The New Republic

"Occupy Wall Street is a carnival. Both detractors and supporters say so. The most amusing part of the show is watching the rush to join it. When Deepak Chopra and Suze Orman endorse the cause, you have to wonder about its revolutionary bona fides. Democrats have also flung themselves in the direction of Zuccotti Park—but in their pursuit of the movement they may damage themselves and hinder the protests’ potential to do tangible good." Some of us who have doubts about this "occupation" as political strategy see it as merely bad political theater.

- arnon

October 21, 2011 at 12:07am

Whoa. So. Much. Lose. Franklin Foer, you apparently need to go back to liberal re-education camp. I'll post a point-by-point analysis shortly.

- chaitless

October 21, 2011 at 12:25am

Foer views OWS through a left-right lens, a lens which only sees differences between them ("and never the twain shall meet"); I view OWS through a lens of common interests, shared interests, shared values, American interests and values, which is to say middle class interests and values; from the tea party to OWS, middle class concerns, middle class grievances. FDR bridged the gap between left and right, and created a coalition, a coalition of Americans, that changed America. Foer and so many others on the left cannot even see what was obvious to FDR and contributors to this symposium who have responded positively to OWS. Let the news media focus on the fringe because that's what generates page views and ratings; but if opinion leaders on the left see only what the news media want us to see, our differences, this historic opportunity to bridge the gap, the same as the historic opportunity that FDR seized, will be lost. And so will the 2012 election.

- rayward

October 21, 2011 at 7:30am

I admire Foer a great deal, but almost alot of what he writes here is just wrong. Rather than relying on "everyone" who says it's a carnival (I don't know anyone who describes it this way), it would have been much more credible if he'd shared first hand impressions of being there rather than mouthing trite, retread stereotypes of scared right wingers and harumphing, snooty establishment types (ahem). OWS is many things, not all of them perfect by any stretch, but a carnival? People are pissed off, spilling in to the streets, SLEEPING in them while practicing direct democracy - not eating cotton candy and riding a ferris wheel, looking for a good time. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are enraged, desperate and doing a pretty thoughtful job of getting attention for their cause. Disgust at corporate greed and their prostitute politicians is not that difficult of a concept to grasp. Maybe Foer can tells us how Obama was supposed to somehow force tougher regulations on Wall Street through a recalcitrant, thorougly bought-off Congress? Every President eventually, ruefully wishes he ran a dictatorship so they'd be able to wave the sort of magic wands journalists sometimes think they possess, but that's not the case. As far as a primary challenge - about 100 people read "The Nation." The fact that Foer quotes this journal, rather that anyone in OWS or its organizers, says alot. From the people I've spoken to and what I've read, attitudes of the people actually participating in OWS overwhelmingly range from highly leery of any politician to liking Obama in an abstract way and willing to work with him. This isn't as much of a political movement as an anti-politics-as-they-are-now movement. Americans know damn good and well which party supports less regulation for banks and less campaign reform and who doesn't. Foer needs to get out of the office more.

- WandreyCer

October 21, 2011 at 8:15am

oops - "almost alot :)" More writing on the bus, please excuse the haste!

