Why Occupy Wall Street is No Tea Party

An article I wrote for the American Thinker arguing that Occupy Wall Street won't duplicate the tea party's success in influencing the political process because it is at its core a fringe movement, incapable of building winning political coalitions:

As the Occupy Wall Street movement attempts to establish a firm foothold in American society, veterans of left-wing organizing, including former Obama administration czar Van Jones, are urging this fledgling movement to run candidates for office, following the Tea Party model of transforming a grassroots movement into a powerful electoral force.  After all, what good isstorming local bank branches and blocking Americans from going to work if you don't send representatives to Congress who share your core values and goals?  But the prospect of OWS emerging as a viable political force is a pipe dream, akin to similar aspirations held by OWS's ideological predecessors, the 1960s counterculture.

There are fundamental differences between the Tea Party and OWS that made the former a formidable political force and will render the latter an inconsequential soon-to-be historical footnote.  Of course, there are also some basic similarities.  In the abstract, both are grassroots movements dissatisfied with the status quo and bank bailouts fighting for transformative change.  But beyond the abstract, the movements diverge into mutually exclusive entities.

From the beginning, the Tea Party was primarily made up of middle-class, fiscally conservative Americans who opposed government expansion under President Obama and the Democratic Congress.  They organized and rallied peacefully, picked up after themselves, and didn't cost taxpayers a dime.  The Tea Party called for less debt, less spending, and less government intervention in the economy.  They didn't always offer detailed policy proposals, but they did espouse coherent philosophical and economic principles.  And while they understandably made some rookie political mistakes, the Tea Party succeeded in transforming the electoral landscape in 2009 and 2010.  Their success was all the more impressive, given how novel and politically inexperienced this movement was.

Compare the composition and the philosophical underpinnings of the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street.  Every fringe group seems to gravitate towards OWS.  Endorsed by the American Nazi Party, the American Communist Party, David Duke, Iran's Ayatollah, Hugo Chávez, and Kim Jong-il, OWS is a hodgepodge of fringe radicalism, with no clear and concrete values shared by its members, save for a general aversion to capitalism and economic liberty.  A movement so philosophically muddled and absurd that it garners the support of a former KKK Grand Wizard, an Islamic fundamentalist, and a Stalinist dictator cannot expect to build winning political coalitions.

OWS supporters counter that every movement entails fringe elements that do not represent the movement as a whole.  Interestingly, neither the opponents of the Tea Party nor the mainstream media afforded this benefit of the doubt to the Tea Party; a handful of tasteless and offensive signs at Tea Party rallies were routinely used to disingenuously brand the entire movement as racist, violent, and radical.  Lest we be guilty of inaccurately branding OWS, let's actually examine what OWS stands for.

What are some of Occupy Wall Street's guiding principles?  Pitting people who make over $300,000 (the 1%) against their friends and family who make less (the 99%)?  Pitting employers against employees?  The OWS crowd opposes Wall Street bailouts, but supports massive government intervention in the economy and bailouts for mortgage and college debt.  They say they oppose crony capitalism but support government takeover of major sectors of the economy.  They oppose income inequality but don't explain how making people less wealthy will help the "99%."

The only discernible and consistent message of OWS seems to be that they don't like free enterprise.  Free enterprise and rich people.  You can't win elections on a barely intelligible, anti-capitalist platform, especially when you lack clear and actionable ideas.  The Tea Party rallied against Obamacare, demanded that government reign in its profligate spending, and fought against congressional earmarks.  On the other hand, OWS believes that we should put people over profits, end corporate greed, and bail out $1 trillion of student debt.  This is indeed a far cry from the philosophically cohesive and coherent Tea Party.

Admittedly, it would be fascinating to watch a movement armed with little more than abstract radical leftist talking points, whose members throw bottles at police, occupy ports and bridges, and are endorsed by international anti-American zealots, attempt to navigate the electoral process.  That would be some spectacle.

