TEA Protest, El Paso, Texas – April 15, 2009
This man was photographed in El Paso, Texas at a “TEA party.” At the TEA party are, mostly, the aged and, seemingly, the innocent, with much esoteric political discussion, predictions of the end of the Republic, impassioned anger and, to be fair, much sincerity. To my “”eye,” it seems a little sad. Sadness for what, I am still trying to process and determine.
Sadness for what “was?” Sadness for the passing of a certain generation and their certitudes? Sadness because what they most deeply believe in is no longer mainstream thinking?
I am not sure why but throughout the event I keep thinking of an Obama rally I attended last summer, the obvious fervor of the young people in the crowd, the almost delirious expectation that they were about to take a wild “ride,” that things were going to be different.
And here, at this TEA rally, is a modulated and constrained protest to…do what? Keep things as they were?
No good.
To not trust the new guys to get us into trouble?
No good. The old guys got us here. Trouble.
The fear of the awful weight of history, the knowledge of the fall of empire?
Maybe.
They come by the hundreds and it feels, not so much as if there is a real expectation that their protest will matter, but, rather, that, perhaps, they themselves will fade away if they do not come, do not speak, do not make a stand for their voices to be, at least, heard.
The tone of the event sounds more like a wail than a shout.
This man has driven hundreds of miles to participate. He lives in the middle of nowhere, down in the Big Bend, in Texas. He says he wants to be among others of like mind, “to save the Republic,”so he drove to El Paso. He has made many signs and wants to keep showing me new ones. He speaks at length and passionately about his opposition to the current administration, never once referring to anyone by name, always speaking of “them.”
He says he is a patriot, and I believe him.
He is a patriot among patriots who are, apparently, living in a sea of indifference.
I leave, slightly “down.”
Why?
I am still “processing.”
