Tea Party v Occupy

Eli,

There is a simple reason why the Tea Party has been effective at translating their "rage," as you call it, into power, and the Occupy movement has not. The Tea Party has more support. I know, it's a tautology. The Tea Party has more supporters because there are more people supporting it. And in our democracy that translates quite easily into greater representation at all levels of government.

As obvious as that is, what surprises me is how that escapes most supporters of the Occupy, and I use this term loosely, movement. Instead the supporters of Occupy come up with all sorts of reasons why the Tea Party has been able to translate their beliefs into power. The Koch Brothers (the Left's boogieman du jour), Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are all responsible for duping the ignorant poor whites clinging to their guns and religion, into voting for the Tea Party. It's as if the Left is openly espousing the philosophy that a large swatch of Americans are stupid, evil and racist. Now that may work, but I have the hunch most people will reject that opinion and instead be insulted by it.

What has come from the Occupy movement, in my opinion, is the co-opting of the phrase, "the 1%," by the Democratic Party as a tool to raise taxes. But the taxes they want to raise are on far more than the 1% and I think most people realize this, which is why this phrase will have a short half life. Putting aside the arguments on raising taxes, what is it the Democrats want to spend the money on? It seems to me, at least from the President's State of the Union address, they want to spend it on more corporate and middle-class welfare.

No thanks.

Bill