchurian Candidate-like signal to kill, I can't tell. I duck into the mall's Starbucks and the spell seems to break; he turns and wanders away.”
--------
Aside from one stupid zombie, not bad. Sounds like this guy actually got better treatment than me on a normal day, when I don’t wear political clothes.
Now, for Land O’ Liberals:
--------
…
“Next up: Café Tropical, the gritty Cuban coffee house in old Silverlake. I park my Bush-Cheney festooned car behind a Volvo station wagon decorated with a bumper sticker that reads, "Ban war without end. Not in our name." I order an iced espresso and sit beneath a collage of Che Guevara photos. Customers accessorize their coffees at the condiment station in front of me. Suddenly I look up to see Latino man, who appears to be in his early 40s, rushing toward me, an enormous grin on his face. "Where do you get that shirt?" he demands. He continues: "I know only three Republicans here. Everyone else loves Kerry. The Spanish language TV is so filled with bias. They don't tell you that Mr. Bush is a gentleman." People standing nearby watch our summit with anguished there-goes-the-neighborhood expressions. As my new friend leaves, he stands at the front door and, raising his fist, yells, "Viva Bush!" Spasms of horror seize the store and pulse out to the community beyond.
…
“On Vermont Avenue, irony fades into gentrification. A fashionably dressed woman seated at a sidewalk table makes a disgusted face at the sight of me. On line at Psychobabble coffee house, another woman in a blue velour tracksuit rolls her eyes and grimaces at me with undisguised hatred. Realizing there are no seats but the one next to me, she stares intently into her cup, avoiding my polluting glance, until another table opens and she quickly relocates. Out on the avenue once again, I am gifted with my second "Asshole" of the day, this time muttered by a young man with bright dyed raspberry hair.
…
“I enter the faux-rustic Brentwood Country Mart, a collection of shops intended to look like an olde-time barnyard. On the central patio, I pass a woman who looks up from her gaggle of children to see me passing and exclaims, "Ick! God!" A group of teen skater boys waiting on line to buy the Mart's famed "Chicken Basket" discuss whether Bush will be removed from office by the time they turn 18, thus saving them from the draft. I sit down to eat. Dining nearby is a young girl who looks to be about 6-years-old; she gazes at my shirt with a look so forlorn, I expect to learn that Dick Cheney just stole her crayons. Her mother arrives and gives her a hug of consolation. The girl starts to talk, but I can only make out "Bush shirt," which she says to her mother as she points my way. The mother turns and glares, shaking her head at me. I start to wonder what sort of person I am to inflict this on a poor child.
“Up in the San Vicente shopping area, things go even less smoothly. At the first intersection, an older man in the weekend wear of the very prosperous passes me and yells, "Bush-Cheney?!?" as though demanding an explanation. At the Coral Tree Organic Café, a willowy, bookish woman seated alone glares at me from across the room. When I smile and wave to her, she puts on her sunglasses.”
--------
Wow, now those people are downright nasty. Then again, it is California.
As the author alludes at the end of the article, he is on the left wing. The right wing has claimed for a long time that the political left is the more rude of the two parties. Excessive Evidence for this claim is provided by the likes of Al Franken, who has tackled anti-Dean protestors and had to be carried away by security when he refused to stop pestering Sean Hannity after a show. Additionally, he has been known to try to incite people to get a story, including (I believe) saying “I’m listening to this Mormon ramble on and on..” at the recent GOP convention to get a response out of Glenn Beck, a popular (and my favorite) talk-show host. I believe he has also punched O’Reilly a few times, and that’s about as moronic as someone can get. Liberals are supposed to be the “violence never solves anything” types, and yet there are plenty of liberals who were overjoyed to hear that Franken hit O’Reilly.
But, in all the time Rushfield was in Liberal Land, how could he not tell one person off for being intolerant?
This article is brilliant and hilarious. Richard Rushfield, of California, decided to wear the paraphernalia of each campaign in areas heavily supportive of the opponent. He went to malls, coffee shops, and the like, and staid away from places like campaign headquarters. He documents his experience as a ‘political untouchable’ in the excellent article (‘untouchables’ were people with diseases so bad that they carried a bell to warn others of their presence, so people could flee and the disease wouldn’t be spread, to the best of my knowledge). I won’t blockquote in order to better use space.
Inside The Republican Haven:
--------
“In my Kerry-Edwards shirt, I enter Red America certain that I am on the verge of inciting to rage a gang of angry yachtsmen who would soon be strapping me and my lefty leisurewear to their mizzenmast. Instead, I encounter only shades of indifference—head shaking, "crazy idiot" expressions from older, very wealthy, very white folks in Newport Beach; terse nods from the middle- to working-class citizens of Bakersfield, which seem to indicate that people here have much bigger things to worry about than whatever is on my stupid T-shirt. In Bakersfield, surprisingly, there's little indication that we are near the eve of an election: I see a total of two campaign bumper stickers, one for Bush and one Kerry, and one elderly lady with a huge Bush button pinned to the jacket of her pantsuit. Despite a recent visit from Dick Cheney, presidential politics seems to have bypassed Bakersfield, and the locals are not about to let a mere T-shirt drag them into the muck.
