LITTLE ROCK — Since their historic shellacking in last November’s midterm elections, Democrats have been looking for some sort of strategy—anything—to avoid another wipeout in 2012. If only they could harness the political power of a progressive, grass-roots movement that would reinvigorate Democratic prospects in the same way the Tea Party has done for Republicans.
By coincidence or contrivance, the Occupy Wall Street movement has emerged, to which President Barack Obama and leading Democrats have hitched their electoral hopes.
“I understand the frustrations that are being expressed in those protests,” the president told ABC News. “The most important thing we can do right now is—those of us in leadership—letting people know that that we understand their struggles, that we are on their side.”
Major differences exist between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement, not least in their use, or abuse, of public spaces. But the two groups do share one important similarity: a deep resentment about too-big-tofail policies and the way that the wealthy and politically connected play by a set of economic rules different from everyone else.
Just as Democrats badly misjudged the potency and longevity of the Tea Party movement, it would be a mistake for Republicans to underestimate the effect of Occupy Wall Street. The danger for Obama and Democratic strategists is that those effects may not be entirely positive.
So far, the protests have received largely fawning press coverage—about the diversity of the crowds, their affecting stories of unemployment and their capacity for self-rule. What the mainstream media have not yet done, but conspicuously did to the Tea Party movement, is play Spot The Extremist.
Large crowds will draw a certain number of the maladroit and unbalanced. One of the easiest and cheapest ways to try to discredit a group is to pick an outlier and portray him as a representative. That’s what Democrats have done to the Tea Party, misrepresenting a handful of signs and unverified incidents to render an image of a movement filled with neo-Nazi racists.
Another peril for Democrats in allying with the movement is that their political objectives, to the extent they can be discerned, are completely at odds with their grievances and public opinion. The protesters’ incongruous solution to government bailouts of corporations and the incestuous marriage of politics with big business is . . . more government! And this at a time when a CBS News/New York Times poll is showing public trust in government at a historic low.
The final danger for Democrats is that Occupy Wall Street in 2012 could begin to look like Chicago in 1968. Last week, the Democratic mayor of Oakland, Calif., sent in the police to clear out protesters, citing concerns about public safety, sanitary conditions and crime.
This violent takedown occurred in one of America’s most reliably liberal cities. If the Occupy Wall Street protests provoke that kind of response in Oakland, how will the Democrats’ strategy of embracing them play in Peoria?
Editorial, Pages 10 on 10/31/2011