What Happened to the Occupy Movement?

It is just about six months since the Occupy Wall Street group started getting national attention.  The movement swelled rapidly over several months, even going worldwide.  While the goals of the movement were unclear over time the story coalesced among the general public into essentially that the rich were getting richer while not paying a proportionately greater sum in taxes, and in order to do this they controlled government with money.  There was sympathy for this story among the majority of Americans, although not necessarily sympathy for the methods involved in telling the story.

In mid-November the encampments in a number of cities were cleared by police at the instruction of their mayors.  While there were a number of incidents I would characterize this process as remarkably peaceful considering the circumstances.  At that point there were a lot of people asking "What next?" and I don't really remember there being much of an answer.  Since then the movement has largely vanished from America's consciousness.  There are still activists, but these are generally very small in number, other than in the city of Oakland, CA where there have been clashes with the police.  There it seems that essentially anarchists have decided to go to war with the police, largely subverting the original intention of the movement.  I experienced this during the Iraq War protests in Portland in which marches for peace were used by groups of young people dressed in black and wearing masks to break things and fight with the police.

I wanted to be fair when writing this blog and so not only did I go to the mainstream media but also to OccupyNews.ORG. Even at this extremely pro-occupy site the news consists largely of blog posts about the media not reporting or understanding the movement, and I thought it consequently ironic that the news site has nothing about the Oakland clashes. 

What has happened to the Occupy Movement?  Essentially the movement has disappeared.  Once the police moved in the vast majority of people simply went home.  The movement failed to generate any organized structure, any coherent political movement, any sustained presence.  So, this seems like a failure, doesn't it?  I'm not so sure that is true.  I blogged that the only way the Occupy movement would have any impact was if it became a political movement affecting the election of politicians and the passing of laws.  The Occupy movement never managed to get to the point of presenting candidates, forming a party, or anything else one might usually associate with a political process, and I had stated that such an effort was necessary for there to be meaningful change.  However, the message of the Occupy movement has got into the consciousness of the electorate, and politicians are noticing.

Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed a constitutional amendment to remove the ability of corporations to affect political campaigns.  He has also co-sponsored a bill to require millionaires to pay at least 30% in taxes.  Barack Obama talked about income inequality in his State of the Union speech.  Even the Republican nomination race has had the issue raised to the detriment of the front-runner, with Mitt Romney's taxes and method of income being questioned and resulting in a negative reaction from the more conservative of the conservatives (Republican primary voters).  People are now talking about income inequality, tax regulations, corporate subsidies, and the influence of money in politics.  This is going to be a campaign issue.

The real question is whether this is a campaign issue only, and not actually a law-writing issue.  The senate bill about millionaires has almost zero chance of being passed with the present make-up of congress.  the constitutional amendment has a smaller chance of happening.  Conservatives are going to vote for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama.  However, Republicans voting against the bill, or campaigning against the amendment, or supporting the rights of corporations, or protecting the tax laws for the rich, or condemning the presidents statements are all going to be negative positions in the election.  That these issues are in the election is not only a driver of left-wing voter turnout (there are more liberals than conservatives, they just vote less), but also a damaging situation for conservatives and a win for the Occupy movement.  The message of the Occupy movement is now a factor in mainstream politics.  This is quite impressive.

However, it still all boils down to what is done politically.  The Tea Party formed a political unit that got people elected who actually followed through.  With the economy turning around just in time for the Democrats, and the obstructionist policy of the Republicans being thoroughly despised by the electorate, Democrats could make moves in the House of Representatives (although are unlikely to get a majority) and may be able to hang on to enough Senate seats in an uneven election (23 of 33 senate seats are held by Democrats, in 2014 it is 20 of 33, in 2016 there are 24 Republicans and 10 Democrats so 2016 will be the most important election in many years as Democrats have a chance for a super-majority, all three legislative branches at the same time).  By far the most likely outcome is Obama as president, and an evenly split House and Senate.

It is therefore unlikely that any substantial change will happen, but Democrats may use the ideas raised by the movement as a stick to beat Republicans with over the next five years.  They won't be able to really do anything about it, and may not even wish to.  In the short term the consequences of the Occupy movement will probably be a somewhat better outcome for mainstream Democrats in the 2012 election, and perhaps the 2014 election as Democrats propose multiple campaign financing and tax bills that they know the Republicans will kill.  The real test will be whether the message of the Occupy movement can be sustained all the way until 2016, when something could be done.  With the inevitable rise in the US economy over the next four years I think that unlikely.  As with almost everything (sadly) "it's the economy, stupid."