The work of THE WEEKLY STANDARD was briefly interrupted when a handful of Greenpeace stuntivists mounted a crane on a neighboring construction site, unfurled a banner, and then dangled in the air for several hours. Our office window had a perfect view of the pranksters as their banner folded in on itself, obscuring its message.
Still, it was difficult for The Scrapbook to perceive the point. The Greenpeace gesture attracted only modest attention on social media, and a few passersby paused to gawk and take photographs. The Washington Post did report that the high jinks “brought the construction of the new Fannie Mae headquarters to a halt,” but that was not quite true: Work continued on the site adjacent to the protest. Of course, several hundred office workers were prevented from getting to their jobs, several city blocks were barred to automobiles and delivery trucks, and a number of construction workers were reportedly sent home without pay. Greenpeace didn’t so much make new friends as make a nuisance of itself.
Such disruptions have lately been commonplace in the nation’s capital: The police will close streets and bar pedestrians so that the aggrieved can swarm, shriek, and vandalize. Marches are called daily for a host of unlikely causes. And especially since Donald Trump assumed the Oval Office, the streets of Washington have become an expanding stage for political theater. In the past, such spectacles were largely confined to the White House, the Capitol, and the National Mall. Now it’s citywide, a chronic urban annoyance like rats and cyclists.
The Scrapbook’s hope, grounded in long experience, is that the silliness will soon subside. Other than the protest professionals on the George Soros payroll, people will man the barricades for only so long. In a prosperous democracy, the thrill of mass protest wanes—especially when gaudy acts of civil disobedience do little other than snarl traffic and dent the wages of the hardhat crowd.
