Nate Silver, as always, has something useful and informative to say about the Occupy movement. After looking through hundreds of local media reports for global protests this past Saturday, he’s concluded that there were somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 protesters in the United States. New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle had the largest protests. For a city-by-city breakdown of attendance last weekend, look at this graphic. Meanwhile, several European cities kicked our Yankee asses with hundreds of thousands of protesters each.
Silver floats the idea that it’s mainly nonpartisan liberals out there:
I suspect that more than anything, however, it reflects the politics of the protesters. Specifically, they tend to be more liberal than they are Democratic partisans. Take liberalism, subtract the Democratic Party, and the remainder might look something like Occupy Wall Street…
So perhaps the protesters are more ideologically minded than they are interested in partisan politics. In fact, they may be relatively disengaged from “politics as usual.” In a somewhat informal New York magazine survey of 100 protesters in Manhattan, only 39 percent reported having voted in the 2010 midterm elections.
All of this could create headaches for the Democratic Party — and for the protesters — if it tries to co-opt the Occupy movement.
Read the whole thing.
@49 HAHA, I’ll never live that down irrelevancy. NOPE, I didn’t.
@52, but you’re going to next year, right?
@46:
I’m not so much concerned with lecturing people like you as with presenting a counter to your evangelism for disenfranchisement. If you were content to not vote and shut up about it, how would I even know to care? But what you are trying to do is convince others to march under your banner of self-righteously accomplishing exactly nothing in exchange for the reward of endless bitching rights about how the world wouldn’t be so fucked up if everybody did things your way.
In this sense you’re no different than a LaRouchie — nobody can say your ideas are wrong because they’ve never been tried and they never will be. Hey, congratulations!
It’s amazing how, when cynicism guides one’s every action, it never wants for confirmation in the world at large. Betting on failure is always the safest bet, especially when you hold the power in your hands to ensure failure. The problem is that winning that bet means you fail.
Also, for all of you who think there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats so who cares who you vote for, I have some rebuttals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Rob…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A._A…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Th…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Sca…
vs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotom…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Kagan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Bader_…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_G._…
Ginsburg, Scalia, Kennedy and Breyer are all in their seventies. Hmm.
@44 wins and this thread is inane.
Voting is not the entire democratic process. Without public debate (and yes, protests) there is nothing to vote *about*.
Should these apparently politically active people vote? Probably. Who they should vote for, I couldn’t say. Democrats have been poor on the policies relevant to OWS and good only by comparison on most progressive social issues. Vote third party*? That is apparently vilified as idiotic, too.
People are asked to choose representatives from either D or R. Some of those people don’t think either represents them. Their options are to opt-out (morons!), vote third party (might as well opt-out!), and/or make their case to the public (lazy hippies, many of them don’t even vote!).
What do you propose as an alternative, Fnarf?
* I do, with some exceptions.
Occupants are possibly rational actors who understand that the private economy, not government, holds their solution.
Same as the tea party.
@47 “The majority of that 60 percent doesn’t vote. Why should politicians give a fuck what they think?”
Pols will give a fuck when these people are in the street. Note that history shows it is a ‘when’, not an ‘if’.
@54 I am actually doing rather the opposite, that people do enfranchise themselves–but please continue to preach yourself, about one’s motivations or ideas, how they care or don’t when you don’t know them, or derail them because they disagree with you. Congratulations, you’ve illustrated my point and have been a prick in the process! Good job at encouraging people to vote!
Interesting that you say my ideas have never been tried, because they rarely are, are they? And your presumptuousness about my ideas is no better than the rightwing trolls who infect this thread. I never really said I wanted magical fluffy ponies and unicorns, but I became pretty fucking concerned when those in power kept doing the same things–it’s pretty conspicuous isn’t it? I became concerned when I thought I voted for a moderate and he turned into the Tea Party president. So fuck you.
I don’t have much cynicism in me. For that, look to yourself and Fnarf, minimalizing separate opinions of people and limiting rights to your belief in a system that’s rigged from the beginning. You have no imagination, much less hope. My hope is far deeper than silly proselytizing or a pretense of defending the folks who can’t read on their own without the benefit of Proteus’ and Fnarf’s didactic stories of suffering at the hands of EVIL “Naderism” and “disenfrangelism.” But please keep teaching those who you think can’t think for themselves!
