‘The lefties who pick up Ron Paul's line on the Fed don't really understand that he has a coherent political philosophy. When says "end the Fed" he means "switch to gold." Again, that makes sense from his POV. But why an unemployed kid should embrace the gold standard, well, that makes no sense.’ (Quoth Doug)
Both movements, Tea Party and OWS, give voice to political alienation, and fix on the MAIN EVENT as a focus for that alienation. The Main Event is the ongoing bailout of Wall Street. For the Tea Partiers it was a sign of government profligacy, for the OWS it is a sign of Corporate Greed. Both no doubt have some truth in them, but much more important is that they both are movements that signal popular disaffection from the mainstream, establishment outlook.
The Tea Partiers peeled away from the Governing Party of George Bush, for whom they had been mobilised, but became disillusioned – a disillusionment that was turned into a sense of being robbed, when Obama took the White House.
Those occupying Wall Street were enthused by Obama, but have found little focus for their enthusiasm since – he has not done much to cement his base (too busy reaching across to his opponents). Their disaffection comes first, its focus comes afterwards.
Wall Street is the focus, because it is the MAIN EVENT. If Obama had been fighting a war in Iraq, disaffection would manifest itself in large demonstrations against the war. If his central policy had been to move America to the adoption of kilometres instead of miles, no doubt there would be vast demonstrations against kilometres. The substantial basis of the grassroots movements, both OWS and Tea Party is political disaffection: the way that mainstream political ideologies have failed to become a focus for popular organisation.
That doesn’t mean that there is not a problem in Wall Street. Wall Street is an important focus for these populist movements. However, because they are popular, inchoate, and intuitive, the character of their reaction is likely to be the kind of magical thinking that says ‘abolish the Fed’, or ‘eat the rich’ (why not?) – everything makes sense in this carnival of the disaffected. ‘Corporations’, Jews, Big Governments, Wall Street chicanery, money lenders in the temple – this is the demonology of populism.