On Saturday, members of Occupy Iowa held a protest outside the Obama for President campaign office in Des Moines. This sparked a pissed off post here from someone apparently surprised that a movement spearheaded by anti-establishment, anti-Wall Street leftists would object to the Obama presidency.
Until now, OWS's universal message and lack of demands have allowed just about everyone this side of The New Republic to support it. And that's good! What's been obscured, though, is the movement's radicalism. Many, if not most, of the people at the heart of this movement are not Democrats. They're at the very least disaffected Dems. They don't support the Democratic Party (not its current incarnation, anyway) and may eschew electoral politics altogether. In his excellent post here on the origins of OWS, anarchist David Graeber alluded to his belief that it's not possible for "progressive policies to be enacted in the US through electoral means."
To be clear, OWS is not an anti-Obama movement: everyone involved understands the problems precede and transcend the President. But make no mistake: OWS views the President and the entire Democratic Party as part of the problem. It's been interesting to see Democratic leaders try to make nice with a movement that opposes them, but the comity cannot last indefinitely. Over the coming weeks, as the movement's essence becomes impossible to overlook, stalwart supporters of the President will start to object. I see very little chance that a rift won't develop.
But it's not just establishment Dems and their supporters who should feel challenged by the success of OWS. Anyone who sees the Democratic Party as a vehicle of progress should be prompted to reevaluate his or her Theory of Change. Indeed, OWS principles run counter to the principles of Daily Kos, a site dedicated to electing more and better Democrats, a site founded on the belief that electing MABDs is the way to change the country. There's more than one way to skin a corporation, perhaps, but we do the country and the left a disservice if we don't ponder and learn from the success of OWS. After all, it's done more in five weeks to alter the country's political landscape than Daily Kos has done in ten years.
OWS should broaden our ideas about what's possible and necessary.
UPDATE: I originally linked to a motion that had been tabled -- that explains some of the comments. The post, in any case, holds up without it.
To be clear, I'm not attempting to speak for the movement. I'm merely stating what I see to be the obvious truth -- that it stands in opposition to the political system, including the Democratic Party.
UDPATE 2: As I reread the post (which isn't my strongest post evah) I realized I conflate two related points -- that OWS stands in opposition to the Democratic Party and that OWS's Theory of Change runs counter to that of Daily Kos and any other institution that believes in working through the Democratic Party. To me, that second point is more interesting. Daily Kos dogma hold that we can change the country by electing more and better Dems; OWS offer a different model whose success should have us all thinking.