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

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.