Oh, and I don’t care about failure. I really don’t.
So fnarf, why is Obama campaigning to the left of where he governs if most folks aren’t on his left?
@53 Oh, fnarf, please afford me some respect and not try to reduce me to a Naderite–IT’S SO FUCKING LAZY. I’ve said several times that I never and won’t vote for the guy. He’s actually not my favorite person. I sure as hell am not voting for Obama though. Blame away.
Given the demographics of the occupation, there are probably plenty of people at the OWS protests who weren’t even eligible to vote in the 2010 elections.
@55 “for all of you who think there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats so who cares who you vote for”
Whatever people here think has no effect on the huge number of disenfranchised finding little actual difference between R&Ds. If either of the 2 parties wanted the mass of people to vote, they’d give them a reason to go vote.
Fnarf how do you not see a problem with saying in #8: fixing the broken vote-based political system is only possible via voting.
@59: I differ from Fnarf in that I’m all for people taking to the streets with their concerns — provided they also vote. Your rap about how it doesn’t matter who they vote for because both parties are the same is A: demonstrably false and B: pure political poison. I’ve heard it a million times from people who should know better and it never gets any smarter.
I’ll say it again: Tell it to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who would still have their families and loved ones alive if the USA had elected a different president in 2000. To encourage people to opt out of a decision that carries that much real world consequence is unconscionable. I probably agree with you on a great many of your political positions, but the “don’t vote” meme is pernicious and I’m going to say so every time I hear it, so get used to it.
The first time I voted for a president was in ’08 (I’m old enough to have voted for Clinton in ’92) not because I totally bought into the “Change” bullshit but I thought Obama would be an improvement regarding war and civil liberties. I think that was the “hope” of many people who voted for him. I even got teary-eyed the night of the election.
Even though he had many mandates and a majority in the house and senate all I saw was more of the same–worse in fact. I was disillusioned before ’08, then actually had some faith in the political system for a minute, only to have it permanently dashed on the rocks.
If you want to vote and find it meaningful, fine. I’m not going to wag my finger at you, don’t go wagging yours at me. I’ve got years of life experience and a decent amount of historical analysis that says voting is NOT democracy. If you want to debate me, fine. It helps me better articulate my own positions. If you just want to heap insult riddled scorn on me you can go fuck yourself.
@65 “Tell it to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who would still have their families and loved ones alive if the USA had elected a different president in 2000.”
You couldn’t tell that to 500k Iraqis who died due to Clinton’s embargo. “Estimates of excess civilian deaths during the sanctions vary widely, but range from 100,000 to over 1.5 million.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sancti…
@65 I pretty much believe in the “simultaneous work” (foots in the streets and voting) hypothesis you just gave. Which is why I fully support OWS.
FTR, I’m a voter, even if I recognize and support the right to dispose of a vote doesn’t mean I am doing that. There is a difference.
@65 And I’d like to know if support for the Dems has helped prevent the US’ continued bellicosity as well. It hasn’t.
“I differ from Fnarf in that I’m all for people taking to the streets with their concerns — provided they also vote.”
@59, but you are against them taking to the streets with their concerns if they choose not to vote? People are entitled to engage with the system in the way that seems best to them. Protesting is political action, if they think it’s the best action available to them, that’s what they should do–completely independent of whether they think voting is also a useful activity.
If you have political goals (eg. electing Gore in 2000) it falls to you to persuade others to take the action that suits you. It’s important to get that straight. Some people think their best option is not to vote (and let’s grant they may be making a horrible mistake, born of frustration or apathy). It’s *you* who wants them to vote. If they don’t vote enough for your liking, that’s not their failure, but yours.
^^^ should be @65
@70: It’s a free country. They can march in the streets and not vote, they can stand on their heads and demand free pie if they want.
But let’s not kid ourselves.
I am with Fnarf on this one.
It’s infuriating and thoroughly indefensible that otherwise intelligent people don’t vote.
