Town Hall Democracy or Mob Hysteria? Rethinking the Importance of the Public Sphere

The bitter debate that is unfolding over Obama's health care plan has garnered a great deal of media attention. The images are both familiar and disturbing - members of Congress are shouted down, taunted, hanged in effigy and, in some instances, received death threats. In some cases, mob scenes have produced violence and resulted in a number of arrests. Increasingly, people are showing up with guns at these meetings, revealing an intimate connection between an embrace of violence, politics and an unbridled hatred of both the public sphere and the conditions for real exchange, debate and dialogue over important social issues. Rowdy crowds, many of whom read from talking points made available to them by right-wing groups and legitimated by conservative television pundits, support a politics reminiscent of the proto-fascists movements and militia associated with authoritarian parties in the 1930s and 1970s, which often used them to disrupt oppositional meetings, beat up opponents and intimidate those individuals and groups that criticized right-wing ideologies. This is not meant to suggest that all of the protesters at these meetings are members of extremists groups as much as it is to reveal the deep historical affinity such mob tactics have with dangerous authoritarian tendencies - an ironic twist given that their invective of choice is to compare Obama with Hitler. Many of these fringe groups "leaping around the margins of American society," <1> are irresponsibly sanctioned by both politicians such as Republican Sen. Tom Coburn and right-wing television hosts such as Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. <2> The United States is neither Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, nor does it bear a resemblance to Pinchot's Chile. What is important to recognize in light of these violent tendencies in the culture is Hannah Arendt's prescient warning that elements of totalitarianism continue to be with us and that rather than relegated to the dustbin of history, the "still existing elements of totalitarianism would be more likely to crystallize into new forms." <3> These tendencies have been around for the last 20 years in the form of militarism, religious fundamentalism, a rabid economic Darwinism and a growing violence against the poor, immigrants, dissenters, and others marginalized because of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, politics and color. What is new under the Obama regime is that the often hidden alliance between corporate power and the forces of extremism are now both celebrated and highly visible in the culture. What is new is that the production of violence and the organized attempts to undermine the most basic principles of democracy are now embraced, if not showcased, as a register of patriotism and then offered up as a spectacle in much of the mainstream media. Under such circumstances, politics is emptied of any substance as citizens are urged to participate in the public sphere by shutting it down - screaming inane slogans in order to cancel out the very process of political participation. Shaming and silencing those who are at odds with right-wing and corporate power and its orthodox and increasing reactionary views of the world has now become a national pastime, or as the fatuous Glenn Beck would claim, just common sense.

Some have referred to these groups as mobs, but that distinction does not hold since many of the protesters are being fed talking points and are well organized to target very specific Democratic Congressional representatives. Mob rule is often spontaneous, while these rowdy, gun-toting and increasingly violent groups are being organized and legitimated through the money and power of the insurance industry, lobbying groups such as FreedomWorks, anti-government politicians, racist fringe groups and elements of the white militia. They are generally uninformed, politically illiterate and harbor an acute disdain for debate, thoughtfulness and dialogue. In other words, they disdain critical exchange and view as a pathology any vestige of Democratic governance, politics and representation. They are part of a fringe element within the GOP that has moved increasingly from the margins to the center of power. <4>

The media has often focused, if not cashed in, on the rowdiness of these groups - treating them as simply angry citizens with a point of view as opposed to being members of a deeply authoritarian campaign organized not only to disrupt Obama's health care reforms but also to gut and destroy those spaces in American society where democracy can be nourished. Such groups have to be understood as being mobilized not merely to promote symbolic and real violence, but also as a growing movement that promotes a willful misreading of the meaning of the freedom, security and human rights. What is crucial to recognize is that the groups who are shouting out and disrupting health care meetings are also the same people who want to privatize and corporatize public schooling, eliminate all vestiges of the social state and destroy all remnants of those public spheres that promote critical literacy, civic courage and those noncommodified values that give meaning to a democracy. These are the folks who supported members of the Florida Legislature to pass a law that outlawed historical interpretation in its public schools. <5> These are the same groups for whom any vestige of education that promotes critical thinking, citizenship skills and effective democracy is condemned or, worse, simply relegated to the dustbin of educational practices. It is impossible to understand what these groups represent unless they are seen as part of an authoritarian tradition that has gained enormous strength in the last 20 years as part of a broader effort to expand the corporate state, militarize everyday life, criminalize the effects of social problems, eviscerate any viable notion of the social, govern society through the laws of the marketplace and destroy those public spaces where norms and Democratic values are produced and constantly renewed.

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I don't think it is far fetched to suggest that the hostile town meetings we have been witnessing in the last few weeks are symptomatic of a growing intolerance and authoritarianism in the United States mobilized through an ongoing culture of fear and a form of patriotic correctness designed to bolster a rampant nationalism and a selective popularism. Authoritarianism is rooted in an appeal to irrationality, trades in simplistic slogans and cultivates fear and insecurity. One consequence of such a move is the demise of the promise of a vibrant democracy and the corresponding impoverishment of political life, increasingly manifested in the inability of a society to question itself, engage in critical dialogue and translate private problems into social issues. This is a position that both characterizes and threatens any viable notion of democracy in the United States in the current historical moment. In a post 9/11 world, the space of shared responsibility has given way to the space of private fears and larger corporate interests. Politics is now mediated through a spectacle of mob rule in which fear and violence become the only modalities through which to grasp the meaning of the self and larger social relations. As the public collapses into highly charged narratives of personal anger, reason is uncoupled from freedom and the triumph of civic illiteracy, suggesting that irrational mob rule becomes "the only politics there is, the only politics with a tangible referent or emotional valence." <9>

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As the social is devalued and public discourse and politics disappear only to be replaced by unruly mobs emboldened by the right-wing celebrities and politicians "to become part of the mob," "shout out" and "rattle" speakers, what emerges is not simply an ugly display of individuals and groups mobilized by lobbyist-run groups such as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity. On the contrary, more than health care reform is under attack. What is truly under attack is any vestige of a Democratic society that is at odds with a free-market fundamentalism and the financial and economic interests that benefit from it.