- WandreyCer

October 21, 2011 at 8:16am

Part I Occupy Wall Street is a carnival First things first, when a large number of former Organizers for America and otherwise disaffected voters whom you hope pull the lever for Obama in 14 months--when such a number (semi-)spontaneously materialize out of the air thick with the weekly reality show that is the Republican primary "debate"--you don't insult them. You join forces with them. These people aren't communists, and for the most part, they aren't even anarchists, whatever the muezzins at Adbusters may say their role was. If you can't get Occupy Wall Street to vote for the liberal candidate in a presidential election, you might as well close up the The New Republic's office, and leave Washington for Canada. Your work is undone and you clearly have no inclination to do it. in their pursuit of the movement they may damage themselves and hinder the protests’ potential to do tangible good True. This is always true, though. Have you ever heard of downside risk? Did you do the numbers of the original Obama elect? The primary against Hillary? Have you seen recent approval numbers? More importantly, while Obama was hemming and hawing, trying to get his agenda through Congress over the last three years, what did you do to reach millions of Obama supporters? What about the millions of people who weren't sure but thought he was better than the alternative? What about the millions of people who are too disaffected to care until they start to see how Republican policies are actively screwing them? Is that right? You did nothing and had little impact beyond the Beltway and a devoted subscriber base? Oh. I forgot. America is the fourth largest country in the world with the third largest population. In order to reach the people, you need to go down to them. You need to indulge a little mass movement if you can. You need to empower them to make demands of their cosseted Congress, especially if they start to forget that Congress works for them and not the other way around. If you have done all of this and the American people are still wary of liberalism, then you have worked valiantly. You have fought politics to defend your ideals. And you have lost. When Obama said, “I'm going to the American people, Eric [Cantor]”, he didn't say it so that you could temporize, triangulate, and ask him to show America his domestic partnership certificate to confirm that he and John Boehner were committed. He did it because Americans are fed up with the chicanery and if they knew what was going on and could take quick action to end it, they would do so and start to believe that government was finally responding to their needs. At best, we can describe Dodd-Frank as a marginal step in the direction of reform. It's no Pecora commission. In fact, it's not even as good a reform framework as the health-care reform. (Although it is better than the eventual cap-and-trade scheme would have been, based on how many more sacrifices that had to make in order to escape the Senate in 2009-10.) But you can't pretend like Dodd-Frank isn't the template for financial reform that we need. You can always pass laws codifying areas that the Executive is currently disposed to leave to regulators who are not legislators. Ultimately, a law is more durable than regulation. But you fight with the army you have, and you pick up contraband on the way. You show me a de-filibustered Senate with friendlier votes, and we can get all the things you could ever want, making sure to complete the litany of wrongs that Dodd-Frank left by instituting all corrections into law itself. Where the Republican base is fired up and ready to go, liberals are despondent about the dissipation of their messianic hopes. Liberals overthink things. They are despondent because the economy is terrible and these claims are eagerly being fed by Republicans. Liberals see their big chance in inhabiting this movement. They figure it will get them fired-up and cause people governing to shift policy further to the left. Note, too, that if liberals actively abstain from this movement and see its grievances go unrecognized by the broader public, they will almost certainly grow more disaffected. If they participate and see Republicans blocking Obama's popular jobs bill, both in bulk and piece by piece, they can spread the common sense of Democratic economic policies and how Republicans wish to fight for the 1% and against the common weal. This is much more likely to convince "cultural" GOP voters to take a second look and pull the lever for Obama than any other policies, because the wisdom of economic policies that clearly benefit 90+% of Americans is more communicable to the average citizen than, say, health care reform (83% of people already covered) or Don't Ask Don't Tell (90% of people not homosexual, 99% of people not in the military). desperate for any cause for hope, no matter how implausible. It is not implausible for OWS to take up the banner of “the 99 percent”. Note that, in the absence of the social ultimatums that destabilized the Democratic Party throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Democrats kept pushing mostly laudatory social programs/movements and ended up losing suburbans. Even so, the complaint from Democrats for years has been that their economic policies would make the lives of many blue collar Republican voters, if only they would get the message and vote. This is the way to reset the conversation and enhance the Democratic brand to anyone who usually doesn't vote (or votes for other parties). Protest movements, with their outpourings of camaraderie and idealism, often lead to lyrical writing and wishful thinking. Sure. But we're not talking about Drew Westen haranguing Obama for not giving a speech or using narrative devices. You are seeing thousands of people turning out for a cause around the country. That cause is strongly against Republican economic policies and for (if it's for anything) things the Democrats have been saying all along. Once again, if this is wishful thinking, it's time for Democratic organizations to close up shop, because if you can't get these disaffected people on your side, how exactly do you want to win a national election in 13 months? Relying on habit? the ideological tendencies of Occupy Wall Street Most mainstream media figures have been complaining that there is no clear ideology. Here, you clearly don't believe this Kool-Aid, but also think, for some reason, that people who are occupying Wall Street can't be mapped well onto American political axes. They seem to be younger than average and what little “polling” I've seen suggests that 40% of them voted in 2010. 40% was the national participation rate—higher for seniors and lower for youth. This suggests that they are somewhat more politically active than average. These people are more likely to be former Obama volunteers than Socialist Workers, Green Party members, or anarcho-syndicalists. And encouraging mainstream liberals to participate can only drive the protests to evoke the platform of liberalism even more clearly.

