Strangely, I both agree and disagree with Matt Yglesias at the same time. At the most fundamental level, I think that Occupy Wall Street is an irrational protest. So, I wouldn’t call it a rational response. But it is an appropriate response to our current political circumstances. It might seem like a semantic distinction, but it’s an important one. The reason people are acting irrationally is because it has become clear that all rational responses are blocked. For those of us who have sought to bring about needed changes through the ballot box, we’ve seen our hopes dashed by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizen’s United, which makes it impossible for the small-donor model to compete with corporate cash. Further, we’ve seen that even with healthy majorities in both houses of Congress and a progressive-minded administration, we can’t craft solutions to the left of Senators Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe. The system is rigged against us to such a degree that it’s hard to maintain hope in our strategy’s likelihood for success. And then we have to fight a rearguard action against the right’s national program of voter suppression. We know things can and will get substantially worse if the president is not reelected, but we have little reason to believe things will get better if he is. This is a byproduct of the Republicans’ unprecedented willingness to obstruct and demagogue every important issue facing the country.
Therefore, a huge portion of the left, and even the center, has given up on the electoral process, and that is why the Wall Street protests aren’t timed to the legislative calendar or coordinated with the administration or the Democratic Party. Their demands are nebulous and unformed because the moment something is made specific it becomes clear that it can’t happen.
People with an organizing background are ambivalent about these protests, which have some of the hallmarks of failed organizing efforts of the past. The effort to lead through consensus, for example, has not historically worked out very well. Yet, without an alternative to offer, it’s hard to argue against the idea that something needs to be done, some effort needs to be made, some gesture, no matter how futile, is required. And the mobilization of lots of young people will probably bear fruit in the future.
In order to be a rational protest, it would need to be more focused and have some kind of direct goal. It would need a logical path from here to somewhere better. These protests don’t have that. But that doesn’t mean that circumstances don’t call for an irrational response. The word “irrational” carries some negative connotations, among which is stupidity. These protests aren’t stupid. This isn’t a bunch of people asking the government to keep its hands off their Medicare. As frustrated as I am that the left has basically given up on the fight in Washington, given the gridlock and hopelessness of breaking it, it would be stupid to tell people we can solve our problems legislatively or electorally.
Of course, those are the only ways we can change the tax code or hold the banks accountable, but we have no hope of doing that in the near future. With no rational way forward, the irrational route is suddenly justified. It has to be better than the alternative, which is apathy.
And one key to remember here is that the protesters are not, in general, making radical demands. They’re not making irrational demands. They’re reacting to a system in which entirely modest and reasonable demands have no hope of being met.
That’s McConnell’s plan. Kill hope and thwart change, and the president will fail. As long as people keep their eye on that ball, I have no problem with the Wall Street protests.