Two years ago, the media helped to build a conservative grassroots movement, the Tea Party. Like any grassroots movement, this one is hard to define; but after listening to their rhetoric, one does get the impression that after they protest and invoke themselves as defenders of everything good and sacred in the U.S., they most likely slink home to their beds lined with sheets and pillow cases that have the Constitution printed on them. The Tea Party today is not the insurgent force it was, but is still not to be taken lightly, especially with the Republican primaries approaching fast. As expected, the Occupy Wall Street protestors were given the usual liberal protest treatment. They are young, naïve, have no purpose, no clear demands. This was far different than the seriousness with which the Tea Party was painted in its early days.
There is however a fundamental difference between these two movements and you can discern it by asking: “What is it they want?” And secondly, “Where/When can you find it?” The Tea Party exists as an expression of nostalgia for a world that never existed but which they nonetheless pine desperately for. The mantra for the Tea Party was that they were sick and tired of losing their country! They wanted their America back! Other than the obvious question as to why America belongs to only them, one must ask: “What had they really lost?”
For example, much of the fiery rhetoric of losing their country was attached in a very visceral way to the passing of healthcare reform. But no one really challenged how ridiculous it is to think that somehow the mediocre reforms of ObamaCare were akin to setting up death panels for the American Way of Life. What was it in their lives that made them so passionately associate the spirit of their country with not-that-great but overpriced healthcare? It made me wonder if as young men and women, the Tea Partiers had some magic moments with their healthcare. They had bonded, the tenderness of their union creating a special place in their hearts; and no matter what happened, they would always be connected. It was as if each of them had carved into the tree trunks of their hearts a special message to their not-that-great but overpriced healthcare, “I know you aren’t the best, but you will always be best to me.”
The problem is: The world they pine for wasn’t actually that great for the majority of people in the United States today. If you were a white heterosexual man, you were at the top of the world. If you were a white heterosexual woman, you could stand next to your husband, but he was always in charge. If you were anything else — black, brown, yellow, red, a different religion, a different sexuality — good luck getting by in that time of xenophobia and institutionalized racism. Tea Partiers pine for that time when it didn’t seem like there was so much difference. And if anyone different did appear, they could be metaphorically (or literally) strangled into submission. Obama’s election, as the first black president, was the death knell to this happy world that never existed.
What makes the Occupy Wall Street protests different is they are not pining for a previous version of the world. They are not arguing that we go back to the days when corporations really had the people’s backs and where politicians weren’t corrupt and beholden to the moneyed interests.
They know that such a time probably never existed. Rather than seek to drive the world into the past, they recognize that the way things have been, the way they are going is not working, and the future must be different. They are now being called the 99 percent movement and are protesting the way in which Wall Street and so much of the U.S. government exists to protect the 1 percent at the top from the rest at the bottom.
“Another world is possible” is a common leftist mantra for events such as this, and that gives a clue as to why the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements might be treated so differently. The protestors in Wall Street want to make some fundamental changes to the country in hopes of turning it in a more sustainable and more equitable direction. That seems like a much more complicated story to tell, compared to a bunch of angry people yelling they “want their country back!”
MICHAEL LUJAN BEVACQUA
Mangilao, Guam
