Portable protests
I’ve been listening to the highly recommended podcast The West Wing Weekly since its inception, as hosts Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh…
I’ve been listening to the highly recommended podcast The West Wing Weekly since its inception, as hosts Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway re-watch each episode of the series, week by week. It’s a good excuse to delve back into what is probably my favorite TV series of all time, not only for its sheer entertainment value, but also for the portrait it paints of politics at the turn of the century.
Since then much, of course, has changed. Several of the political debates the show presents are outdated — both because immense progress has since been made on some issues (on equal marriage, for example), and because on others — particularly political polarization and government dysfunction —politics has demonstrably regressed.
Yet smaller plot points and asides can also inadvertently shine a light on the pace of change in the last 15 years. In the most recent episode covered by the podcast, Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail, a side-plot sees Communications Director Toby Ziegler attend an anti-free trade rally on behalf of the White House. Of course, the subject matter couldn’t be more relevant today, even if an isolationist stance on trade has more recently been embraced by a Republican president.
The plot point that seemed most remarkable today, however, relates to how evolving technology has changed the dynamics of protest. In the episode, Press Secretary CJ Cregg has negotiated that there will be no television cameras or press photographers at the event. As Toby tells one of the protesters at the event, this concession was key — without cameras, he will not be subject to outside scrutiny for failing to control or reason with the baying crowd.
Today, because of the proliferation of mobile phones and other devices with cameras, such an idea would be fanciful. For as impressive as the recent weekend marches protesting the Trump administration have been, their amplification via images on social media — from sweeping shots of the massed crowds, to the funniest individual signs and slogans — have helped shape the debate, and angered the famously image-conscious president. Just this evening, Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz faced this scene:
This clip will no doubt have gone viral — or at least bacterial — by the morning, with implications for Chaffetz’s own position and, one must assume, his attitude towards the administration. An angry crowd of any size would be enough to unsettle a politician — but when the potential audience is in the millions, the political impact might be exponentially larger.