Abstract
An interview with Marcy Westerling, a leader in organizing rural communities in the Pacific Northwest. Westerling talks about such topics as her activism, the shifting winds of American populism, and living with a terminal illness.
For three decades, Marcy Westerling has been a leader in organizing rural communities in the Pacific Northwest to respond to violence, bigotry, and injustice. She founded Oregon’s Rural Organizing Project, which trains residents of small, often isolated, communities to advance democracy and human rights. In 2010 her efforts to map a strategy for progressive organizing in rural America were recognized with an Open Society Fellowship, but this work was cut short when she was diagnosed, three months into her project, at age 50, with late-stage ovarian cancer. Contexts co-editor Arlene Stein talked with Marcy about her work, the shifting winds of American populism, and living with a terminal illness.
A few years ago, to find out what all the fuss was about, you began to attend meetings of a Tea Party group near your home in Oregon. What were those meetings like?
Well, Clackamas [a county where the Tea Party is active] is basically the bedroom community of a sophisticated, wealthier, progressive city—Portland. Even though Clackamas County is a somewhat affluent place, it’s adrift. Its Tea Party, staffed by Americans for Prosperity, is a very vibrant group. It’s not church-based or as narrowly values-based as rightwing organizing has been in the recent past. Basically, it’s a support system for people who are totally bewildered and scared by the incredible transformation that they are living through and watching their children not do exceptionally well in. Their American Dream is broken. So, determined to do something, they line up with the Tea Party—because it offers up such easy explanations.
What kinds of issues were discussed at those meetings?
Here’s one: there’s a bridge that connects the city of Portland and Clackamas. It’s on the list of the hundred worst bridges in the country. If you love your family, you shouldn’t let them cross that bridge. Voters were asked on the last ballot to approve a five-dollar per year fee per vehicle to support this new bridge. Tea baggers organized to block it. They had hundreds of people turn out for meetings and that truly tiny tax was deep-sixed. They believe elites are trying to exert control over their way of life. They were angry about the fact that eighteen feet of this bridge was going to be dedicated to a bike path that only so-called “elites” use.
Marcy Westerling
Arlene Stein
To make their case, they circulated a broadsheet that featured a man, someone who was on parks and rec or something, who was part of the decision-making body who advocated for the bridge. He was an avuncular, retired, very comfortable guy. He and his wife rode everywhere on their bikes. The Tea Party broadsheet focused on his perfect little life: he was retired, had leisure time, and didn’t have any stress to distract him from taking lovely bike rides. “This person is going to shove this bridge down our throats,” they said! Personally, I’d like to invite them to see how much more stress-free their lives would be if they did their errands on a bike. But if they won’t support that bridge, they’re never going to get that ride.
Can you describe the sorts of people who attended Tea Party meetings?
They’re middle class folks, primarily. They may have pensions and all that, but were often the first in their families to go to college—and maybe the last. And they’re angry that their kids aren’t going to have access to the things they had. Many of them are not particularly political people, but they are so frustrated with the writing on the wall: with kids who can’t afford to leave the nest, or because they’re losing their savings in the stock market. Many of those who showed up at the meeting were responding to some of these more commonsense rather than racist or mean-spirited elements. At the same time, they’re expressing their hostilities in pretty unproductive ways. Ironically, one of the main reasons they hate the government is because it’s underfunded, and therefore can’t really do its job well.
But their populism stops short of targeting those at the top.
Right. The Tea Partiers are not willing to aim at the top. The current opposition to government programs is compatible with the interests of their deep pockets, like the Koch brothers, who are funding the Tea Party. They’re focusing on government waste, and how taxes are ruining everything, and why we don’t have jobs that we value. They’re more willing to look at who’s coming for their slice of pie. We need to be able to say to them: “you’re right, there are shifting demographics, and you’re going to have to share the pie. But let’s look at who’s giving us less and less pie.” I’ve been to these meetings and people’s identification with wealth and people of wealth is pretty extreme. They know their kids are not going to do as well, but they’ve lived the American dream. I think we’re foolhardy to underestimate them. Their campaigns are very, very local, under the radar, and highly participatory. They’ve had an enormous impact on the Republican Party.
Democratic Party strategists have been concerned about declining support among white working class males. How do you think gender dynamics play out in the Tea Party?