As a fledgling grassroots movement inexperienced in political advocacy, the Tea Party proved to be surprisingly effective at transforming grassroots energy into political success.  Occupy Wall Street doesn't have a chance of duplicating the Tea Party's success -- not because it's made up of political novices, but because it's primarily made up of fringe radicals, young people who don't know any better, petty hooligans, and people whose political views and intellect are aptly reflected by the ubiquitous Che Guevera shirts.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/why_occupy_wall_street_is_no_tea_party.html#ixzz1eMx7Ohd8

Justifying Left-Wing Violence

In the wake of the violent riots spreading like wildfire throughout Great Britain, a not-all-too unfamiliar narrative is unfolding in the Orwellian world of left-wing punditry. It seems that some on the left are eager to partially excuse the violence by attributing it to economic disillusionment among the British youth.  Disillusionment, the argument goes, brought about by Prime Minister David Cameron’s conservative policies aimed at reining in out-of-control spending and deficits.    

This morning, CNN anchor Carol Costello quoted a British Blogger Laurie Penny, who explained the riots this way:  "The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things have become...They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the support structures, and nothing would happen."

There you have it. According to Ms. Penny, senseless rioting is the rational manifestation of government policies allegedly designed to destroy the social safety net. No context, such as the unsustainable extravagance of the British welfare state, is given.  

Recognizing the similarities between Britain’s austerity measures and calls for fiscal responsibility by conservatives here in the US, Carol Costello asked her viewers whether these riots could spread to the US.  After all, she writes on Facebook, “The American middle class and the poor also think their government has no clue. And they worry it is about to take away Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid at a time so many depend on them to survive. For many Americans what's happening in Britain is like looking into a mirror.”

What is most striking about this line of thinking is not that Ms. Costello oversimplifies the complex issue of entitlement reform or that she engages in class warfare. It is the implication that violent riots carried out by “the middle class and the poor” in the US would be a rational reaction to policies which she deems objectionable. In other words, we shouldn’t be surprised by rioting if conservatives get their way.

Imagine if a conservative pundit floated a similar sentiment during the heated debate over Obamacare? He would have no doubt been accused of justifying if not inciting violence.Of course, there was no violent reaction to the Democratic takeover of one sixth of the US economy. American conservatives organized peacefully and spoke loudly at the ballot box last November.

The idea that the violent rioters are anything other than thugs who have no regard for private property, little regard for human life, and a deep-seated disdain for law and order is a grave insult to the thousands of UK citizens whose livelihood is being destroyed and whose personal safety is constantly being threatened.  

It's also telling that while peaceful tea-party rallies are slandered by the left as hubs for violence, actual left-wing violence is excused and explained as an acceptable reaction to "unjust" policies. The hypocrisy is stunning.

Laurie Penny yearns for the pre-Margaret Thatcher days of nationalization; a time when standards of living in the UK were much lower than they are today and private entrepreneurship was discouraged and squashed by an overbearing government. She laments the current efforts to restore fiscal sanity by falsely representing necessary austerity measures as an assault on people's livelihood. For her part, Carol Costello falsely claims that politicians want to take away people's Social Security and Medicare and implies that violent rioting would be understandable if entitlements are reduced.

Not everyone on the left is rushing to excuse the riots. But those who aren’t are mostly silent. The silence is deafening when you consider how hard the left strains to portray the tea party as a racist, extreme and potentially violent movement. Where no violence exists, the left bellows in indignation. When left-wing violence is front and center for all to see, conservative policies are blamed.

Be Wary When the Polls are on Your Side

In this essay I wrote for the American Thinker, I argue that by over-relying on public opinion polls in making the case against Obamacare, Republicans painted themselves into a strategic corner, now having to defend Paul Ryan's plan despite public opposition to its core components. Polls are transient and leaders have to occasionally fight for legislation that is at the time unpopular. Excerpts below. Read the complete essay here.
                                

While ObamaCare remains unpopular, Republicans now find themselves in a strategic quandary over the Ryan budget. Polls show that Ryan's plan, like ObamaCare, is unpopular with the majority of the American people. Herein lies the folly of over-relying on fickle polling to buttress an argument...How do Republicans counter the Democratic talking point that the American people have rejected Paul Ryan's agenda when this was a central argument Republicans employed against ObamaCare? The short answer is that they can't without being exposed to charges of hypocrisy. If ObamaCare was wrong for America in large part because the American people didn't want it, then Ryan's plan is bad for America for the same exact reason.

