Looking at the role the Tea Party movement plays in the Republican presidential nominating process, it is hard not to be envious. In contrast to the Right's clout in the GOP, the Tea Party's progressive counterpart -- Occupy Wall Street (OWS) -- possesses almost no influence among Democrats. The right-wing social movement has been able to leverage a very real change in the political landscape. The other side has nothing politically to show for itself.
In their very important book on the Tea Party movement, Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson write that a February 2009 rant against foreclosure assistance by Rick Santelli on CNBC resulted in "local activists operating without central direction creat[ing] legions of local Tea parties meeting regularly, usually once a month, but in some cases weekly." In addition to these organizing efforts, Tea Party activists held protests in numerous cities. Recognizing this energy at the conservative grassroots, Fox News joined in and big money donors provided funding.
What the Tea Party has done with its now well-financed activism is to exert power within the Republican Party. In this, it had important allies. But it was the grassroots activists who according to Skocpol and Williamson "set a national agenda for the election," resulting in their ability to claim the 2010 Republican victories "as vindication for a particular extreme conservative ideology."
Two years later the Occupy Wall Street movement emerged claiming in its own words "to protest the blatant injustices of our times perpetuated by the economic and political elites." As occurred with the Tea Party movement, elements of the media, in particular MSNBC, provided favorable coverage to OWS. Funding too was available, albeit at a much lower level than had been contributed to conservatives by right-wing donors.
But one big difference exists between the right-wing movement and the progressive one. The former engages in politics but the latter does not. As Skocpol and Williamson put it, the Tea Party sees itself as "watchdogs barking at GOP heels." In contrast, the OWS's "Principles of Solidarity" say not one word about participating in the political world in order to rectify the grievances that they correctly identify. Of the eight points of unity agreed upon by OWS, neither of the two major political parties is mentioned; nor is the possibility of creating a third party.
Another way of saying the same thing is that the Right has devised a workable strategy by which to achieve its agenda. Progressives have not.
That is not to say that the Tea Party and its allies have had smooth sailing. There are important differences within the movement between for example libertarians and social conservatives. But it is a mark of the political sophistication created when movements participate in electoral politics that those conflicts have been papered over in the name of achieving political success.
To reverse the trend toward increasing inequality, a political strategy will have to be devised. To be politically effective, Progressives too will have to accommodate differences. Some desirable political initiatives will have to be delayed in order to achieve others that are accorded higher priority. In part that means choosing the ones that have the most electoral appeal. But making such choices involves a level of political acumen that goes undeveloped when a movement chooses to absent itself from electoral politics. Hard choices are avoided; the establishing of priorities neglected.
My own view is that we will not move to greater economic equality until and unless we first achieve greater political equality. We have to change, I think, how candidates are funded when they run for office. At the moment, we possess an electoral system in which wealthy people's campaign contributions enable them to shape the rules, including those that determine the distribution of income and the accumulation of wealth. The outcome is not surprising. Those rules and the institutions that enforce them are biased to the interests of the elite.
Seen in this perspective, achieving greater economic equality is a political task. The political process needs to impose a wall between political and economic power. Wealthy people should not be allowed to have disproportionate influence. Their political weight should not be greater than that of anyone else.
The logic here suggests that the public funding of elections is the reform necessary to arrest the trend toward income inequality. I think that treating elections as a public good is the only way effectively to wall off the wealthy.
However the larger point here is not that. It is that whatever is to be accomplished will require legislation. Laws and policies will have to be changed. And for that to happen advocates of equality have to participate in politics.
It is in this way that the Tea Party has a lot to teach progressives. A movement is, of course, necessary. But the movement must be focused and directed to what ultimately must be the goal: radical reform legislation.
Only after President Obama was elected, did they become a better organized and recognized group. This is when they went after federal elected position.
The Democrats have no such politically oriented grass roots program.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union establish Justice...promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."
It is saddening, when deconstructing the preamble's political-economic context, that the more perfect union contemplated in it may well have been lip-service disguising a political union predicated and perfected on clearly demarcated class divisions. That the union contemplated could never be anything more than an equilibrium, a fluid equilibrium, hopefully, but always an equilibrium and not an authentic, voluntary integration of interests ultimately forming that penumbra of egalitarian substance preserved by the due process clause of the 14th amendment.
"Tea Party" is not even a true sub-unit of the Republican Party (, Inc.). It is a wholly-owned subsidiary corporation, actually, and its purpose is to reach for those perceived "disaffected voters" (the same guys who thought that Change was a bumper-sticker, four years ago) and to turn them into Loyal Republicans even if they don't know exactly what that means.
The Democratic Party (, Inc.) naturally would like to attach itself to "#Occupy" at least for the next eight months; maybe make it a registered trademark along with a Guy Fawkes mask? Lots of bumper sticker possibilities there. A "fresh new brand" for the same old thing.
Face it: as things stand today, neither the Republocratic "Party" nor the Demoblican "Party" are real choices; neither of them is fit to rule the country, as both of them are eager to be ruled by money.
Neither of them perceive any particular problem with this. And why should they?
This isn't about the less than 1,000 people who have deconstructed high crime into grand political strategy: this is about 313,101,268 people in America who didn't; about 6,997,471,794 people on this planet who also didn't.
All of us are stakeholders in this grand social experiment called the USA, and when we see its entire system of power willingly corrupted by money such that ALL of us are now Plaintiffs, that's a whole lot bigger than mere "politics."
Yes, "Republican Party" and "Democratic Party" are brands, and corporations. "Tea Party" is a subsidiary corporation of the Republican Party.
This is what has prompted #Occupy and this is also why that movement, although it is not trying to camp-out in the New York winter, most definitely has not ended. But the problems that must be addressed are really High Crime problems, not political differences. Merely funneling votes into the Republocratic or the Demoblican bucket will not suffice. The first step of dealing with any profoundly serious problem is to fully grasp its fundamental nature, which IMHO in this case is: fighting crime that has entrenched itself, simultaneously and to a saturation point, within the core legislative, judicial, and executive arms of our Government.
OWS says, "Stop the Debt Economy".
Tea Party value is, "Taxpayers are taxed enough already" .
Seems like most all find DEBT a symbol of failure ?
Jay, radical agenda seems to be stop borrowing $$$ to fund deficit spending ?