This is the third installment in a series.
Part I looked at the history of populist movements in American politics and can be found HERE.
Part II looked at the shape of the emerging movement and can be found HERE.
In the final part of the series I am going to explore the possible ways in which this movement could have an impact on American politics.
At this point the Occupy Movement can best be described as an organic expression of discontent. The people who are assembled in lower Manhattan have a structure of a steering committee and a general assembly. Some position statements come from that structure. Some of the other groups that are forming across the country seem to be following similar structures. However, at this point there is no national body or national policy. It is all a work in progress.
The Occupy Movement is not the Tea Party of the left. The two movements are different in many important ways. It does seem pretty clear that the business of the OWS movement is not with the Republican party. There is nobody there who has any interest in the kinds of reforms they see as being needed. That would seem to mean that whatever form of political action evolves is going to involve interaction with the Democratic Party.
Some of the people involved are inclined criticize all traditional forms of politics and resist getting involved in them. Others are looking toward ways to change the course of existing American politics. As I see it there are three general approaches to political action that this movement could take.
1) Become a support auxiliary for the Democrats and work for the reelection of the existing office holders and more of the same.
2) Work to move the Democratic Party to the left and either pressure the existing office holders to alter their present positions or replace them with Democratic candidates who will.
3) Work for the organization and development of a new party of the left.
Option 1 is what the Democratic loyalist think should happen. It strikes me that at this point those expectations are pretty unrealistic. The Democrats have held power for three years now and the general state of the economy has really shown no improvement and there are serious storm clouds on the horizon of another global recession. People would not be out in the streets if they thought the existing party was going to fix the problems.
I am going to skip over option 2 to option 3 next and then work my way backwards.
There has not been a change in the dominant two party structure since the civil war. The major parties have shifted their positions and power bases in response to various historical development. There have been efforts to form third parties, usually in response to some specific political crisis. Southern segregationists have been the most persistent in their efforts. None of these third parties have ever sustained a significant national impact beyond a single electoral cycle.
If Ross Perot had managed to win the presidency in 1992, it is difficult to imagine what would have happened. Congress would have been composed entirely of Republicans and Democrats. In order for a new party to have sustained political leverage and impact it would have to achieve a much broader base of electoral success than just the White House. Short of a truly cataclysmic upheaval in American society, that is not going to be accomplished in a single electoral cycle. Any political movement setting out on that course would have to be able to sustain energy and cohesion over an extended time frame.
Some of the issues that are being addressed by people in this movement such as political corruption and the imbalance of power are indeed things that aren't going to go away. However, it seems to be the economic crisis that is providing the driving force and that is a burning concern for the present electoral cycle. I have no doubt that there are people in this movement who see a new party as the only viable option. We will be hearing more discussion about it. This is not an exclusively Democratic movement.
The new deal offers an historical example of the Democratic Party being pulled to the left and kept there for an extended period of time. This did not just automatically happen with the election of 1932. When FDR took office he did not have any general plan for reform and recovery. He started swatting flies and putting out fires. He and the people whom he initially chose as advisers were inclined to follow generally conservative economic policies. As he gained experience he replaced most of those advisers with younger more radically oriented people. He was pulled to the left by circumstances and by political pressure from a variety of organized political groups.
American politics has been drifting to the right since the 1970s. Democratic presidents and other office holders have endorsed and supported neoliberal policies such as free trade and financial deregulation. This pattern is not unique to the US. There has been a trend in Europe for parties with historical roots in social democracy to adopt third way neoliberal policies and follow the drift to the right. In various ways in their own national contexts this has been true of British Labour, French Socialists and German Social Democrats among others.
My personal opinion is that the best way to make use of the energy being generated by this movement is to make a maximum effort to change the Democratic Party and to do it "with all deliberate speed" as the Warren court said in Brown. This would require a get tough approach. Some serious primary challenges would likely have an invigorating effect. I of course don't speak for anybody but myself. However, I would venture to make one prediction. This is going to be a very lively election and it is unlikely to be business as usual.
Could Barack Obama be turned into a reasonable facsimile of FDR? It would be interesting to find out. That would be one change that I could believe in.