It is of course imperative for Republicans to lead the charge to win hearts and minds. Persuading the public to support a set of policies or ideas is a centerpiece of democratic governance. But when fierce opposition mounts, it is unclear which side will win the tug of war for public opinion...It was indeed short-sighted for Republicans to make polling data a central weapon in their fight against ObamaCare. They should have anticipated that at some point in the future, some Republican plan would meet stiff public resistance. It would have been more prudent to criticize ObamaCare almost exclusively on substance, and occasionally -- perhaps only in passing -- reference polling data.

It is precisely this feature of republicanism--the recognition that leaders are often called to undertake unpopular endeavors--that makes the over-reliance on short-term opinion polls so problematic. Perhaps through leadership and an effective marketing campaign, Republicans can quickly turn the tide of public opinion. But if the public remains skeptical, Republicans can expect Democrats to highlight the hypocrisy of railing against ObamaCare while promoting the unpopular Ryan budget.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/be_wary_when_the_polls_are_on.html

No Republican Frontrunner is Good for GOP

With no obvious Republican frontrunner and lagging enthusiasm among Republicans with the current GOP field, Democrats are hoping that there may not be a strong Republican contender to challenge President Obama. Many Republicans are understandably nervous; the longer a candidate waits to enter the race, the less time he or she will have to raise money, establish a brand, and sell his message to the voters.


Not to worry. All these disadvantages are relatively easy to overcome and there are significant advantages to entering the race late.

Because the election cycle now lasts two years, early frontrunners risk losing the initiative. It is simply too difficult to maintain momentum over a protracted period. Inevitably, the novelty of your candidacy fades, you run out of original sound-bites, and voters become increasingly desensitized to your message. The more you talk, the less they listen. Even if you win the primary, the loss of momentum does not bode well for the general election.

Another risk of being the early frontrunner is that you give the opposition more time to research and define you. As you give stomp speech after stomp speech, interview after interview, the other side exploits every gaffe, every inconsistency in your message. Your opponents have ample time to discern your weaknesses and strengths, and to experiment with different talking points to see which lines of attack work and which don’t. Eventually, you’re forced to spend precious time and resources fending off attacks from every direction. This is exhausting and can distract from the message you want voters to hear.

Finally, the more time a candidate spends on the campaign trail, the more mistakes he’s likely to make. In a 24-hour news cycle, absolutely no gaffe, no controversial comment, will go unnoticed and unreported. Campaign blunders are inevitable and the longer you campaign, the more blunders you’re likely to make.

Given the pitfalls of running a two-year campaign, running a shorter race offers notable advantages that if shrewdly exploited can be decisive.

A candidate entering a race with the presumptive frontrunners already in place will instantly dominate the news cycle, at least temporarily pushing the leading candidates out of the spotlight. By seizing the momentum, the candidate has a golden opportunity to redefine the race and to excite a segment of the electorate that may have become complacent or is lukewarm about the current crop of candidates. The opportunity to redefine the race so late in the game presents a critical strategic advantage, giving your opponents limited time for opposition research and to plan an effective counterattack. When they finally do respond, they will do so on your terms. A hallmark of effective strategy is to force opponents to fight on the battlefield of your choosing. You achieve this by shaking up the field and forcing opponents to react to the new dynamic you injected into the race.

A strong campaign kickoff forces opponents to regroup, to alter their message to address the new threat. Going off message can cause confusion and chaos, exposing gaps and weaknesses in their positions. Meanwhile, you build momentum through aggressive and disciplined campaigning.

In essence, by entering the race late, you can change the dynamic of the campaign. Entering late also gives you the advantage of flexibility. While your opponents have already established a relatively fixed campaign narrative after months of campaigning, you have several branding options to choose from. You can maneuver to the right, left, or center; focus on leadership, experience, or change, depending on the others’ strengths and weaknesses.

There are exceptions to the pitfalls of running a long campaign. Barack Obama entered the race early and never lost momentum. But his was a unique case. Obama was the first African American candidate who had a real chance of winning the Democratic primary. Backed by a press core infatuated with his candidacy, his momentum and novelty never faded. A candidate with such unique attributes isn’t likely to emerge again anytime soon. Moreover, Barack Obama was not the early frontrunner. That honor belonged to Hillary Clinton. Obama’s underdog status helped him sustain momentum throughout a grueling campaign.

