Road Trip for (in)sanity and/or fear.

Apparently, I’m the worst person to take on your road trip. In our odyssey to Washington D.C. for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, I didn’t touch the wheel once. Even my mix CD almost got me tossed from the vehicle (not everyone enjoys Yo Gabba Gabba soundtracks as much as me).
But I tagged along anyway, drinking machine coffee from Styrofoam cups and making fun of each state we passed through.
Here’s a secret: I’m not really that politically-minded. Until I took an Intro to Politics class this semester, the only Hobbes I knew was the stuffed tiger who hung out with Calvin. The only real piece of political ammo I retained from the campus gubernatorial debate is that Bill Brady allegedly likes to strangle puppies with his bare hands (granted, I may have embellished this memory—I tend to overreact when puppy deaths are involved.)
But, like every modern college student, I hold Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert near and dear to my liberal arts heart.
And there’s no harm in being more political. If nothing, gaining more knowledge gives me more right to complain. After all, I didn’t even know what “gubernatorial” meant until about a month ago, and it’s never a bad thing to add another five-syllable word to my vocab.
As far as political signs go, I could get behind most of the messages at the rally, but only because the references had vague political connotations.
You referenced Harry Potter on your homemade banner? You must know what you’re talking about.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Flight of the Conchords, Arrested Development… It’s like a sign company got a hold of my Facebook “likes” and pumped out every weird reference they could think of.
Does that mean I like politics now? No, it means I like obscure pop culture references. But if I need obscure pop culture references to connect on a political sphere, is that such a terrible thing?
In the 2008 elections, MTV told us to Rock the Vote. And let me tell you, I rocked it. Not just because Fall Out Boy told me to, but to be honest, it did help.
Is there something wrong with politics being “hip?” If it’s cool to be political, that just means we’ll have a lot more trendy, informed citizens. You can wear your tightest skinny jeans to the ballots if you want. You don’t need full circulation in your legs to cast a vote. You just need to show up.
So in a way, I took a stand. In fact, I stood for five—feet aching, eyes squinted, watching the broadcast on a screen a few hundred feet ahead of me.
I know there are naysayers out there who bash Stewart’s rally as pointless, or even as a dangerous mockery of American politics. In some peoples’ eyes, humor can never be paired with a serious point.
But when used correctly, humor can be a powerful tool.
We hear a joke, we laugh, and sometimes we stop to consider the truth it illuminates. Sure, this was a rally for sanity. And if we never laughed, we really would go crazy.
Every once in awhile, we all need to do something utterly ridiculous in order to remain sane in this world. Sometimes “sanity” means you have to dress up like a lumberjack and play a round of Twister. Sometimes it means that you have to hold an impassioned argument with your pet cat.
Sometimes, it means you have to drive for twenty-six hours in order to spend just five at a rally you’re not entirely sure how to define. Because sometimes you need to add yourself to a tally, to take a stand, to point to pictures or newsfeeds the next morning and say I was there, I saw it, I heard it, let me tell you about it.
If I really gained one thing from our expedition to the rally, it’s this: we need to communicate, and listen, and stop typing in all caps on internet message boards, sure. But most of all, we need to laugh.