Rally to Restore Sanity, National Mall, Washington, D.C.

This last Saturday, October 30, 2010, Nicole and I attended the Rally to Restore Sanity put on by Jon Stewart at the National Mall here in Washington, D.C. After participating in the Glenn Beck Restoring Honor rally on August 28 also here at the National Mall, I was eager to see what kind of people would turn up and how they might be different than those at the Beck rally. First of all, Beck’s rally drew between 80,000 and 100,000 people while Stewart’s rally brought in between 200,000 and 250,000 people. In addition to a larger crowd, the group was much more racially diverse and the use of signs, particularly humorous ones, was much more widespread. The atmosphere was lightened by the event’s proximity to Halloween and costumes of all kinds abounded.

Since the pulsing throngs prevented us from getting closer to the stage than about 1/4 mile, and the jumbotron screens and speakers stopped at 1/8 mile, Nicole and I could not hear or see any of what was on stage. But we have been to enough of these events now that we don’t come for the official performance. Instead we turn our backs to the stage and watch the unofficial performance––the crowd in all its unscripted glory. We saw gay couples holding hands and white parents with non-white children. We saw only three American flag shirts and no constitution shirts but lots of American flags. Musicians played various instruments around the mall and hula-hoop girls danced until they were bathed in sweat. A Jedi Warrior handed out pamphlets on racism and I saw Scooby Doo talking to a woman who looked like Operah about Communism.

Because we couldn’t hear or see the stage, Nicole and I were made aware that the rally had ended when the crowd unceremoniously turned away from the stage and swept us off the mall into the surrounding restaurant and shopping districts. At home later that night we watched in crystal clear high definition the performance that had unfolded so close to us. Jon Stewart’s impassioned soliloquy was indeed moving and his jokes consistently came at just the right time to allow me to hide my tears with laughter.

Here are my images from the Glenn Beck Rally.