- chaitless

October 21, 2011 at 8:30am

Part 2 Let’s say Occupy Wall Street can overcome its self-limiting strategic philosophy, develop some concrete goals, and blossom into a full-fledged social movement. Over the long-term, then, liberals will want to position their reforms as the most reasonable mechanism for staving off the radicals. If we “say” this, then liberals will want to ensure that the social movement is pushing common sense reforms and policies that can appeal to a wider slice of the public than whoever voted for Democrats in 2010. This was the mistake of the Tea Party. They were convinced enough of their own righteous devotion to The Cause: they thought that if they were vague about most of their actual political preferences (most famously, the culture war planks of social conservative Republicanism) and pushed only the economic grievances, they would win the hearts and minds of the American public. And darn it, when they mixed in a lot of external monetary support and the free advertising of an already popular cable channel that gins up the identity politics of their demographic, they were able to rocket in popularity. It's careful to note what was Astroturf about the movement. It wasn't the political popularity. People were saying they supported the Tea Party in polls, up to around 30%. Yet 2% of people were saying they participated in it in any way. And nearly all of these people found out about it via outlets like Fox News. Here you have a movement of fellow travellers protesting the economic policies that got us into this mess. Do they have a hidden agenda? Well, they're pretty sure to show their cards, since they haven't really embraced tactics to police the speech that goes on at protests. And yet they're still popular. If liberals could harness it and keep it from messing up the furniture, this suggests that it's the kind of movement that Americans can support without much qualification. You win the economic battle first. You can do other things popular with a supermajority of Americans later. Democrats shouldn't put things popular with a minority of people ahead of things that most Americans favour. This is why you don't waste political capital going for things that are polling badly while the American people still have lots of grievances you can more convincingly address. But you can’t triangulate against a social movement if you fully embrace it. This is true to some extent. But the point of embracing the movement is to work to convince people that their grievances (and more!) can be addressed if they work to support the election of Democrats—and liberal ones, if they can win. Do you see the Republicans triangulating against the Tea Party? No. They are basically pursuing the wishes of the Tea Party, unadulterated. Remember that the goal of OWS is to pass better regulations of Wall Street and get the money out of politics. If Democrats win enough, they can convincingly do this and have a freer hand at bettering the economy and pursuing fair tax reform as well. And when Eric Cantor mouths the words “income disparities,” you know the conversation has shifted. Ah. If Eric Cantor has already started mouthing the words, you know you are starting to succeed. Is there any way for Eric Cantor to talk about income disparities and convince the American public that the Republicans are the party of disparity mitigation? No. It's this kind of insidious shift that is a proximate goal of OWS. And to the extent that Republicans realize they are at the end of their tracks, Democrats can overtake them and actually address the grievances of OWS. Will they work to actively undermine Barack Obama’s reelection? Well, not if you are making common cause with them. If you are able to let them know what Obama is pushing for, if you are able to talk about the American Jobs Act and the Republican Anti-Jobs actions, you should be able to convince people that Obama is acting for most Americans and should be supported by fighting Tea Party Congressmen across the country for their seats. Ultimately, that's how people win. But in the mean time, they can also become gadflies, calling vulnerable Congressmen by the droves and putting pressure on them to actually vote on the side of most Americans. And when they see those people fail to submit to their will, they then support the opposition Democrats and the Democrats have a greater chance of winning the