Barack Obama broke his silence yesterday to speak about the importance of civic engagement. The former president talked about things like “listening to understand” and working “to create trust.” Altogether it was a good primer on the importance of polite political activism.
The mob that just muscled their way into the lobby of the Heritage Foundation must have missed Obama’s lecture. When those partisans pushed past security onto private property, they signaled that the liberal resistance has given up on unity. Quite simply, division is the new goal.
More than a tantrum, this is a significant shift in the direction of the reiterating protests that have continued non-stop since Trump took office. If the Women’s and Science Marches were about uniting around gender equality and empiricism, the Heritage stunt was about terrifying unsuspecting four-eyed, pencil-pushing conservative policy experts.
Around 200 protestors flooded into Heritage’s Capitol Hill headquarters an hour before noon Tuesday, screaming that they were going to shut down the think tank. While opposition to Trump’s budget was the headline of the demonstration, they didn’t let that stifle their creativity. “Our solution to pollution is the people’s revolution,” they chanted before switching over to the more succinct, but no less vague, cadence of “water not walls.”
Regardless of the mixed messaging, the bottom line was simple. They swarmed into Heritage because they didn’t like the ideas the think tank produced. And instead of trying to help reach consensus with traditional protest, they tried intimidating the opposition.
The flash anarchy strategy appears to be organized by an organization called the People’s Action Institute. And while that group certainly has great passion they demonstrated very little endurance. They were in and out in less than 20 minutes.
That was just long enough for the whole stunt to ironically backfire. Heritage ran a full court press on the protest. They posted a live stream of the protest, used the event to plug a policy paper, and their staffers offered a dozen snarky takes on Twitter. The Daily Signal (where I used to work) will no doubt flood the zone with coverage.
Instead of sinking the conservative outfit, the protest hardened opposition among hardliners on the right. The immediate and ironic result will be a boost to Heritage’s bottom line as conservative donors reach for their checkbooks while their blood boils. The long-term consequences are more troubling. After three months of Trump demonstrations, it’s clear the protests aren’t stopping and won’t always be civil from now on.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
