Much digital ink has been spilled in the last few weeks trying to analyze the recent Occupy Wall Street Movement, and many have tried to understand them through the lens of the Tea Party. It's an understandable comparison, as many see similar motivations behind the protesters. But these two movements are not partisan mirror images of each other. The Tea Party is composed of the traditional Republican base, even if they're now more vocal than before. They care just as much about immigration and religion than they do the economy. If anything, what the Tea Party movement represents is an intra-party war, albeit one that the party elite have tried to co-opt, with mixed support (see: Bennett, Robert, Former Senator). For all their talk of fighting 'socialism', they seem infinity more obsessed with purifying their own Republican ranks.
Occupy Wall Street, though, is not an intra-party feud. They are not protesting Democrats, they are focusing on the financial and power elite in our country, a far more sensible target given the events of the last few years. They are not anti-corporation (despite the greatest wishes of conservative commentators who love to giggle and point out that the protesters are using products made by Apple, a huge corporation), but rather they are anti-corporate greed. They are anti-corporate power in our political system. Our nation's campaign finance laws still stop corporations from directly buying off politicians, but they can buy a campaign's victory. The politician can't get them to build him a second house, but he can buy all the adds he can find air time for with their money. What's more, those on Wall Street took our bailout money in a moment of extreme desperation, and then have the balls to complain about regulations that have only timidly began to corral investment firms' most egregious behavior. That, not an antipathy towards capitalism, is what is motivating these protesters.
To find the best historical comparison for this Occupy movement, one has to go back to the original Great Depression, starting in 1893. [One would hope that the best historical comparison is not John Brown, who is still moldrin'] An economic crash, predicated by massive over investment in stocks (mostly railroad companies), was far worse than the many other crashes in the 1800s (largely because Andrew Jackson had done away with a central bank, there was no institution to step in and calm the markets). An incumbent Democratic president took much of the blame, so much so that he wasn't even in contention for the nomination at the next Democratic Convention in 1896. While the economy crashed and unemployment soared, the rich elite actually got richer. Income inequality hit a new high. Corporate titans consolidated their holdings and formed increasingly dominant monopolies. They used their power and money to influence elections on behalf of politicians who they knew would pass laws beneficial to their financial interests.
In response to this environment, those on the left (or what was the left then) gravitated towards the issue of 'Free Silver.' At the time, the US Dollar was based on a the gold and silver holdings of the US Treasury. More metal meant more dollars and vice-versa. More dollars meant inflation, less meant deflation. Then, and now, the main problem with the economy, once the initial panic surround the crash has worn off, was deflation and a lack of demand. People were not buying things, and they owed a lot of money. For those people, a little inflation would be a good thing, it made the amount they owed seem lower, which made them more likely to go out and spend money. Inflation sucks for the rich elite though, because fewer people will go out to secure new loans. Beginning in the mid 1890s, the left began arguing for the government to buy even more silver, to kick up some inflation, and thus help out those left behind.
Enter into this mix William Jennings Bryan, country lawyer and extremely gifted orator. He swept into the 1896 Democratic National Convention, and his "Crosses of Gold" speech was a full-throated defense of not only a plan to increase government stocks of silver, but also the moral superiority of those Americans not on the Eastern Seaboard. He argued for economic policies drawn up in the service of the un-powerful and against the greed of monied interests. Bryan was enough of a hit with the crowd to win the presidential nomination both in 1896 and 1900.
Now for the unfortunate part of the historical analysis. Bryant lost both his elections, and in fact the Democrats never won a presidential election between 1892 and 1912. And in 1912, Woodrow Wilson arguably only won because Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican vote. That's a long dry stretch. However, the politics that Bryan represented did come to dominate the country even if he didn't. The 'Progressive' movement was born of these politics. The whole force behind trust-busting, the direct election of senators, and even the right of women to vote (and unfortunately also prohibition), came right from the grassroots energy of the Free Silver movement. However, it took Roosevelt, a Republican and a rich New Yorker to boot, to put these progressive policies into action on a national level. This, ultimately, is where I think the Occupy movement will end up, should it have any effect at all. Obama can only go so far in striking against the rank unfairness of our current political process; they already call him a Marxist for suggesting that banks act more responsibly. It might just take an establishment Republican to really go after the entrenched interests while keeping the support of the people. Only Nixon, it is often and rightly said, could go to China.
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