House. Under the best scenario, this moment emboldens Obama to rhetorically cudgel Wall Street, lock arms with Elizabeth Warren, and make symbolically potent appointments to his economic team. I fail to see how that is a bad thing. In fact, if anything could break the will of the Republican filibuster, then I think it's worth doing, because there are literally hundreds of appointments that Obama needs to make and that Republicans can't wait to stall. The Senate doesn't have enough time to play games and pass job-strengthening legislation. If OWS can embarrass Republicans and shift the politics of the filibuster, it will have accomplished something invaluable. There is, however, another, plausible possibility: that Occupy Wall Street is poorly timed. After all, there’s no legislative debate to usefully prod at the present juncture, but there’s a chance to scupper the president’s re-election. You deal with the protest movements as they come. If you're really canny, you can gin them up at the exact, politically convenient time—kind of like the Tea Party. I was hoping for a march on Washington during the health care fight in August 2009, I was hoping when Blanche Lincoln decided to take derivatives to the woodshed and Scott Brown tried to mug financial reform, and I was hoping for one when the tax cut deal and the debt ceiling fracas went down. But it's not like there's no legislative debate going on. There is a Supercommittee just waiting to cut lots of spending. And Obama's jobs bill keeps failing, even though it's popular with more than a majority of Americans. If OWS shifts the conversation such that Republicans ease up on the filibuster and some House Republicans can make common cause with Obama, half of its work is done. The other half will come if it can galvanize the public to vote those Republicans out of Congress. And I think it can. As John Nichols cheers in The Nation, the “movement might well develop into a virtual primary challenge to Obama.” Sure. Or it could articulate common sense economic policies that sound like what Obama campaigned on and sound like what he's been recently saying but that have been held up for years in a Republican-led Senate or House. If OWS accomplishes anything, it should show people that with a confirmed liberal in the White House, Congress is of much more consequence than a primary challenge. The average citizen doesn't actively think about the political process, even in the “I'm just a bill” Schoolhouse Rock view. If movement liberals are able to bring a realistic political view to bear on OWS, then they can show protesters that Congress is just important as the President, if not moreso, when it comes to domestic policy. And whatever they say about corporate Democrats, there are people like Russ Feingold who definitely inhabit the Democratic universe and definitely can work to address the grievances of OWS, if only they are given a chance in the House and Senate. Protests might erupt at the convention in Charlotte that overshadow his case for reelection; all this further diminishes enthusiasm for his candidacy. Charlotte is ten months away. We should hope that protests erupt at the Republican convention in Tampa, asking them what they are doing for Americans who want jobs. And then we should hope that when Obama takes up the cause in Charlotte and asks people to vote for a fully Democratic Congress, OWS protesters realize that the Democratic party and liberalism in general is the best vehicle for achieving their political goals. Or worse, a third-party candidate emerges and we know how that story goes. Indeed, much of the gripe with Obama reflects the canard that a Republican president wouldn’t be worse. I hope the protesters are surrounded by allies who remind them it actually can get much worse. YOU ARE THE PERSON WHO SHOULD BE TELLING PEOPLE THIS. I mean, the allies you are hoping for are the textbook definition of liberals, and yet you urge liberals not to participate. Liberals are the moderating force that should bring political realism to bear within the movement so that, even if its proposals are pie in the sky, the movement knows that there is a pretty clear sky in liberalism that can accommodate their proposals, even if they are enacted incrementally. Which, of course, is how "Change we can believe in" actually happens in the real world.

- chaitless

October 21, 2011 at 9:11am

Awesome chaitless! Bravo!

