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MAD AS HELL How the Tea Party Movement s Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System by Douglas E. Schoen and Scott Rasmussen Today's raucous revolt against Washington and Wall Street is a classic populist uprising. In Mad as Hell, political pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen discuss how the Tea Party movement is fundamentally remaking our two-party system and what it means for the future of American politics. Mad As Hell offers the first in-depth bipartisan look at a movement that is largely misunderstood, by two of the preeminent political advisers and consultants in America. Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen - two of the most important and influential analysts of public opinion in America today-predicted the rise of the Tea Party movement and have been chronicling it since. With deftness and specificity Schoen and Rasmussen provide the first comprehensive explanation of the Tea Party movement -- its origins, and assess what its impact is going to be in November. For political junkies of every stripe?from both the left and the right side of the aisle?Mad as Hell is mandatory reading. "Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen are two of the most important and influential analysts of public opinion in America today, and their study of the Tea Party movement deserves careful consideration by anyone interested in assessing the critical importance of this growing movement." -SEAN HANNITY "Mad as Hell tells the truth about the Tea Party movement. Throw out everything you've heard from the big media and get this book to find out how the Tea Party is re-shaping America." -CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, CEO AND PRESIDENT OF NEWSMAX MEDIA INC., "Mad as Hell is a hell of a book. Rasmussen and Schoen have given us a data-rich, historically informed, and politically incorrect analysis of a fascinating and important political phenomenon-the Tea Party movement. Don?t go out into political debate without reading this book first." -WILLIAM KRISTOL, EDITOR, THE WEEKLY STANDARD "

The Occupy Movement vs. The Tea Party Posted on October 19th, 2011 by The Public Professor Why is it that the Tea Party, an American movement founded nearly three years ago, seems completely incapable of reaching beyond U.S. borders, while Occupy Wall Street is an American movement that transformed into a genuine international phenomenon within just a matter of weeks? If we can manage to avoid partisan accusations and snide quips, an honest assessment reveals core similarities between the Tea Party and Occupy.  Both have emerged as genuine social protest movements.  Both are concerned with the current economic malaise.  Both vent their anger at powerful institutions.  And both became tremendously successful, garnering millions of supporters in a relatively brief period of time.  Yet one has remained an exclusively American movement, while the other is quickly spreading around the entire world. One obvious explanation is the symbols and framing devices adopted by the Tea Party movement, beginning with its very name.  The Tea Party has proudly draped itself in American symbolism, which of course limits its appeal elsewhere.  But that cannot explain it completely. Symbols are flexible.  People can adapt.  A genuine anti-government movement will hop borders.  Just look at the Arab Spring. What's more, the Tea Party's initial focus had the potential to be an international draw.  Indeed, some of the issues driving the Tea Party are quite similar to the ones fueling the Occupy movement, particularly rage against the economic mess.  People elsewhere in the world could have adopted the Tea Party movement and refashioned it with their own national or even international symbolism.  Greece in particular is a nation where citizens have very real reasons to be outraged at their government's irresponsible economic policies. But unlike the Arab Spring, the Tea Party anti-government movement has not crossed any national borders, and it almost certainly never will.

Occupy the Vote A new student initiative, "Occupy the Facts," should also emphasize political engagement By THE CRIMSON STAFF Published: Thursday, November 10, 2011 0 8 COMMENT EMAIL PRINT In Nov. 2010, days before the Republicans' midterm triumph, at the crest of the Tea Party wave, The Guardian's Gary Lounge wrote that the movement "…does not exist. It has no members, leaders, office bearers, headquarters, policies, participatory structures, budget or representatives." One year later, the Tea Party' fortunes have ebbed somewhat, and it has been largely supplanted by Occupy Wall Street as the epicenter of American populism. And yet, Lounge's words are perhaps even more pertinent now than they were then, as they also aptly encapsulate the gravest deficiencies of this latest protest movement. Like its rightwing predecessor, Occupy Wall Street has been criticized-by The Crimson, no less-for its permeating incoherence and debilitating disorganization. Enter "Occupy the Facts," a new, Harvard-grown student group dedicated to providing an intellectual foundation and policy platform for the headless movement. "Occupy the Facts" appears to be a direct response to these allegations of incoherence; its goal, according to co-founder Peter D. Davis '12, "is calling those peoples' bluffs." His colleague, Talia B. Lavin '12, likewise said that "I've noticed this persistent criticism that the demands of the movement aren't specific enough. The goal is to reach out to people who have heard a lot about Occupy but aren't sure what Occupy is trying to achieve." Our democracy is ill-served by blind, amorphous rage, and so we are heartened to see some effort to channel this populist energy into constructive issue advocacy. We are living today with the consequences of the Tea Party's failure to provide intelligible solutions to our most pressing national problems, and the effort to better inform and orient this new upsurge of popu