In order for the late entrant strategy to work, the candidate has to be highly credible, competent, and politically savvy. Above all, he has to be interesting. The candidate cannot be someone like Fred Thomson, who entered the 2008 GOP primary late with significant fanfare, but his rather boring and uninspired platform--not to mention inconsequential governing record--failed to energize voters. The right candidate must immediately inject excitement into the race through powerful rhetoric and a demonstrated track record of bold governance.

The Unnecessary Battle

This week, Paul Ryan unveiled a historic budget proposal that cuts federal spending by trillions of dollars, reforms Medicare and Medicaid, and appears to shift the trajectory of federal spending away from insolvency. The budget--whether or not you agree with all its provisions--represents real fiscal reform.

Yet Ryan’s 2012 fiscal year budget did not steal the headlines or command the undivided attention of conservative activists and party operatives. That is because another, more immediate fiscal matter, remains unresolved and is still being fiercely debated on Capitol Hill and across the political spectrum: the stalemate over the 2011 fiscal year budget.

The outcome of this battle is less important than the fact that Republicans are waging the battle in the first place. Bolstered by the conservative grassroots, the GOP leadership is fighting tooth and nail over whether to cut roughly $30 billion or $60 billion from the current fiscal year budget. In other words, the GOP is spending political capitol in hopes of reducing the current fiscal deficit by approximately two tenths of one percent as opposed to four tenths of one percent.

The difference is a rounding error, and more critically, the battle’s outcome does nothing to advance the far-reaching objectives set forth in Ryan’s budget. It is for all intensive purpose a dangerous distraction. Dangerous, because it diverts political resources from the real war over the size and scope of government to be waged during the 2012 budget debate and the 2012 election.

I am sympathetic in theory to grassroots conservatives who are pressuring elected Republicans to obtain maximum cuts and to not compromise with a Democratic leadership that has demonstrated an utter inability and unwillingness to reign in out-of-control spending. I get it: the current spending levels are unsustainable and we need to cut now and cut everywhere.

But this is short-term thinking and can have negative long-term implications. The Republicans may indeed get all the cuts they seek, but at what cost?

This fight has already undermined if not overshadowed the historic rollout of Ryan’s budget. Instead of concentrating all available political and media resources on winning the support of the American people for the ambitious agenda laid out in Ryan’s plan, Republicans are haggling with Democrats over trivial spending cuts, which have little or no long-term budgetary implications. Moreover, the left-wing media happily touts the fact that Republicans are recalcitrant and unwilling to “meet the Democrats half way.” Whether this is fair criticism--and it probably isn’t--it is one more talking point, email blast, press conference, or facebook post that is not focused on the 2012 budget.

Skillful political leaders understand the folly of fighting every political or policy battle. The art of political strategy is knowing when to fight, when to retreat, and when to negotiate a cease fire. The prudent strategist resists the temptation to fight and win every battle, only fighting battles that move him towards his ultimate goal. Fighting trivial battles depletes and dilutes resources, energizes opponents, and distracts from the big picture. The Republicans should ask themselves if getting an additional $30 billion in cuts for this fiscal year is worth jeopardizing the outcome of the 2012 budget war.

I suspect Speaker Boehner understands the risk of digging in his heels over a rounding error. He is, however, in the difficult position of pursuing big ticket items, while having to simultaneously placate the tea party base, which made him Speaker in the first place. This is a difficult dilemma, but if Boehner caves in to every demand made by the citizenry--no matter how short-sighted these demands are--he may derail the prospect of enacting significant long-term reforms.

It would serve the tea party well to take note of the big picture, because at times, this great and powerful American grassroots movement has shown a lack of long-term strategic savvy. It has demonstrated a tendency to fight every battle and not focus on long-tem goals--a potentially catastrophic shortcoming in any competitive environment.

This might be expected from a genuinely organic, spontaneous, grassroots organization. The tea party is leaderless, and as such, it does not have a built-in unity of command or the structural discipline to design and implement strategies that advance key objectives, while not getting bogged down in essentially irrelevant skirmishes.

Instead, all too often, the tea party fights pointless battles without regard as to how this might impact long-term success. Such a haphazard approach to strategy jeopardizes the outcome of the war. In many ways, it is refreshing that the tea party is “leaderless,” but if it chooses to throw itself headlong into every policy battle, it inevitably disrupts the long-term planning of elected representatives, who should have their eyes on much grander objectives.

The tea party is more effective and influential in its role as an ideological bulwark, not a policy micromanager.

