WASHINGTON — The days of the Democratic Party keeping
the Occupy Wall Street movement at arm’s length appear to be ending,
even as Republicans continue to hammer away at the progressive
protesters.
For a while, the Democratic
establishment appeared to view the protests as something of a crazy
relative. But Monday, the party’s House campaign arm made it clear that
it stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the movement.
In
an email to supporters, Robby Mook, executive director of the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wrote: “Protesters are
assembling in New York and around the country to let billionaires, big
oil and big bankers know that we’re not going to let the richest 1
percent force draconian economic policies and massive cuts to crucial
programs on Main Street Americans.”
The missive slapped House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., for using the word “mobs” to describe the protesters.
“That’s
what Republicans refer to as the middle class, or maybe the millions of
unemployed Americans across the country,” Mook wrote.
The
email asks the recipient to sign a petition in support of the protests,
signifying that a sea change of sorts regarding the establishment view
of the movement seems to have occurred in the last few days.
First
Vice President Joe Biden and then President Barack Obama signaled they
sympathized with the movement. Then, House Democratic Leader Nancy
Pelosi gave it a full-on embrace Sunday. “I support the message to the
establishment, whether it’s Wall Street or the political establishment
and the rest, that change has to happen,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We cannot continue in a way that does not — that is not relevant to
their lives. People are angry.”
The endorsement of
the movement tracks the newfound emphasis the Democrats are placing on
economic inequality as Obama readies a push for his American Jobs Act.
Various proposals have been offered by the White House and the Senate
involving increasing taxes on wealthier Americans. And in travels across
the nation, the president has been eager to place the GOP on the side
of big business and billionaires.
For their part,
Republicans have argued that the protests are a natural occurrence of
what they see as Obama’s denigration of the wealthy.
At
a town hall in New Hampshire on Monday, GOP presidential candidate Mitt
Romney said the movement was born of people “seeking scapegoats.”
According
to the Hill newspaper, Romney said, “Don’t attack a whole class of
Americans, whether they’re rich or poor, white or black. This isn’t the
time for divisiveness.”
On Sunday, Rep. Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee, accused Obama of “sowing” class envy.
“I
think the president is doing that. I think he’s preying on the emotions
of fear, envy and anger. And that is not constructive to unifying
America. I think he’s broken his promise as a uniter, and now he’s
dividing people. And to me, that’s very unproductive. That’s not who we
are in America.”
Ryan pushed back at the suggestion that the GOP is only interested in supporting the rich and powerful in America.
“Well,
people make the charge. What I would simply say is I don’t worry about
people who are already rich,” Ryan said. “I’m worried about getting
people to become successful, removing those barriers so that people
who’ve never seen success before can actually become successful. And
when you keep raising all these tax rates, all these regulatory barriers
on successful small businesses, how are we gonna get the jobs of
tomorrow?”
For the Occupy Wall Street movement,
the eagerness with which some Democrats appear to be aligning themselves
with its goals brings with it a certain degree of risk.
The
movement has, right or wrongly, been frequently compared to the rise of
the tea party (some are calling it the “left-tea party”), which also
began as a backlash against the Wall Street bailouts.
Like
the Wall Street protesters, the tea party in those early days described
itself as lacking central organization — and its proponents feared
being co-opted by a then-flagging GOP that was eager for a new identity.
They worried that being identified too closely with the Republican
agenda would lessen its credibility.
Some
Republicans such as presidential contender Herman Cain have suggested
that the Democratic Party infrastructure has been behind the protests
all along, claiming Sunday that labor unions have driven the movement so
as to distract the public from Obama’s economic policies.
Those
same suspicions trailed the tea party as well, that the movement was a
product of special interest groups and conservative financiers such as
the Koch brothers.
Amy
Kremer, chair of the advocacy group Tea Party Express, downplayed the
comparison in an interview Monday with “The Takeaway,” a public radio
program based in New York.
“I understand why
they’re out there. I understand why they’re mad at Wall Street — that
the banks were bailed out. But you know, we were mad that the banks were
bailed out too; that’s one of the reasons we got started. But we
certainly weren’t out in the street for four weeks. At some point you
have to turn,” Kremer said. “Having a protest attracts people to the
movement, but at some point if you want to be effective, you have to do
something to effect change. And being in the streets for a month isn’t
going to effect change.”
But when asked about the
dangers of being identified too strongly with the GOP, Kremer seemed to
suggest some common ground with the protesters on the other side of the
spectrum.
“Everyone wants to align us with the
Republican Party, and yes, we do align more with conservative values.
But this is not about being Republican or being Democrat, this is about
being American,” she said. “And what we want people to do is to educate
themselves on the issues so when they go to the polls, they vote on the
issues and not on the letter next to someone’s name.”
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