The Republicans, Obama, and Occupy Wall Street

We live in difficult times, but the political capacity to address the difficulties may be emerging in America, none too soon and in the right place.

The Republican presidential nomination debates reveal how far the GOP is from addressing the concerns of the American public. It seems, as a consequence, that President Obama’s re-election is likely, even with the persistent tough economic situation. He makes sense. The Republicans don’t. They offer the 999 plan and other fantasies as economic policy. Obama proposes sensible realistic programs, the jobs bill and the like. The re-election, further, may very well have very significant consequences. The Obama transformation, which I have reflected upon in an earlier post, may proceed and deepen.  I have this hope because of Occupy Wall Street.

OWS is already a resounding success, and it has the potential to extend the success for months, indeed, probably for years ahead. We at Deliberately Considered have been discussing the occupation. Scott and Michael Corey, like observers elsewhere, are concerned that the occupiers don’t have a clear program. They seem to be a hodgepodge of disparate misfits, anarchists, druggies, vegans, feminists, trade unionists, environmentalists and veterans of left-wing battles past, with no clear unified goals. The political causes they espouse seem to be as varied as they are as a group. They express a sentiment and sensibility, but they do not propose any policy. Yet, I think it is crucial to note that there is a simple and telling coherence in the protest and that there is a discernable achievement already that is being deepened as the occupation persists.

The occupiers are telling a simple truth. America is becoming an increasingly unequal society. The rich are getting rich and the poor (and working people) are getting poorer, especially the young and people of color. The occupiers call upon the media, the political class and the population at large to take notice, and notice is being taken as the occupations spread around the country and the world.

In the U.S., popular discontent is no longer identified with a tax revolt and with people who think the primary task of government is to do as little as possible. The rich can no longer hide behind the title, “job creators.” Public opinion polls point to the popularity of taxing the super rich to fund public services and jobs development for the vast majority. And as the occupation persists, this simple message will be underscored.

Persistence through the winter is likely, building on the achievements already linked to the special power of the ground zero occupation. Cost versus benefit balance applies. Something approaching sacred space has been occupied, down the road from the “Ground Zero Mosque,” across the street from Ground Zero of 9/11. Whispers there are heard around the world.  What frustrated the local Muslim community is the great resource of today’s occupiers. The police forbid bullhorns, but the park itself has become a global microphone, enabling the people now occupying it and occupiers to come, to be heard, to show their concerns to the world. The power of showing, the power of monstration as Daniel Dayan puts it, is a great resource. The costs of staying for a few hundred people are relatively low. And the benefits of staying are great. Occupying provides a life time experience of what Hannah Arendt calls the lost treasure of the revolutionary tradition, making a difference in public, public freedom, acting with great consequence in a world that provides few chances to do so. As this treasure is mined, American politicians, Republicans and Democrats, will have to respond, as they have had to respond to the Tea Party. There is a new and qualitatively different popular pressure. And this I think will help Obama succeed where he hasn’t thus far.

He sought to demonstrate that a democratic government is a way that Americans can address their pressing problems. He has tried to rebalance the relationship between state and market in the American political economy. A moderate Democrat, he has been denounced as a socialist by Republicans. With the Tea Party active and progressives complaining in the blogosphere but not much more, the political center moved right.

Now with the winds blowing from Zuccotti Park, a new popular pressure is emerging. The President will be criticized to be sure. But the pressure to pass a serious jobs bill will either yield results before the Presidential election or shape it. There will be serious popular demands for taxing the super rich and pressure to develop healthcare reform, to escalate the disengagement from Afghanistan and Iraq, to enact serious immigration reform, to work to de-militarize American foreign policy.

There will be pressure on the President to fulfill his promise, which will enable him to do so.