Lessons from the Tea Party

The Occupy movement shouldn’t waste its energy defending campsites.

The Occupy movement in the United States and elsewhere is at a crossroads. It’s understandable that members don’t want to be evicted from their campsites without protest. But it would be fatal if the movement wore itself out in the coming weeks trying to defend its territory.

First of all, winter is coming, so tent cities aren’t really an appropriate venue for protest. Secondly, their confrontations with police are beginning to drive the purpose of their protest out of the headlines while increasing the inhibition threshold for others who might join their cause.

The movement has already accomplished much: It managed to catapult the old basic liberal theme of social inequality to the top of the daily agenda. It has targeted the banks and the “upper 1 percent,” and this criticism, even if diffuse, has found great resonance with the public.

Many feel that the referendum against Ohio’s anti-union laws would not have succeeded had it not been for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Now, they need to build on that in order to really change things politically without coming to ruin on their own accomplishments. Until now, their demands and strategies have been decided by their democratic campground assemblies. When the campgrounds cease to exist, who will make these decisions? Anyone who has been part of a grassroots movement knows what challenges now lie ahead.

Success requires constant pressure, and that’s where it should learn from the tea party movement. Nobody would even be talking about the tea party today had its ideas not influenced the Republican Party. Today, they control the agenda in Congress. It would be a tragedy if the 99 percent weren’t able to accomplish as much as a handful of tea party radicals.