Why Obama Dreads the Occupy Wall Street Protesters

The Occupy Wall Street movement resonates with the middle classes, the victims of the crisis. It is a protest that could embarrass the American president.

Zuccotti Park, located in the south of Manhattan, has for a long time been known for its strange bronze statue of a businessman sitting on one of the benches, resting a briefcase on his knees; it provides an ironic counterpoint to the arrogant skyscrapers surrounding it. While pitching their tents here at the heart of the financial quarter on September 17, fifty or so demonstrators, renegades of the anti-globalization movement, libertarian students and proto-hippies, were heard protesting against the “power of money.”

But this New York version of Occupy Madrid seems to have, little by little, crystallized American anger and anxieties. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is henceforth spreading to Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and over 1,300 other cities, sparking off outraged attacks on Republican elected representatives and ambiguous reactions from the White House.

One Percent of the Population Possesses 20 Percent of the Wealth

Lacking direction or precise claims, the American protests can be either a strength or weakness for the Democratic Party, just like the tea party for the Republican side. Obama would undoubtedly love to ride this wave of discontent, but the president dreads the boomerang effect of this populist focus, for good reason.

Aside from the anti-globalization demonstrations, the United States has not known protests of this size since the great anti-war gatherings of 2003. In New York, the police have made up for their inexperience with spontaneous social movements by a robotized, and sometimes scathing, application of regulations, handcuffing with a comical zeal. On October 1, some 700 wrongdoers were guilty of having obstructed the base of the Brooklyn Bridge during a march. These arrests alienated public opinion to the point of attracting several thousand more demonstrators to Wall Street four days later. They were accompanied, for the first time, by important delegations from eight trade unions.

“Every hour that Occupy Wall Street continues, it can help revitalize a progressive movement nationally and globally that aims to achieve new victories for all working people and the unemployed,” declared Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union this evening. “It’s up to us whether we harness their energy and commitment at the bargaining table, in the halls of government, and among the coalitions and alliances we try to sustain.”

This is an allusion to young people, who are shocked by unprecedented unemployment, or employees having salaries very inferior to what they made before 2008. There is uncertainty over whether their studies will pay off. Saddled with more than $24,000 of debt upon leaving university, many students have come to vent their anger at Wall Street and its profits and bankers’ bonuses. Their mobilization resonates with their middle class parents, whose buying power hasn’t ceased to drop for fifteen years.

In 1990, the wealthiest households, equivalent to 1 percent of the population, held 10 percent of national wealth; today, they possess 20 percent of it. The in-vogue slogans at Zuccotti Park against social inequality, such as “We are the 99 percent,” could figure in the national campaign undertaken by Barack Obama in favor of a plan to reboot employment, financed in part by tax increases on the highest incomes. This is a project opposed by the Republican representatives in Congress.

While acknowledging the frustration of the American victims of Wall Street’s transgressions, the president searches to rise above it and remind people of the purpose of a powerful financial system and the efficiency of new regulations. By supporting protesters too openly, the Democrats fear alienating campaign fund contributors and suffering as a result of possible left wing excesses.

“If Occupy Wall Street coalesces into something like a real movement, the Democratic Party may have more difficulty digesting it than the GOP has had with the tea party,” predicted Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor. The right-wing populists have been supported by the most conservative fringe of Congress. The Zuccotti Park protesters themselves still neither have a leader nor ideological direction. In 2012, their cries could certainly support the polls of Democratic candidates, but they, as part of the electorate, also have a high risk of strongly expressing disillusion with what happened during Obama’s first term.