Nancy Pelosi

The thing I wasn’t prepared for was the enmity. Demonstrators on both sides of the health care reform debate met at the corner of 21st and Broadway yesterday, but not to hash out differences or come to any new understanding of the issues at hand. Those lots have already been drawn.

John Tomasic gets it right when he says “They’ll be facing a throng of constituents more interested in each other, perhaps, than in the speakers.” Demonstrators came to show numbers for and against health care reform as presented by the president and hashed out by Congress. They did not come to listen.

I was not surprised by the anger or the volume. That much was predictable. What caught me off was the brazen confrontational nature of exchanges between demonstrators from opposing camps. The tone struck me as desiring an altercation. A young man in a t-shirt and cut off cargo pants pushed into a crowd of supporters and waved a sign and shouted “Socialist” in people’s faces. One senior citizen berated another senior citizen: “GET YOUR GUY TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH!” He encroached within inches of the other man’s face. Another man, early middle aged and wearing a muscle shirt and aviator glasses, kept crossing from the anti reform crowd to the pro reform crowd and shouting at people “I’m sick of paying for your health care!”

No one outside even heard Pelosi’s remarks from within the clinic.

With yesterday’s experience as context, it’s no surprise to read reports of violence at similar events nationwide. To be sure, I think the media generally tends to stoke these fires and spread alarm. Still, the tone at these events is pretty obscene. And I should point out it goes both ways. So much for getting an August discussion.