Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party: populist brothers

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Half-Assed

Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party: populist brothers

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Judah Isseroff

Columnist

December 2, 2011

Over the last year, the repercussions of what Marxian political economists might call the "neo-liberal regime," have started coming home to roost.

An economic issue that has laid dormant for decades is stretching its arms, rubbing the sleep out of its eyes, and even contemplating getting out of bed.

That issue is income inequality.

Beginning with the labor protests in Wisconsin at the beginning of 2011, now loosely inherited by the motley array of "Occupy" protests scattered across America, the middle and working classes in this country are attempting to muster a backlash against a system that has seemingly afforded the avaricious wealthy the liberty to rob the lower classes blind.

Looking at the enormously disproportionate amount of wealth possessed by the top percentile of earners in this country has a dizzying effect.

According to a Congressional Budget Office report from earlier this year, after-tax income for the top 1 percent of earners grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007. This happened while the income for the bottom fifth of Americans grew by only 18 percent. Moreover, the share of American wealth owned by the top 1 percent more than doubled in that period from 8 percent to 17 percent.

I might make a dangerously bold claim by considering income inequality a legitimate grievance—yet it remains to be seen whether the "Occupy" protests have a realistic chance of rectifying some of the systemic problems that have cleaved chasms between the income brackets of the United States.

The parallels drawn between the "Occupy" movement and the Tea Party are fascinating to explore.

At first glance, the two movements have diametrically opposed stances.

The Tea Party touts anti-government dogmas. Its scriptures contain verse after verse about the abounding and harrowing evils of government regulation.

Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) seems fundamentally committed to regulation of the financial institutions whose reckless gambling depleted the savings and drowned the homes of countless Americans. Simply put, OWS believes government needs to do more while the Tea Party is committed to a government that does virtually nothing.

Yet, both the president and vice-president have reiterated their belief in the similarities between the two groups. Are Obama and Biden simply out of touch?

Maybe on other issues, but I think their comparison is spot on. Both the Tea Party and OWS have taken to bragging about their disconnection from the establishment, and consequently, they both have attempted to involve the government in the communication and even actualization of their agendas.

However, as the Tea Party has so generously shown, the impact of such an anti-institution, fringe group is much more noise than substance.

If anything, the Tea Party has wielded much of its muscle to make the Republican primary candidates cater to the far right in order to garner their party's nomination—that is, right before they desperately and hypocritically attempt to claw back to the center in order to regain some viability in the general election.

I offer a great hearty thanks to the Tea Party for making the eventual Republican nominee even more unelectable.

However, it is incumbent for the fledgling "Occupy" movement to study and learn from its fraternal organization, the Tea Party.

As it stands right now, OWS lacks leadership and direction—and is proud of that fact. The movement's members are committing the same fatal, populist mistake as the Tea Party.

While the "Occupy" movement may not end up with the equivalent of Michelle Bachmann as its "populist-in-chief," it will quickly lose credibility if its future leadership mirrors the average and angry nature of its constituency.

To generalize momentarily: If American politics displays anything resembling consistency, it is in the fact that the country's politics has a strange reverence for moderate, often inert, independent-minded voters and politicians.

Ultimately, if OWS is to be sustainable, it needs the support of average Americans with above-average leadership. Harvard students railing about the 99 percent seem about as sympathetic as the NBA players who spent months sniffling that they were underpaid.

Populist people power is not the way to begin the work of reimagining the American Dream, simply because it loses its glossy fairy tale appeal in favor of something like realistic attainability.

If this new movement remains powered only by the fuel of grassroots diesel, OWS will most likely peter out as a consequence of its incurable disjointedness.

In the process, the good ideas that OWS advocates for will become diseased with the stigma of extremism.

Conversely, if OWS somehow succeeds as a populist movement, it will usher in a dictatorship of mediocrity. Then, a hatred of success and the successful will actually be realized and the dream of a just capitalism will be bowled over in favor of popular socialism.

The Constitution significantly reflects the founders' distrust of popular democracy. Those of us who are excited about the prospects of OWS should temper our exuberance with a similar sort of skepticism.

Judah Isseroff is a member of the Class of 2013.

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