Peter Beinart writes in the Daily Beast that the DC Rally for Sanity was a failure, and the Left just doesn’t understand why:
In his closing monologue, [John] Stewart did acknowledge that Americans have legitimate fears, but the thrust of the event was that Americans would soothe their rattled nerves if only the media and politicians stopped whipping them up. I don’t think that’s true. In the last year or so, the right has found a way of acknowledging Americans’ terror about economic decline. The left has not, and last weekend, Stewart barely tried.
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In America today, as at past moments in our history, there’s a profound debate underway not just about how to right our economy but about the relationship between capitalism and freedom. Pretending it’s not a real debate is a great way for the left to lose.
Maybe it’s not fair to blame Jon Stewart for all this. He’s a comedian, after all. But he’s the left’s closest equivalent to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. And while they’re busy struggling to recreate the America of William McKinley, he’s acting as if our biggest problem is that people shout at each other on the tube. For a guy as talented as Stewart, that’s insane.