Pandemic Protest Motivators: Karakaya's Spectacle Seekers

Protesters left their cars and formed an impromptu rally. (NPR)

On Wednesday, April 15th, several thousand cars packed the streets around the Michigan capitol building, honking and blasting music like “God Bless the USA”. “Operation Gridlock” was an event put together by the Michigan Conservative Coalition to protest Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s extended stay at home order. While organizers urged protesters to stay in their cars, a group gathered on the steps of the capitol building, flaunting preventative measures by not wearing masks, standing within six feet of one another, and handing out candy to children, without gloves (NPR). Governer Whitmer characterized the protests as “essentially a political rally”, saying “It wasn't really about the stay-at-home order at all”. News outlets noted that the protest on the steps of the capitol building “took on a flavor of a Trump rally”. There were clear similarities between the two, with many Make America Great Again hats, American, confederate and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, patriotic rock music, and even chants of “lock her up” (referring to Whitmer instead of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton). Yağmur Karakaya’s 2018 article “The Conquest of Hearts: the central role of Ottoman nostalgia within contemporary Turkish populism” characterizes parts of political rallies. If we view the group who gathered on foot during “Operation Gridlock” as a rally and analyze it using Karakaya’s work, we can see that these protesters exemplify her group “spectacle seekers”.

In “The Conquest of Hearts”, Karakaya defines three main groups of people that she sees interacting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s political rallies in Turkey. The group she calls “spectacle seekers”, enjoy Erdoğan’s rallies. They believe that the events do a good job conveying important emotions about their countries heritage and history of conquest, and the enthusiasm one should feel for their nation. Karakaya’s interviewees said the rallies “make me proud, really….I mean you just go back to the past when you watch this” and “these kinds of enthusiasms and exuberances infuse you with new excitement, which is necessary”. We can see this same view from rally-goers in the United States, and specifically at “Operation Gridlock”. First, the slogan “make America great again”, present at every a Trump rally and the protest in Michigan, is a call to remember and epitomize portions of the United States’ past, much like the rallies in Turkey do with their Ottoman history. Also, the ralliers in Michigan projected tones of conquest, chanting “lock her up”, similar to the way Erdoğan’s rallies hark back to the Ottoman’s conquest. Finally, the “spectacle seekers” Karakaya interviews expressed pride in their country through the events, and rally participants in on the 15th showed their pride as well, through American flags and Lee Greenwood’s “God bless the USA”.

A valid response to this analysis is to question whether we can truly characterize the sub-protest in Michigan as a political rally (I questioned myself as I wrote). But the definitive proof, I believe, comes in the form of a New York Times article. The journalists found that the protests across the country were nurtured by “an informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House”, who are attempting to turn unhappiness over stay-at-home orders into votes in November. When protests turn out to be gatherings to rustle-up votes, it seems to be fair to categorize them as political rallies. In these rallies, through the attitudes of the attendees, we can see “spectacle seekers” as a group prompting protest rallies during the pandemic.