# Seems like the Occupy protests have lost steam this week (10/19/11). Did they jump the shark? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155 "2011-10-19T16:57:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/61 "2011-10-20T12:38:50Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > And yet the government tried for years to terminate it. Clearly it must have been having some effect, even if only as an irritant. Sure it’s an irritant. So are mosquitoes. But you just spray on some mosquito repellant and go on. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/62 "2011-10-20T13:07:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > On April 15, 2009, a lot of folks gathered at protests and rallies. By April 16th, 2009, most of them had gone home. Would an observer on that date have been justified in concluding that the Tea Party movement had run out of steam, or jumped the shark? > > And yet, when a group of people rally and protest for a month straight, and then the numbers start dwindling (but there are still a significant number of people left protesting and rallying still), that’s evidence of the Occupy movement running out of steam. > > How does this work again? I would differentiate the Tea Party from OWS in many ways. OWS is a protest. The Tea Party was a series of rallies for a specific cause, ousting current incumbents in Washington. The Tea Party gave it’s followers specific directives and actions: vote against this person; vote for this person. The OWS participants are victims, the Tea Party participants took action. As many people would like to see the OWS to have a similar impact that the Tea Party movement had, unless something changes it’s not going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/63 "2011-10-20T13:19:30Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > OWS is a protest. The Tea Party was a series of rallies for a specific cause, ousting current incumbents in Washington. Really? I thought it was all about reducing federal spending and anger over the national debt. Sounds like the Tea Party goals are pretty muddled. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/64 "2011-10-20T13:23:26Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Really? I thought it was all about reducing federal spending and anger over the national debt. Sounds like the Tea Party goals are pretty muddled. Not only that, but there’s a **very** strange disconnect between the (economic-libertarian) content of their signs, etc., and the actual (social-conservative) priorities of their base. The Tea Partiers will **tell** you plain enough what they really want, only it **ain’t** what they really want. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/65 "2011-10-20T13:27:50Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > As many people would like to see the OWS to have a similar impact that the Tea Party movement had, unless something changes it’s not going to happen. I hope they don’t. People were _pissed off_ in the latest elections, and I bet that if it weren’t for the Tea Party, the GOP would have won a lot more seats than they did. But as it is, people’s fears of the lunacy of the tea party overcame their anger at the party in power in many cases. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/66 "2011-10-20T13:49:27Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Really? I thought it was all about reducing federal spending and anger over the national debt. Sounds like the Tea Party goals are pretty muddled. Not really. I don’t think that you or even a Tea Party member thinks that they are just going to be able to walk into the Capitol and start reducing federal spending…you have to do that at the voting machines. It’s all about elections. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/67 "2011-10-20T14:03:43Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Not really. I don’t think that you or even a Tea Party member thinks that they are just going to be able to walk into the Capitol and start reducing federal spending…you have to do that at the voting machines. It’s all about elections. Then that is the goal of the OWS potestors also. Like the Tea Party, their signs say they are angry about all sorts of things, but since it is all about the elections, that must their ultimate goal. In fact, that is the goal of all protest movements, since there is no other way to effect change. It’s always about the elections. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/68 "2011-10-20T14:04:00Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Not really. I don’t think that you or even a Tea Party member thinks that they are just going to be able to walk into the Capitol and start reducing federal spending…you have to do that at the voting machines. It’s all about elections. Yes, there were Tea Partiers who thought they could walk directly into the Capitol and demand reduced spending. It was partly about elections, but it was also about pressuring the (then) currently sitting Congress. How many of us work with or live near Tea Party types who think exactly this? Some of them were plain angry and testy and others were definitely thinking longer term. Where again is the fundamental difference that makes OWS a flash in the pan? Double standard, much? ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/69 "2011-10-20T14:52:44Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Where again is the fundamental difference that makes OWS a flash in the pan? > > Double standard, much? I can’t help if you can’t see the difference. There may not ultimately be a difference, but it remains to be seen. The Tea Party had a definite impact upon the mid term elections of 2010. So far OWS has become a NYC tourist attraction. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/70 "2011-10-20T15:24:06Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Yes, there were Tea Partiers who thought they could walk directly into the Capitol and demand reduced spending. It was partly about elections, but it was also about pressuring the (then) currently sitting Congress. How many of us work with or live near Tea Party types who think exactly this? > > Some of them were plain angry and testy and others were definitely thinking longer term. > > Where again is the fundamental difference that makes OWS a flash in the pan? > > Double standard, much? The Tea Parties were vastly larger. According to Nate Silver, who’s hardly a supporter of them, they had over 300,000 people demonstrating on tax day of 2009. The Occupy protests have for the most part numbered at most a few hundred. Even the the very largest in New York have only been a few thousand. Furthermore, the Tea Parties love them or hate them had a huge impact on the elections by kicking out a bunch of moderate Republicans and replacing them with Tea Party candidates. By contrast, the Occupiers have done little other than make themselves look like spoiled white kids who have no clue how the world works. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/71 "2011-10-20T16:06:02Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > The Tea Parties were vastly larger. According to Nate Silver, who’s hardly a supporter of them, they had over 300,000 people demonstrating on tax day of 2009. > > The Occupy protests have for the most part numbered at most a few hundred. Even the the very largest in New York have only been a few thousand. > > Furthermore, the Tea Parties love them or hate them had a huge impact on the elections by kicking out a bunch of moderate Republicans and replacing them with Tea Party candidates. > > By contrast, the Occupiers have done little other than make themselves look like spoiled white kids who have no clue how the world works. As noticed before, there was a lot of funding from wealthy corporations that made the organization of the Tea Partiers possible, at the beginning there were also different ideas on how to deal with the anger that was also there against the corporations that benefited from the bailout, those ideas, that included several tea partiers that had environmental concerns, had their ideas limited or changed by the organizers to show in the end a “just tax cuts, less spending” as solutions on how to deal with the anger, ideas that “just by coincidence” benefited corporations like Exxon. As Forbes and others noticed, it is really too simplistic to dismiss the current protesters as fringe characters. [http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2011/10/20/why-the-wall-street-protests-are-going-mainstream](http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2011/10/20/why-the-wall-street-protests-are-going-mainstream) > [@](#): > > But as the movement evolves and a deeper profile emerges, one commonality seems to bind the protesters carrying signs and camping in parks with less demonstrative people watching from home: too much debt and a lack of income to pay it off. > > Conservative critics have been quick to deride the protesters in New York and many other cities as fringe characters who are too lazy to work and content to sponge off of others. But that caricature isn’t holding up. Pollster Doug Schoen says his firm interviewed 200 New York protesters and found that only 15 percent claimed to be unemployed, while the rest, presumably, held jobs or attended school. While the protesters are probably more activist-minded than the average Joe, in other ways they’re similar. Only 44 percent of them approve of the job President Obama is doing, for example, which is nearly identical to how Americans feel overall. > > The protesters also seem to reflect broader national strains when it comes to the amount of personal debt they’re carrying. There are no polls on this (yet), but Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute notes that debt seems to be the single most prominent theme of the signs used by protesters to convey what they’re angry about—particularly online, where the movement has taken up a lively presence. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/72 "2011-10-20T16:15:21Z")
[QUOTE=USnews] one commonality seems to bind the protesters carrying signs and camping in parks with less demonstrative people watching from home: too much debt and a lack of income to pay it off. [/QUOTE] The fallacy of this problem is that it was self inflicted. Somewhere over the last 60 years, the concept of the “American Dream” got distorted into a government program that all people were entitled to. So people used OPM to finance a lifestyle that they couldn’t really afford. Jobs and income levels are not perpetual, just as home values don’t always go up. These are market realities and when those bubbles burst, lots of people found themselves all of the sudden having to repay money they didn’t have. And who do they think should fix it…their neighbor. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/73 "2011-10-20T16:20:38Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > The fallacy of this problem is that it was self inflicted. Somewhere over the last 60 years, the concept of the “American Dream” got distorted into a government program that all people were entitled to. So people used OPM to finance a lifestyle that they couldn’t really afford. Jobs and income levels are not perpetual, just as home values don’t always go up. These are market realities and when those bubbles burst, lots of people found themselves all of the sudden having to repay money they didn’t have. And who do they think should fix it…their neighbor. As the financial corporations found out, they had lots of neighbors, or I should say most of the neighbors were compelled to pay so as to prevent a meltdown, the issue now has that as a background and it can not be ignored; also, others less fortunate are not being helped.. The point here is that most of the well to do should pay more now to make amends to all those neighbors. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/74 "2011-10-20T17:00:22Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > The Tea Parties were vastly larger. According to Nate Silver, who’s hardly a supporter of them, they had over 300,000 people demonstrating on tax day of 2009. Which was several months after the 2008 election. So, you are comparing months of legwork (some by grass roots organizing but mostly by corporate sponsors) with just over a month of the current protests? I stand by my previous statement of “double standard”. > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Furthermore, the Tea Parties love them or hate them had a huge impact on the elections by kicking out a bunch of moderate Republicans and replacing them with Tea Party candidates. > > By contrast, the Occupiers have done little other than make themselves look like spoiled white kids who have no clue how the world works. Remind me again, how many elections have we had in the last 2 months? People were quick to defend the Tea Party as not being primarily run by relatively wealthy, conservative white people (which has not stood all that well against the test of time), but want to paint OWS with a similar brush. Color me unsurprised that what’s good for the goose apparently ain’t so good for the gander. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/75 "2011-10-20T17:06:52Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Which was several months after the 2008 election. So, you are comparing months of legwork (some by grass roots organizing but mostly by corporate sponsors) with just over a month of the current protests? I stand by my previous statement of “double standard”. I’m sorry, but your comment doesn’t make any sense. The Tea Parties were formed months after the 2008 election in response to Obama’s stimulus plan. Your comment would make sense if they’d been formed prior to the 2008 elections but they weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/76 "2011-10-20T17:11:17Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Remind me again, how many elections have we had in the last 2 months? > > People were quick to defend the Tea Party as not being primarily run by relatively wealthy, conservative white people (which has not stood all that well against the test of time), but want to paint OWS with a similar brush. Color me unsurprised that what’s good for the goose apparently ain’t so good for the gander. As I said, perhaps we’ll see if they can influence the Democratic Party the way the Tea Partiers influence and effectively took over a large chunk of the Republican Party. So far however, they’ve acted like typical spoiled middle-class white kids more concerned with looking cool than actually accomplishing something. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/77 "2011-10-20T17:42:51Z")
[**Why Occupy Wall Street Scares the Shit Out of the Political Establishment and the MSM**](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-smirniotopoulos/why-occupy-wall-street-sc_b_1016861.html) ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/78 "2011-10-20T19:03:59Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > [**Why Occupy Wall Street Scares the Shit Out of the Political Establishment and the MSM**](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-smirniotopoulos/why-occupy-wall-street-sc_b_1016861.html) That was a breathtakingly bad argument. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/79 "2011-10-20T19:54:40Z")
No need for specifics, unless you want your judgment to be taken as insightful and cogent. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155/80 "2011-10-20T20:33:02Z")
It’s silly to say that the Tea Party is more significant than Occupy because the Tea Party has influenced an election and Occupy hasn’t. It’s silly because we haven’t had an election since Occupy started. If, come 2012, it turns out that the Occupy movement doesn’t much influence the election, then we’ll be able to look with hindsight and say that it was less significant than the Tea Party. But until we get to the election, we simply can’t compare them on that grounds. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seems-like-the-occupy-protests-have-lost-steam-this-week-10-19-11-did-they-jump-the-shark/600155.md?page=5)