Well, there are a lot of women involved in the Tea Party. With a certain degree of authenticity, the movement has created a wacky kind of ownership of feminism. Before, a Phyllis Schlafly would be identified as an anti-feminist: the male is the head of the household. By contrast, the Sarah Palin grizzly kind of feminist is very comfortable using the language of feminism. It may be a defense of masculinity, but there’s no apologetic female in the storyline. I recall the Tea Party’s town halls back in August 2009, when Obama’s health care bill was being attacked: a lot of women were weeping.
The American Dream is broken…. The enormous changes we’re living through are unsettling.
Why were they weeping?
Because they feel that the things they value most are unraveling.
They believe the Federal government, in trying to address inequities in the health care system, is posing the threat of societal collapse? That’s a bit mind-boggling, isn’t it?
I find a lot of things mind-boggling. At the same time, I know that what motivates their anger is legitimate: the American Dream is broken. Progressives haven’t been as well positioned to speak to the sense of angst and vulnerability many people feel. The enormous changes we’re living through are deeply unsettling. We progressives are not necessarily naming it well. We’re not willing to say: “White people, I hope you enjoyed your generations of privilege because I don’t think you’re going to get to continue it.”
During the last few months, particularly since the rise of the Occupy movement last fall, there’s been a lot of talk about the Tea Party losing its luster. Do you think that’s true? Is the Tea Party still a force to be reckoned with?
That’s a bogus question. There’s always going to be a Next Big Thing. The Tea Party as an incarnation of rabble-rising on the right may have had its moment—much like the Wise Use movement of the 1980s, or the John Birch Society before it—but the bigger question is whether the organizing that supported the Tea Party has unraveled. Have those dissatisfied people gone back to their couches, or are they regrouping? I suspect that some have headed to their couches, but others are finding new venues for their anger. Interestingly, I’ve heard many, many stories of Tea Party folks showing up at Occupy movement events, sometimes just gazing, sometimes counter-protesting, and sometimes even fully joining in. The challenge for the Occupy movement, which has had such broad resonance, is whether it can bring in people who were marching proudly with the Tea Party just moments ago—especially since some former Tea Partiers may have opinions that many of us are uncomfortable with. Are we courageous enough to actually welcome these “regular” folks in and build alliances with them?
Have you been active in the Occupy movement?
Oh, yes, I’ve been out there, going to the protests in Portland. One of the things this movement has done brilliantly, I think, is to invite people to tell their stories. People were holding signs that said, “I was foreclosed on” or “I have $50,000 in student loan debt.” I participated as someone who needs chemotherapy drugs that are no longer being produced; instead I am waitlisted because of a drug shortage. In this way, the Occupy movement isn’t so different from the Tea Party—it’s a vehicle for people to deal with broken dreams. But whereas the Tea Party consists of middle class and unemployed people raging against the unemployed—basically shaking its finger at itself—the Occupy movement gives people a chance to claim those parts of themselves that others say they should be ashamed of.
Is the Occupy movement still strong in your area?
Well, Portland was cleared out, like a lot of places, but the Occupy presence is still very strong. In Oregon there have been more rural occupations than in any other state that we know of. The small town of Mosier, Oregon (population 410) had an occupation. And then people in the tiny town of Winston (population 5,379), in the southern part of the state competed with them, and staged an occupation too. This has had a great impact in Oregon, which is largely rural. Forty post offices in rural Oregon have been slated to shut down. We managed to get a six-month moratorium on it, and we celebrated our post offices with cookies and cider. The brilliance and simplicity of “occupy” is that it speaks to people everywhere. The Occupy movement is so generous in its concept that we don’t need to narrow our identities and ask, “hey, are you speaking to me”?
The Tea Party is a support system for people who are totally bewildered and scared by the incredible transformation that they are living through.
James Harling (jamesharling.co.uk)
Marcy, has your cancer diagnosis shifted your priorities, and changed your political work in any way?
We’re now in a moment of great clarity—and momentum. It is interesting to approach this moment as an organizer who is increasingly facing my own death—exacerbated by government inaction and collusion with the pharmaceutical industry. I can’t get my preferred chemo drugs, so I’m getting second best. The drug that might keep me alive is not available because of an amazing system-wide collapse of the pharmaceutical industry. I may literally die because of greed! So I’ve taken my organizing skills and applied them to the drug shortages. We need to take a look at the fact that over 250 critical drugs are not available, and ask why. It’s because of Big Pharma and Wall Street. The power of community organizing is that it allows you to insert your own story into the mix—and I have to a lot to insert in the mix. I’m excited about the possibilities, and I want to see this through.