Co-option unnecessary
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")
The mini-brouhaha over the potential co-option of the Occupy Wall Street movement ranks among the sillier nontroversies of the last few weeks. Apparently, someone unknown put out this image, which has been seized upon by everyone from conservative to libertarians to progressives with an ax to grind against the Democratic Party. This, even though neither the General Assembly nor anyone who can be credibly purported to speak for the protesters at Occupy Wall Street had anything to do with it.
When it comes to "co-option" of the protests, there are a few key points that bear repeating:
1) The more organizations get involved in the movement, the harder it becomes to co-opt. A wide array of progressive and progressive-affiliated groups are already putting their weight behind Occupations all over America.
2) The Democratic Party as it currently stands is fairly incapable ideologically and organizationally of co-opting the protests. The chief problem with the Democratic Party nationally is that it should have been on the ground engaging in anti-Wall Street rallies and anti-Wall Street rhetoric at least since the fall of Lehman Brothers if not before. Progressives who have a conspiratorial view of the Democratic Party despite never attending a single central committee meeting often fail to realize that as an institution, the Democratic Party's ostensible function is to register voters, advocate on behalf of progressive causes insofar as it has the courage and uncorrupted spirit to do so, and spend money to elect Democratic candidates.
A Democratic Party that can't even stand firm on ending naked short-selling and banning naked credit default swaps isn't about to be able to co-opt an anti-Wall Street message. Passing out voter registration forms at the protests, while a good idea on general principle, doesn't really fit the spirit of the protests at least at this stage of the game. And most cities in America don't have major elections going on right now. So organizationally, there's not much for the Democratic Party as an institution to functionally co-opt, anyway.
3) The only people who run the risk of negatively co-opting the movement are the InfoWars/Alex Jones/Ron Paul types. But even then there is strength in numbers and ideological variety. Part of the benefit of these sorts of protests, as Digby pointed out, is the educational aspect. People come together and learn from one another: maybe a more traditional Democrat learns about the shady history of the Federal Reserve, while a Paulite learns why going back on the gold standard is a really bad idea. Cross-fertilization of ideas is a good thing.
4) Even if the Democratic Party wanted and had the capability to co-opt the protests, it would be a bad idea from a purely political and media perspective for both sides. Part of the media appeal of the Tea Party is that to this day it stridently insists that it is non-partisan, independent and not affiliated with the Republican Party. The Republican Party understands that the benefit of this pretense of separation is that, in theory, the GOP doesn't get tarred with brush of the craziest elements of the Tea Party, while the Tea Party doesn't get labeled as just another partisan Republican organization. Similarly speaking, the more staid Democratic Party would want to avoid being associated with any potentially extreme statements coming out of the Occupy movement, while the Occupy movement would certainly want to dissociate itself from overtly partisan activity.
5) Talking about "co-option" is silly in many cases, anyway. Again contra the widely held beliefs of many online progressives, most local Democratic club members and activists (including local party officials like myself) perform their volunteer efforts entirely pro bono. Sometimes we get paid to work on individual campaigns, but it's rare seasonal work and the pay isn't great. We don't receive much in the way of official diktats from national headquarters, and guidance even from state headquarters is fairly limited. As anyone who's been much involved in Dem Party activism outside of certain machine cities can attest, Will Rogers' famous quip about not belonging to an organized political party is on target in this respect. And most of the people who volunteer at the local level to work for tens of hours every week totally unpaid while donating hundreds or even thousands of dollars every year out of pocket to affiliated organizations, do so because they're passionate about either social issues, anti-corporate and anti-inequality issues, or both.
So when MoveOn and labor groups join to help occupy cities, they're often drawing from the same pool of activists. Yes, there are many Democratic activists at Occupy movement locations. Not because the Democratic Party orchestrated the protests, as right-wing conspiracy theorists are claiming. Not because the Democratic Party is trying to co-opt the protests, as left-wing conspiracy theorists are claiming. It's just because many of the people most agitated against corporate control of the country were already volunteering to help Dems and Dem issues in the first place. The exception to the rule here is New York City, of course, where much of the Democratic infrastructure has been cowed by financial sector influence.
6) Maybe most importantly, there is absolutely no need for the Democratic Party to co-opt the protests. When you've got jokers like this speaking for Republicans, all the Dems need to do is get out of the way and let them keep talking:
Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) on Thursday slammed the Occupy Wall Street protests, saying they are an attack on businesses and freedom.
“They don’t know why they’re there. They’re just mad,” Broun said on ABC’s "TopLine.”
“I see people angry in my district too. But this attack upon business, attack upon industry, attack upon freedom and I think that’s what this is all about.”
Or conservative icon Bill O'Reily:
“What do these people want?” O'Reilly asked. The common thread seems to be income equality… basically socialistic outfits… You can get it in places like Cuba and Zimbabwe.”
The Dems don't need to co-opt the protests. All Dems need to do is give them a thumbs up, and let the protesters hear what conservatives and Republicans have to say about the frustrations of the 99%. Come election season, any protesters in doubt who were paying much attention at all will know if not whom to vote for, at the very least whom to vote against.
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