When I first moved to Los Angeles, I worked in locations. A majority of the work was film locations, but we had one property that was widely used for special events: Union Station. I started out as a site rep, which is the person designated to monitor the location and make sure that nothing is damaged, that the crew stays where they're supposed to, etc. I eventually worked my way up to agent, but this story is from one of my very first assignments as a site rep.
It was 2003, during the presidential primaries. Howard Dean was a frontrunner. It was an interesting campaign, because this was really the first presidential candidate to take hold using the internet to put together a grassroots following. I was assigned to work a large fundraiser for Howard Dean at Union Station, and I was thrilled! His trajectory fascinated me, in what was essentially a brave new world of online connectedness.
My first red flags appeared when I realized that Howard Dean, as an early frontrunner, had refused secret service protection to avoid costing the taxpayers any money. This made me uneasy in a post 9-11 world, working at an event with very little control over who was coming and going, as it was attached to Union Station, which is very much an active public transportation hub. I noticed that the campaign had hired off duty police officers as security (which is pretty common in LA for both events and filming), and they're armed, so that gave me a little peace of mind. For reference, because it will be relevant in this story, the security provided as part of the venue were minimum wage, unarmed security guards. For weddings and smaller events, they essentially shoo away the lookie loos and make sure random train passengers aren't eating the catered food, and are provided as part of the venue rental for that purpose. For larger events or film locations with expensive equipment, celebrities, blah blah blah...the off duty police officers were standard and were hired by the event organizers/film production.
The next red flag appeared as I started interacting with the people running his campaign. Many of them had this thousand mile stare of a cult follower, and the main person running the event (who was likely in her early 20's, as was I) affected this dreamy sound to her voice when discussing "the governor." The way she said, "the governor," in her dreamy, breathy baby voice, with her cult-glazed eyes made my skin crawl. She sort of drew it out, like the *sigh* govern-oor. I may have been fresh off the boat from the Midwest (or tractor...or outta the corn fields...whatever lol), but I have had an uncanny ability to see through bullshit for most of my life, which almost seems to be innate.
She trailed me throughout the event, which was spread across the old ticket concourse (for the plebs) and the secluded north patio (for the VIPs). Throughout the event, I mingled with celebrities in my cheap suit (thank God I was young and cute, because I did not know how to dress), and filled various requests for the *sigh* govern-oor...from the girl running the event.
Aside: I met Martin Sheen at this event, who was playing the president on The West Wing at the time, and he was lovely. I thought it was funny to see the pretend president at an actual presidential fundraiser.
Here's where things get weird. It was dark outside, and there is a short outdoor walk from the old ticket concourse to the north patio, and baby-voice cultface had another request: "The *sigh* govern-oor would like to go visit the VIP area, and he has to walk outside to get there. I was wondering if we could borrow some of your security guards to surround the *sigh* govern-oor while he walks from the main event to the VIP area."
I paused. Over the course of working these events, I had gotten to know our security guards. They worked long hours and made shitty money. Many of them had families they were trying to support, and they were working their assess off trying to survive in LA. I was enraged by this request. My thoughts flashed to this joker's campaign, refusing secret service to make a political point, now asking for my grossly underpaid, unarmed security guards to form a bubble around the *sigh* govern-oor!
I looked at her, and could feel the anger sparking through my eyes, "Let me see if I'm getting this right. You're telling me that the candidate who refused secret service on principle, the 'people's candidate', wants to use my unarmed, $8 an hour security guards, as human bullet shields? That's going to be a 'no.' You have your own armed security. Use them."
Baby-voice appeared shocked, and scurried away. Howard Dean found his way to the VIP area, without our security guards, and I didn't see my little cult follower for the rest of the night.
This event forever changed the way that I look at politics. I told everyone who would listen that Howard Dean's campaign was a nightmare, and while he was my first choice leading up to this, he had become my last. The Dean Scream in early 2004 confirmed my suspicions that he was fully aware of his cult-like following.
I had a visceral reaction the the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 and again in 2020, because I watched that same mentality in person years before. *Makes note to avoid Vermont* Politics, especially high level politics, are exciting. There's an energy to that level that can be electric. When it veers into the cult like territory of believing that your candidate can literally do no wrong is where we start flirting the cult of personality.
I'm seeing this now with the garish Trump displays, where our country is leaning into propaganda. The Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders campaigns pale in comparison. People assume that I'm some ultra liberal because I've been so outspoken against Trump. I've voted both dem and republican, and would say that being a parent has made me more liberal-leaning out of concerns for the environment and his future. I wanted to share my own experience with cult politics as a cautionary tale, in the hopes that someone reads this and it parts the clouds of propaganda.
Any political candidate with a cult-like following does not have your best interests at heart. It becomes about the power, the grift, the ego...whatever the selfish motivation is that fans those flames. Be it Trump, Sanders, Dean, whomever, you are the $8 an hour bullet shield and nothing more.
No comments:
Post a Comment