“Toward the end of the day, I find one person on whom the election has a deep hold. Strolling past a sunglasses booth in the mall, I am spotted by a tall and exceedingly thin man in his early 20s, with a buzz cut that makes him look ominously like a shock-therapy patient. As I walk by, he fixates on my shirt and begins to follow me, seemingly mesmerized by the power of my Kerry-Edwards logo. I look back and see him trailing behind me, mouth agape, his eyes glued to my back. Whether the shirt identifies me as his leader or whether it is his Manchurian Candidate-like signal to kill, I can't tell. I duck into the mall's Starbucks and the spell seems to break; he turns and wanders away.”
--------
Aside from one stupid zombie, not bad. Sounds like this guy actually got better treatment than me on a normal day, when I don’t wear political clothes.
Now, for Land O’ Liberals:
--------
…
“Next up: Café Tropical, the gritty Cuban coffee house in old Silverlake. I park my Bush-Cheney festooned car behind a Volvo station wagon decorated with a bumper sticker that reads, "Ban war without end. Not in our name." I order an iced espresso and sit beneath a collage of Che Guevara photos. Customers accessorize their coffees at the condiment station in front of me. Suddenly I look up to see Latino man, who appears to be in his early 40s, rushing toward me, an enormous grin on his face. "Where do you get that shirt?" he demands. He continues: "I know only three Republicans here. Everyone else loves Kerry. The Spanish language TV is so filled with bias. They don't tell you that Mr. Bush is a gentleman." People standing nearby watch our summit with anguished there-goes-the-neighborhood expressions. As my new friend leaves, he stands at the front door and, raising his fist, yells, "Viva Bush!" Spasms of horror seize the store and pulse out to the community beyond.
…
“On Vermont Avenue, irony fades into gentrification. A fashionably dressed woman seated at a sidewalk table makes a disgusted face at the sight of me. On line at Psychobabble coffee house, another woman in a blue velour tracksuit rolls her eyes and grimaces at me with undisguised hatred. Realizing there are no seats but the one next to me, she stares intently into her cup, avoiding my polluting glance, until another table opens and she quickly relocates. Out on the avenue once again, I am gifted with my second "Asshole" of the day, this time muttered by a young man with bright dyed raspberry hair.
…
“I enter the faux-rustic Brentwood Country Mart, a collection of shops intended to look like an olde-time barnyard. On the central patio, I pass a woman who looks up from her gaggle of children to see me passing and exclaims, "Ick! God!" A group of teen skater boys waiting on line to buy the Mart's famed "Chicken Basket" discuss whether Bush will be removed from office by the time they turn 18, thus saving them from the draft. I sit down to eat. Dining nearby is a young girl who looks to be about 6-years-old; she gazes at my shirt with a look so forlorn, I expect to learn that Dick Cheney just stole her crayons. Her mother arrives and gives her a hug of consolation. The girl starts to talk, but I can only make out "Bush shirt," which she says to her mother as she points my way. The mother turns and glares, shaking her head at me. I start to wonder what sort of person I am to inflict this on a poor child.
“Up in the San Vicente shopping area, things go even less smoothly. At the first intersection, an older man in the weekend wear of the very prosperous passes me and yells, "Bush-Cheney?!?" as though demanding an explanation. At the Coral Tree Organic Café, a willowy, bookish woman seated alone glares at me from across the room. When I smile and wave to her, she puts on her sunglasses.”
--------
Wow, now those people are downright nasty. Then again, it is California.
As the author alludes at the end of the article, he is on the left wing. The right wing has claimed for a long time that the political left is the more rude of the two parties. Excessive Evidence for this claim is provided by the likes of Al Franken, who has tackled anti-Dean protestors and had to be carried away by security when he refused to stop pestering Sean Hannity after a show. Additionally, he has been known to try to incite people to get a story, including (I believe) saying “I’m listening to this Mormon ramble on and on..” at the recent GOP convention to get a response out of Glenn Beck, a popular (and my favorite) talk-show host. I believe he has also punched O’Reilly a few times, and that’s about as moronic as someone can get. Liberals are supposed to be the “violence never solves anything” types, and yet there are plenty of liberals who were overjoyed to hear that Franken hit O’Reilly.
But, in all the time Rushfield was in Liberal Land, how could he not tell one person off for being intolerant?
posted by Chris at
10:55 PM
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