Last week was home to one of my favorite televised events of 2016, after the Tony Awards: the Democratic National Convention, held in Philly. Democratic lawmakers and celebrities all came together to talk about their hopes, plans, and vision for America, as well as throw their support behind the Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton. Some of the first speakers of the convention included comedian Sarah Silverman, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, and our first lady, Michelle Obama.
Imagine, if you will, that you are Michelle Obama. I know, awesome, right? Look at your arms and your Harvard Law degree. (I love Michelle Obama. She beat Jackie Kennedy as my favorite first lady, and when you’re an Irish-Catholic from suburban Boston, that is an extremely hard person to knock out of first place.) Now imagine that you are delivering an intelligent, inspiring speech about how we as a country can’t give into the fear, ignorance, and blind anger that Donald Trump’s campaign is banking on to collect votes in the upcoming election. And imagine that the entire time you're talking, a group of volatile and increasingly loud protesters do not shut up, booing and and shouting out at random about how much they hate Hillary Clinton.
Even if you don’t agree with Hillary, how dare you heckle our first lady. How dare you heckle Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, who, by the way, is awesome. How dare you heckle Sarah Silverman. If you claim to be a progressive and then spend the whole night disrespecting some of our most progressive lawmakers, people of color, and a comedian who did absolutely nothing to you, you deserve Trump. He is just as blind an angry ignoramus as you are.
Of course, everyone is allowed to protest in this country. (Just yesterday I held a single person protest in my office building because the vending machine wasn’t working. It involved several peaceful but ultimately unsuccessful kicks to the side of the machine.) But there’s a difference between actually protesting with a message – legitimate grievances – and a plan to move forward to a better future, such as the Black Lives Matter movement, and just throwing a temper tantrum because you didn’t get your way, like the Bernie or Bust protesters.
In her speech, Michelle Obama told a story about how she tells her daughters, in the face of the hate and ignorance and cruelty they face every day because of their skin color, gender, and who their father is, that they must rise above it. “When they go low, we go high.” The Democratic party is supposed to take the high road, to be the grown-ups of this establishment. And it is an establishment, whether you like it or not.
You really want to change it? You should have voted for like-minded individuals in local and state races. You should’ve actually performed any kind of community action, raising money for food banks and STEM workshops you support. You should’ve created a dialogue with your local representatives, instead of, as my friend and political commentator Elizabeth Belsky commented, “[showing] up to do your civic duty 15 minutes late with Starbucks, and then complaining that the entire 238-year-old system doesn’t immediately cleave to your desires.”
At risk of sounding like an Aaron Sorkin character, “decisions are made by those who show up.” Don’t heckle the people who bothered to show up and act like you’re making a difference. You’re just bringing the decorum and unity of the party down to the levels of a squabbling 11th grade Civ class. The only difference you’re making is giving future historians yet another slide in their “Why the United States of America Fell Apart” slideshow, right before “Trump Was Elected and Tried to blow up China.”