I’m questioning the “intelligence” assumption these days.
I support protest without reservation. But it’s not a very reliable means to long term change. Even when it is successful.
Participating in even a broken system is crucial.
@61, “not Obama” IS “Nader”.
@56 Well said.
@74 Oh well, if we get to generalize, then “Obama” IS “Bush”.
@76: Ha! Exactly.
@72, I’m not sure who is fooling themselves. It could be all of us.
But whatever you think about voting, what these people are doing is better than what you seem to be asking them to do, which is to stay home ashamed that they didn’t vote in 2008. They can redeem themselves by voting party line in 2012, right?
@76, yes, that makes perfect sense, if you are six years old.
Personality cult much? It’s not ABOUT Barack Obama; it’s about the group of people and ideas that he represents — not the president but also his cabinet and staff and many thousands of department heads and LET’S NOT FORGET JUDGES. That’s who you’re voting for.
If you’re voting for some super-liberal, he or she doesn’t have any of those things; and she or he doesn’t have even the remotest chance of winning, or even influencing the vote in any way except a pro-Republican one. That’s what makes him or her “Nader”. Nader also is irrelevant as a person or as a proponent of ideas.
Ideas don’t matter if you don’t have power. Power comes from votes. Votes in the ballot box and votes in congress.
None of you have even the tiniest glimmer of a clue how to translate your desires into action. You somehow think that by protesting, by getting into pathetic little scuffles with cops over your tents is going to somehow convince the powers-that-be to just walk away from power? You think they’re going to see a hundred people standing in the rain and think, “yeah, you know, I think I WILL vote for that tax increase”?
How’s it going to go down? Just tell me that. How is anything on your laundry list ever going to make it into a bill before congress? Or, you know, revolution — because a hundred of you, who can’t even stop a handful of policemen from arresting you for sitting on the sidewalk, are going to overthrow the most powerful government in the history of the world? Huh? HOW?
You got nothing. I got not much more, maybe, but I’m at least a small part of the system. The ONLY SYSTEM THERE IS.
And it has devolved into all-caps raging.
Fnarf, I like you. You are a good influence on slog in many ways, but that rant was nuts. Breathe.
As for how it’s going to go down: Democracy, maaaannnn. Public debate and ‘pathetic scuffles’ are part of the process that leads to those all important votes. How hard is it to understand that?
Fnarf is nothing more than a denier of the history of popular mass movements that have led to political change throughout time.
Not voting and then bitching and moaning about how your fantasy projects never happen, while willfully ignoring the harsh realities of what it takes to push through legislation to change things is perfectly ludicrous.
This is ludicrous: “I’ve got years of life experience and a decent amount of historical analysis that says voting is NOT democracy.” What is democracy then? You as dictator? Did it ever register that part of democracy is other people voting too, often ignorant people who are opposed to all the great things you support?
That said I think is off base saying protesting is ineffectual. Look how terrified grown up representatives and senators were of being heckled by tea party jackasses during the run up to the 2010 election. We for sure need some energy on the left to counter the sputtering rage on the right and OWS seems to be providing some of that, at least at the moment.
@81, democracy is voting, pure and simple. People in the streets is not democracy. Voting is the method by which the will of the people is expressed. Come November 2012, guess how many electoral votes the protesters will get, as opposed to the two candidates? If you’re not voting, you’re not part of the discussion.
“not Obama” IS “Nader”
Christ, you don’t even know the system in which you have so much faith. How is this true in Washington State, much less King County unless the Dems have monumentally fucked up even more than I thought?
@83 Stupid, but also wrong. Discussions happen elsewhere. Democracy began with assemblies.
For Fnarf, things are complex when other people are talking, but when he’s talking they’re very simple.
@82: Let me clarify: When I say voting is not democracy, I mean democracy is not ONLY voting. Voting can be a part of democracy but a truly democratic society is made up of so much more.
Fnarf, I often respect a lot of what you say on other threads but here you are way off. You fail to grasp the complexities of both social history and sociology. “Pure and simple” it ain’t.
Yo FNARF: @56 asked you a very good question. I’d like to hear your answer.
