Last November, I attended Evanston’s “Nobody Is Above the Law” protest following the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which eliminated the buffer between President Trump and Robert Mueller, the special counsel looking into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Arriving to the meeting area, a park, I found the general air closer to that of a funeral procession than of a protest. I was easily the youngest person there, besides the children of some of the attendants — I imagine the mean age to probably be around 50. Everyone seemed to hold the all-too-familiar attitude of upper-class suburban living, that very specific gait of neoliberal complacency. These were not people who desired improvement, only a return to the status quo.

The speeches began. Empty words, they felt more like obligations to speak, like a son or daughter speaking at an estranged parent’s wake after not seeing them for twenty years. Then came the big speaker: U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois’ 9th district. Her speech was foreshadowed by seemingly every previous speaker making an acute point to say, “Jan Schakowsky is here!” What previously appeared to me a funeral revealed itself to a festival of death, a pure celebration of stagnancy. Rep. Schakowsky’s presence was the ultimate negation of any force that this event could possibly have.

Last century, having a politician attend a protest meant something. It was a legitimizer and a means to bring public attention to a cause. However, now that social networking exists, someone’s presence can be felt everywhere at once, the symbolizer of the account takes on the being of the individual behind it. This extends to events and causes as well. What was once disembodied via newspapers that were printed a day after something happened, a protest has a temporal presence even to those who aren’t there, as it can broadcasted to them via social networking.

The former utility of a politician at a protest has been eradicated and usurped by social networking. So, the question arises, what is the purpose of a politician at a protest in 2019? In Anton Chekhov’s short story “In the Ravine,” the charitable acts of a wealthy matriarch in a poor village are described as having, “the effect of a safety valve in a machine.”

A politician’s presence at a protest has the same effect. Any possible desire to produce a change beyond what is considered in the realm of acceptability of the status quo is crushed. The tired will of a neoliberal crowd chanting phrases which are already understood by everyone without having to be said, crushes the will of anyone with even slight progressive tendencies, for it’s easy to see that this protest carries no weight, and why should it?

With a politician there, it’s no longer for the mass, it’s for whatever senator or representative is there to be photographed with for the next election season. The presence of a politician at a protest signifies to onlookers that, “there’s no danger, just some folks practicing their first amendment rights.” This of course would often be said behind a layer of irony — they know they’re watching an impotent act.

Protests that work because they carry the threat of violence without actually committing said violence. Power, as theorized by a number of writers, is maintained and gained through violence or the threat of violence. This is why non-violent protest is a necessary fallacy, because if protests didn’t carry any threat of violence whatsoever, they wouldn’t hold any weight.

A politician at a protest, however, is like a magician revealing how a trick is done. “See? There was never any danger after all!” But there is a danger in the possible violence that can always occur, and the politician is this danger’s safety valve. The organizers at Evanston’s “Nobody Is Above the Law” protest constantly emphasized Schakowsky’s presence, and it felt like the political mass equivalent of telling everyone to use their inside voice.

For effective protest, there has to be a non-violence which never truly reveals itself to be non-violence. It must go all the way to the threshold of violence, then not pass it. Not arriving to this threshold shows the protest to be toothless. Crossing the threshold would turn the public’s good graces against the movement. Both of these negate the power of the protest. The presence of national level politicians at these protests stops them from reaching the threshold of violence. So, if a politician really cares about the success of a protest, they shouldn’t show up. If they do show up, they should either be barred from attendance or have their very own presence minimized and negated by attendants of the protest. This assures the protest embodies the issues themselves, not the whims and agendas of a politician.

Clay Mills is a Communication junior. He can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.