The Recurrent Rejection of Liberalism

In the aftermath of last November’s Republican landslide victory, President Obama has made a widely publicized shift to the right. He hired a pro-business centrist Chief of Staff, compromised with Republicans on Bush-era tax cuts, and in other rhetorical ways indicated his willingness to abandon hard-left ideology in favor of a more centrist, pragmatic approach to governing.

On the other hand, the professional left scoffed at this rightward shift, with many liberals blaming the Democrats’ historic defeat on poor messaging, not on liberal governance. The problem was not that Obama was too liberal, but that he didn’t do a good job of communicating the benefits of his liberal policies, the argument went. Some liberals even argued that Democrats lost because they weren’t liberal enough, citing the failure to include a public option in the healthcare bill, not passing cap and trade, and the failure to shut down Guantanamo Bay.

It comes as no surprise that marketing is a popular scapegoat of electoral defeat. It requires less agonizing self-reflection to attribute losses to poor marketing, than to failed policies. Certainly, no one expected liberals to reject liberalism in the aftermath of one unfavorable election. But in light of the broad electoral mandate given to liberals to govern following the 2006 and 2008 elections, is it really plausible that a communications mishap is the primary reason for the left’s reversal in fortune?

The enthusiasm on the left following Obama’s victory was palpable. Finally the left had an ideological liberal, one of their own, in the White House, reinforced by a Democrat-led Senate and House. It appeared as though most road blocks to liberal governance had been removed. Until Republican Scott Brown’s upset victory in Massachusetts in January 2010, Democrats even enjoyed a rarely seen filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Great Society 2.0 could now finally take root. Democrats succeeded in passing the Stimulus, investing taxpayer dollars in GM and Chrysler, nationalizing student loan programs, enacting a centralized healthcare reform bill, and pushing through far reaching financial regulations. To be sure, the left didn’t get everything it wanted; in part because of public opposition, and in part because centrist Democrats at times refused to fall in line. But the fact that the government made a dramatic leftward shift following the 2008 election can hardly be disputed.

Unfortunately for Democrats, voters don’t measure success by the number of bills signed into law. Persistently high unemployment, out-of-control debt and deficits, and the perception that the country was headed in the wrong direction led to dismal approval ratings for Congress and a precipitous drop in the President’s popularity, especially and most significantly, among independents. Americans had had enough and voted out the liberal majority in favor of a tea-party driven conservative one.

To accept the theory that poor marketing sunk the Democrats, one has to believe that Democrats did nothing wrong policy-wise (except maybe not govern even further to the left, as some would have us believe). The path to reestablishing a Democratic majority, therefore, is to continue full steam ahead with a left-wing agenda, while tweaking marketing techniques.

There is at least one liberal leader who appears to have serious doubts about this theory.

President Obama’s decisions to reshuffle his cabinet and extend the much maligned Bush-era tax cuts belie the notion that messaging was at the root of the Democrats’ defeat. Obama’s overhaul is an implicit admission that his rigid, left-of-center governance ushered in the conservative majority.

Not surprisingly, many liberals resent President Obama’s newly found centrism. With Obama’s election, liberals were hoping for a new and vigorous era of liberal governance, unimpeded by Republican obstructionism. But a Republican House, a narrow and politically vulnerable Democrat Senate majority, and Obama’s move to the center, appear to have dashed liberal hopes for radical transformation. Whether Obama’s cabinet changes will lead to sustainable centrist governance, and are not merely ruses to appease a disaffected electorate, the moves by themselves affirm that President Obama and his advisors understand that governing from the far left is politically untenable in the long-run.

This should not come as a surprise. When American leaders steer to the far left, voters rebel at the ballot box. Americans rejected the Great Society’s economic programs that promised and ultimately failed to reduce poverty, electing and then reelecting Richard Nixon. Jimmy Carter’s dramatic leftward shift was resoundingly rejected, paving the way for the conservative Reagan revolution. After Bill Clinton pursued a left-wing agenda during his first two years in the White House, Republicans won control of Congress, forcing the politically shrewd President Clinton to abandon left-wingism and embrace the now famous triangulation strategy.

By shifting rightward, President Obama is sending a message to voters that he is through being a rigid liberal ideologue. That in itself is recognition that Americans have once again rejected hard-line liberalism.