@83- “democracy is voting, pure and simple. People in the streets is not democracy. “
So that’s why we didn’t bother with the rights of expression and assembly…
Seriously Fnarf, just apologize for being pigheaded and move on.
@83 As if voting and mass movements were mutually exclusive. I guess you never heard of direct democracy, for one example among many. The truth is you just don’t know what you are talking about and when folks point out to you that you are factually wrong, not only do you just continue with a new line of argument as if nothing happened but you pretend to give lesson about the reality of politics. Why don’t you educate yourself?
@56, your option is to either try to persuade your candidates and/or other voters that your positions are correct, or to SUCK IT UP. You don’t always get what you want. You very rarely get what you want. But if you try sometimes, etc.
If you can’t get votes your protests mean nothing, and no one will remember them afterwards.
@90, no, why don’t you educate me? Oh, that’s right, because you’re soft in the head. Trust me, sunshine, I know plenty about what I’m talking about. Direct democracy? Terrific, as long as you live in a country with fewer than 100 people. In the US, “direct democracy” means Tim fucking Eyman: no thanks. And it is still about voting, isn’t it?
I am not factually wrong. A person is free to disagree, and to go protest in the street if that’s what floats your boat. But if you think it matters, you’re mistaken. That is my message. Street protests are at best writing on sand; at worst, ammunition for your enemies.
Elderly, conservative people vote at twice the rate of people half their age. If you hate Republicans, but were too lazy to get your ass to the polls to vote against them, then shut your whining gob. I’ve voted in every election since I turned 18 and will keep voting. If people my age voted at the same rates as 60-70 year olds did or better, then the kids wouldn’t have to take to the streets demanding justice. No vote, no voice. Hate the status quo? Vote against it! Hate corporate bankers? Take your money to a credit union! Don’t like jeezus nuts dictating law? Donate money to Planned Parenthood or Southern Poverty Law!
@79 For the record Fnarf, I wasn’t saying that I think Obama is the same as Bush. He’s better in some ways, very similar in some ways, and very much worse in others. I was just saying that if you get to generalize Not Obama is Nader, then I get to generalize Obama is Bush. I don’t think Not Obama = Nader, just like I don’t think Obama = Bush.
People should get to vote for who they want, their vote should not be restricted to the two establishment parties as you so seem to wish. People should have the right to vote their conscience. It’s the job of the candidate to earn our vote, not our job to perpetuate a duopoly. If the establishment candidates ever actually want to earn our votes, they know where we are.
@91- Why do you assume street protests don’t motivate people positively and/or function as cheap advertising for your cause? It seems you’re arguing that these protests are somehow anti-voting when that’s actually an opinion held by a minority of the protesters. 39% voted in a midterm election (according to a small poll), that’s actually pretty close to average, isn’t it? How many are going to vote in the next election? It’s going to depend on what is being offered, and I hope (and feel some confidence) that some of these people (and everyone watching on the news) are going to show up for the primaries and help shift America’s political discourse back to reality.
If you can’t get the votes, you might not be remembered. If you do get the votes you might get a monument built to you. If you just sit at home except for one day a year then you’re not really doing much at all.
91: Okay, please, explain to me your thoughts on the labor movement and the civil rights movement. Is there any reason to believe that Hoover or Goldwater would have done differently? Maybe, but highly unlikely. In both cases concessions had to be made because of widespread unrest, and the ruling class was demanding it.
@91 You’re just wrong about protests. How else do you persuade politicians? I gave you The Bonus Army, which had no small part in the election of Roosevelt and eventually Congress gave them what they wanted. And guess what? Roosevelt made some very nice concession to them but he didn’t give them what they wanted. It wasn’t Roosevelt, it was a fearful Congress who overrode Roosevelt’s veto, IIRC. They saw what happened in 1932.
Furthermore, if you seriously believe that Obama wants to do the right thing (I don’t) but is held back by one thing or another, this is EXACTLY what he needs to push a more liberal agenda. The ruling class doesn’t like poor people to get anything, but to stem the tide of unrest they make politicians throw bones. Hence the Wagner Act, and many other examples.