- WandreyCer

October 21, 2011 at 9:55am

Obama hardly needs OWS to help "him paint Mitt Romney as the tribune of the economic royalists." Romney supplies all the material Obama needs. Too bad for Obama that Romney will not be the GOP nominee, or that most OWS protesters do not live in electorally-important swing districts. Or that Harry Reid's claim that the private sector is "doing just fine" possibly just cost the Dems their Senate majority. What a crisis of dem leadership.

- K2K

October 21, 2011 at 11:29am

Perhaps Washington operatives could descend on the movement and drive it in that direction. This is the last thing needed is for Washington operatives to swoop in and pretend to help. Who is going to help? James Carville? Mark Penn? David Axelrod? They aren't campaigning. They're organizing to create a critical mass of people, who with a list of legitimate grievances, are trying to get our elected officials to listen to the marginalized 99% that can't afford $2000 fundraising dinners. But that seems like an awfully daunting task, given the scene on the ground and the ideological tendencies of Occupy Wall Street—and it misreads the symbiotic relationship between liberals and the left. Let’s say Occupy Wall Street can overcome its self-limiting strategic philosophy, develop some concrete goals, and blossom into a full-fledged social movement. Good lord TNR. I've said this on the last three posts about the apparent laziness you seem to exhibit when it comes to getting beyond the "I walked by an OWS protest and this is what I saw" routine. We get that you've forgotten how to do a google search. I'll give you some hints. Type in '99percentDeclaration' and then when you get to the site, read it. Maybe click on "working group" over on the side and you can actually follow the discussions of the people in Philly and elsewhere across the country that are working on organizing the Occupy movement to be something beyond the protests that OWS started in NYC. You might be surprised at the seriousness and tone of the discussions about how best to reform our system and engaging the Left, Center and Right. I would expect a little effort on your parts but apparently you need help. As Chaitless expanded upon, the 'establishment' liberals and progressives are missing an opportunity here to help foster (not overtake or absorb) the nascent movement but build on the energy and get WH and Dems in Congress to actually listen to what is being said and actually read the list of grievances so they can understand that Occupy / 99% actually do have legitimate, progressive solutions to help fix the problems. IF the Democrats and Obama choose to ignore what is being said and simply continue on with the status quo of being the 'lesser' of two evils then I suspect they'll find themselves in trouble come election time. But that is not the point of the Occupy movement. It's purpose is to get the Dems to focus on fixing the issues. But if Foer insists that Occupy simply write love poems and call their Democratic representatives instead of doing what they're doing then the Democrats and Foer will have themselves to blame for not seeing an opportunity when it's biting them in the ass.

- singlspeed

October 21, 2011 at 1:45pm

apologies for the all bold.

- singlspeed

October 21, 2011 at 1:45pm

"But the Democrats’—or rather Obama’s—strategy strangely didn’t point in that direction. At best, we can describe Dodd-Frank as a marginal step in the direction of reform. And in the course of the ongoing battle over implementing the law, the legislation will likely be reduced to a marginal half step." Frank - where was TNR when Summers et al. where hired by O'bama when it was obvious to everyone that they would water down any reform? I remember truly humiliating sycophantic articles from Noam and others about Summers genius. Wandrey - O'bama actively FOUGHT AGAINST meaningful reform in Dodd Frank. That's a world away from blaming Republicans, again.

- IggyPop

October 21, 2011 at 2:27pm

Superb, chaitless! At the very least, OWS reflects and reignites sentiments that many folks across the political spectrum, even including some Tea Party types, have been feeling about the injustices that drove the financial meltdown and that continue to dominate the economy today. What everyone does with those sentiments is another matter. And I continue to wonder how much Obama has learned and whether he is really committed to emphasizing jobs as more than an electoral tactic, particularly with Geithner incredibly staying on as his most influential economic adviser. Still, simply for moving the discussion away from simplistic debt reduction and even starting to focus on the real ways we can revive the economy, help the millions who are struggling (ultimately getting at debt reduction that way), and prevent another meltdown, we owe a real debt of gratitude to OWS.

- Thunderroad

October 21, 2011 at 4:32pm