WASHINGTON — Last Saturday, 422 miles from campus, Wolverines gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in support of moderacy and rationality in national politics. Later reports by CBS News would estimate the crowd at 215,000, but the amicable atmosphere made the event seem much smaller. The first time the mass erupted into cheers, the front section turned around when their yells subsided. They could hear the reverberation of people blocks away, who were so far back that it took longer for sound to reach them — and at that point we all knew this was much bigger than we had anticipated.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear illustrates a national desire for moderacy. American politics are afflicted by a partisan chasm, where those with different opinions are viewed as enemies, creating a gridlock that makes it impossible to move forward in discussions of political beliefs. The national media fuels this divide with pundits, sorting everyone and anyone into two distinct categories: liberal and conservative. But from John Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s rally in Washington to students campaigning in Ann Arbor, there is clearly a movement toward the middle in American politics.

A Moderate Rally

An impromptu protest near the Fox News van parked beside the mall was representative of the animosity toward the national media. Stewart and Colbert rolled montages on jumbo-screens of the titans of punditry — including Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly — making gross overstatements and apocalyptic political predictions. While the crowd was armed with signs mocking conservatives like Beck, Sarah Palin and other Fox News personalities, Colbert was quick to remind those present of the liberal media’s fixation on disaster by giving an award to Anderson Cooper’s tight black t-shirt for inciting fear during every broadcast.

Though the majority of the rally echoed the comedy seen on “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” Stewart took the last few minutes of the rally to highlight the media’s shortcomings.

“The country's 24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder,” he told the crowd. “The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the dangerous, unexpected flaming ant epidemic.

“If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.”

This message incited cheers from throughout the mall. One supporter was Public Policy junior Tommy Held, one of the many University students who made the trek to hear Colbert and Stewart’s message.

“I’ve been a long-time fan of Jon Stewart,” Held said while preparing for his trip to the rally. “This is sort of the nexus of my interest in politics, my interest in comedy and satire and sort of what the rally’s all about: toning it down."

There was a clear University presence in the diverse crowd. Stewart noted that the audience was a perfect sampling of the American population, with people of all ages, races and religions within which an occasional representation of maize and blue stood out among the mass. A man in a Michigan baseball cap stood in the packed crowd a dozen yards away, a girl donning a Michigan flag as a cape crossed streets a block away and a man in a Michigan hoodie passed by on the metro escalator.

LSA senior Christina Bertrand and seven of her friends made the trip to Washington last weekend, but it was much rougher than they had anticipated. Their plans for lodging fell through, they received only a few hours of sleep and fought dehydration. Still, Bertrand insists that “the rally made everything worth it.” And that positive attitude was seen throughout the National Mall during Stewart and Colbert’s rally, which was packed, yet still full of polite and courteous participants.

The weather was unexpectedly warm so a man modified his sign from a political message to “Does anyone have any sun block?” and moments later I was passing a bottle in his direction. After the rally, the crowd was tired and hungry, but we made way for a man with a stroller to leave first. The lines for hot dog vendors were long and food was in short supply, but when I joined the line, the couple in front of me gently told me there were no pretzels or water left.

“I was really happy that everyone at the rally seemed to be really friendly and respectful,” said LSA junior James Janisse. “I mean, it was ridiculously packed. You couldn’t even move … but no one ever yelled or got mad. If I stepped on someone’s foot, I apologized and they didn’t care.