My bad, it would have been Nixon. Still, no difference.
Fnarf: “The Christopher Hitchens of Slog” (in case you were wondering, I mean this as a complement and an insult, but on this thread it’s an insult)
Let’s review your accomplishments to date: hmm, there doesn’t appear to be anything here. Your abysmal turnout Saturday — a fraction of the soccer game crowd at the other end of downtown — tells your opponents, and more importantly your friends, that you can be safely ignored. Good job! You’ll get some lip service from various factions, but the prevailing point of view amongst the people who matter is “hmm, interesting, that’s still going on” (turns page or channel).
Now, for your history lessons: you people are deeply confused. For one thing, the progressivist reformist movements of a hundred years ago took place in a vastly different America. The left was different, and the right was different, and everyone was naive; nobody knew anything about it then. But this symbolic game had turned into tic-tac-toe by the anti-war (and everything else) protests of the late-sixties, and since that time all the moves are plotted out in advance. You’re not exercising free will, you’re acting out a script. In 1932 you could catch the right wing unawares, but not anymore.
But your Bonus Army example is ridiculous on the face of it. They were veterans demanding a very specific thing: cash money. Is that what you want, a payoff? I don’t think so. Also, they won their battle after several of them were shot by police; is that what you want? It would probably help your public standing.
Parallels to the sixties college activism are more apt, but not to your favor, and I would suggest you avoid them as much as possible. Nothing, but nothing, agitates the right like the blinkered view of the sixties that they have in mind, and I have to say that in political terms I agree with them. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman were, in fact, mercenary shit-stirrers with a suspect agenda that was half radicalism, half self-aggrandizement; Chicago ’68 was, in fact, a deliberate provocation of a riot that they knew was coming; most of the classic sixties SDS/Weatherman radicals were, in fact, hard-core leftist lunatics who idolized Mao and Kim Il-Sung (notorious right-wing bugbear Bill Ayers wrote and performed a whole mess of bad songs about the glorious revolution in North Korea at one famous SDS/Weatherman meeting). The Black Panthers stormed the California State Capitol with rifles in their hands (that was back in the day when the RIGHT was promoting gun control, believe it or not). Lots of people who should have known better would seriously chat about overthrowing the government at the drop of a pin, and a lot of normal people, disturbed by how their world seemed to be falling apart (sound familiar), were terrified by it.
Idealized 68-72 nostalgia glosses over just how silly that season was, politically, but the results are pretty plain: Nixon in ’68, Nixon by a massive landslide in ’72. Remember, also, how blindsided the left was by ’72; I think it was Joan Didion who said, “I can’t believe Nixon won; I don’t know a soul who voted for him”. That’s called being out of touch, and it’s described left Democrats ever since.
And the war went on much longer than it would have. And then the Reagan went on much longer than it would have. And then the Bush went on much longer than it would have.
And this was a serious mass movement, or certainly appeared to be at the time; in hindsight, statistically speaking hardly anyone was politically active on the far left in the sixties, however much noise they made among the rememberers. You are not making that much noise. And you will meet with as much success.
The sixties and seventies were about far more than people marching in the street, of course, and the change that came about was genuine, or at least entertaining. But those days are also gone. It’s your enemies who are energized by “the sixties” now (and who have adopted some of the same organizing methods, and alas some of the same weepy victimhood). Y’all don’t seem to be aware of any of this, but because you still idolize the dimwits who went before you, you’re bound and determined to repeat their mistakes.
And make new ones; because your enemies are much cleverer than they used to be, and they know all the signs and symbols and secret handshakes just as well as you, if not better, and they’re using them against you. And you’re getting creamed. They’re better at theater than you.
By all means, keep up the conversation; it’s a good one, and I have contributed to it here. You want to talk about CEO pay and marginal tax rates and everything else, let’s go. Let’s try to change some minds. Yell at your elected leaders; you have their phone numbers and emails. But standing around in Westlake with a sign saying something unintelligible about salmon while an indie rock band isn’t a recipe for success.
Has no one yet made this point:
Although only 39% of the occupiers voted in the last election, you can damn well be sure 99% of them will in the next.