Rohe's Dissent

Publius has a fascinating post on the left's capacity for effective dissent, focusing on Jean Rohe's pre-buttal to McCain's graduation speech. "I did," Publius writes, "find her speech (and McCain’s heckling) troubling – not because it showed disrespect, but because of its utter futility as a method of dissent." But Publius doesn't actually mean "futile." If Rohe's dissent was merely "incapable of producing any useful result; pointless," there'd be little reason to address it. What Publius means is that it was counterproductive:

the problem is that “the Left” has been so stereotyped and caricatured for so many years (often aided and abetted by people like Lieberman or even itself) that true Left-wing protests don’t undermine anything (in the Lefty sense of undermine). In fact, they usually do precisely the opposite in that they further the interests of the target of protest. Rohe’s speech and the hecklers are Exhibit A. Despite their intentions, they actually helped John McCain’s presidential chances. He wanted to be booed and heckled there so he could use that example to skeptical Iowa conservatives. See, liberals hate me. In this sense, the “dissent” is precisely what McCain needed. Oddly enough, a roaring reception would have been more “subversive” to his campaign than the heckling. George Allen: Well, I'll you one thing Wolf, they wouldn't have cheered me at the New School.

In general, Publius is correct. The upper-middle class, overeducated, hyper-politicized college student is nothing but a sad caricature, one the public has long ago grown inured to. If you sing a chant but nobody's listening, do you really make a sound? Indeed, college protesters have become nothing but downside; their competent actions are ignored, their occasional tumbles into extremism are expertly exploited by the very establishment they mean to discredit.

But this is not the general, it's the specific, and here, Rohe has an edge. Whether she knows it or not, she's echoing Hillary Rodham Clinton's first step onto the public stage. Clinton was graduate speaker for her graduating class at Wellesley. She was slated to go on directly after the day's marquee attraction, Sen. Brooks. Straying from her prepared remarks, she offered an extemporaneous demolition of the Senator's comments. It was a stunning performance, so much so that parts of her speech were excerpted in Life magazine that year.

Rohe won't have the same impact. But her speech was useful just the same. Protests are useful for shattering consensus, but student marchers are ignored because protesting appears to be their consensus. Rohe quietly slipped out of the second box, and comfortably returned to the form's roots. So far as the media is concerned, McCain is universally beloved, a hero to one and all. Central to this narrative is his ability to seamlessly transition from a speech at Falwell's Liberty College to an address at Kerrey's New School. Indeed, central to this narrative is his ability to give the same speech at both. Had the event been unremarkable, had it passed without polite applause, without punishment for his appearance at Liberty, the storyline would have been affirmed. Rohe intercepted it, effectively locking his door to the left. He may be welcome at Liberty, but he was not welcome at New School. Speaking for the left, or at least the school McCain was using to represent the left, she put the lie to his tale. In doing, she shattered the consensus, and so mounted that rarest of all acts: an effective protest.