When the “Tea Party” began a little over three years ago, I and many others pointed out that it was the same old rightwing extremists who had been peddling nonsense for decades. Their rebranding was due in large part to the financial support of billionaires and a Murdoch news network devoted to spreading lies and propaganda. Even people who should’ve known better were tricked into believing that the Tea Party represented a genuine grassroots populist movement.
The ever-compliant and intellectually lazy traditional media was all too ready to echo the party’s talking points and elevate them into something new and sexy. Never mind that from day one the supposedly non-partisan Tea Party was 100% aligned with the Republican Party and has remained so ever since; never mind that its demands for deregulation and smaller government are the same as those of every rightwinger now running for president; never mind that in 2010 the Tea Party supported lunatic standard bearers the likes of Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle, and supported candidates in Colorado and Alaska who likely cost the Republican Party control of the Senate. Disrupting town hall meetings and bringing guns to rallies makes for sensationalist news stories and sells air time, which is ultimately what the corporate media cares most about. Most disappointing, even usually responsible outlets such as NPR have taken the bait and failed to accurately portray the Tea Party.
I just arrived in New York City and intend to take a trip downtown to see for myself the Occupy Wall Street protest, which has now spread to several major U.S. cities. Unlike the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street is a true grassroots movement, unsupported by outside money, with no fawning cable network ready to do its bidding. In fact, the fecklessness of the traditional media has been in full display in their coverage of the protesters so far, ranging from condescension to outright hostility; so much for the media’s “liberal bias.” It’s started to change in the last few days as the numbers of protesters grows and the focal point of their discontent coalesces around the theme of income inequality, which is undeniably increasing and cries out for some kind of political response.
While most Democratic leaders have so far (rightly) stopped short of fully endorsing the protesters, they have expressed sympathy with their grievances and applauded their energy. The response from the Right has been predictably hypocritical. One Party’s Tea Party is another Party’s “mob” bent on dividing Americans and engaging in class warfare. That Republicans can lob the class warfare charge at people protesting at the steps of those who nearly collapsed the world economy, and were bailed out with trillions in taxpayer dollars, shows how frightened they really are. And they should be: stripped of all its rhetoric and patriotic pageantry, the GOP is little more than a private club representing the interests of millionaires and billionaires (and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hide).
For decades middle class wages have stagnated while the price of necessities like healthcare and education has skyrocketed. At the same time, the top 1% of Americans has grown wealthier than ever. The Occupy Wall Street protesters may hold disparate beliefs, including a fair share of leftwing nonsense, but what ultimately binds them is the belief that income inequality in America has gone too far. And they are right.
The protesters aren’t aligned with the Democratic Party, but it’s likely they’ll be voting that way in 2012. The one thing standing in the way of reduced income inequality is the Republican Party; their existence is predicated on crony capitalism that funnels money to the top, cuts services for the bottom, and increases corporate power.
With unemployment at 9.1 percent and discontent widespread, Republicans should be able to topple Obama in 2012. But with the President finally taking a stand for strong, progressive policies, the last thing the Republicans want is a fired-up Democrat base heading into the election year. Occupy Wall Street may end up producing just that.
Jason Scorse