A Framing Memo for Occupy Wall Street by GEORGE LAKOFF on OCTOBER 19, 2011 in COMMUNICATION, NEWS, POLITICAL MIND I was asked weeks ago by some in the Occupy Wall Street movement to make suggestions for how to frame the movement. I have hesitated so far, because I think the movement should be framing itself. It's a general principle: Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you - the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends. I have so far hesitated to offer suggestions. But the movement appears to maturing and entering a critical time when small framing errors could have large negative consequences. So I thought it might be helpful to accept the invitation and start a discussion of how the movement might think about framing itself. About framing: It's normal. Everybody engages in it all the time. Frames are just structures of thought that we use every day. All words in all languages are defined in terms of frame-circuits in the brain. But, ultimately, framing is about ideas, about how we see the world, which determines how we act. In politics, frames are part of competing moral systems that are used in political discourse and in charting political action. In short, framing is a moral enterprise: it says what the character of a movement is. All politics is moral. Political figures and movements always make policy recommendations claiming they are the right things to do. No political figure ever says, do what I say because it's wrong! Or because it doesn't matter! Some moral principles or other lie behind every political policy agenda. Two Moral Framing Systems in Politics Conservatives have figured out their moral basis and you see it on Wall Street: It includes: The primacy of self-interest. Individual responsibility, but not social responsibility. Hierarchical authority based on wealth or other forms of power. A moral hierarchy of who is "deserving," defined by success. And the highest principle is the primacy of this

THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT AND THE NATURE OF COMMUNITY by Akim Reinhardt I'm currently at work on a book about the decline of community in America.  I won't go into much detail here, but the basic premise is that, barring a few possible exceptions, there are no longer any actual communities in the United States.  At least, not the kinds that humans have lived in for thousands of years, which are small enough for everyone to more or less know everyone else, where members have very real mutual obligations and responsibilities to each other, and people are expected to follow rules or face the consequences. One of the fun things about the project has been that people tend to have a strong reaction to my claim that most Americans don't live in real communities anymore.  Typically they either agree knowingly or strongly deny it, and I've been fortunate to have many wonderful conversations as a result.  But for argument's sake, let's just accept the premise for a moment. Because if we do, it can offer some very interesting insights into the nature of the Occupy movement that is currently sweeping across America and indeed much of the world. One of the critiques that has been made of the Occupy movement, sometimes genuinely and thoughtfully but sometimes with mocking enmity, is that it still hasn't put forth a clear set of demands.  It's the notion that this movement doesn't have a strong leadership and/or is unfocused, and because of that it stands more as a generalized complaint than a productive program.  That while it might be cathartic and sympathetic amid the current economic crisis, the Occupy movement doesn't have a plan of attack for actually changing anything. While I disagree with that accusation for the most part, there is an element of truth in it.  However, to the extent that it holds water, the issue isn't that the people involved don't know what they want to do.  Rather, many of them know exactly what they want.  But they ar

danieltutt.com The #Occupy Movement and Gramsci OCT. 16, 2011 READ LATER As we enter the second or third week of the #Occupy movement, I'm beginning to sense that the momentum is no longer an issue. The movement seems to have gotten past the hump of legitimacy and we're now into a bona fide new wave of social protest. At this point, the movement has already succeeded, purely in its capacity to incite a new potential into political discourse. It is fair to categorize the #Occupy movement as a form of 'political disobedience', as distinct from 'civl disobedience' insofar as it is purely concerned about the deadlock of politics, after politics, with creating the space for a new possibility of politics. The #Occupy movement is a form of agonistic democracy a la Laclau and Mouffe in On Populist Reason, and Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. What is crucial for the movement to maintain its vibrancy is that it continue to keep the demand closed, or if you like, to keep the crisis exposed. The crisis of the system is the problem, and the idea of any modicum of policymakers creating reform is not sufficient. The idea of #Occupy when thought as a visual metaphor is perhaps best envisioned as a collection of struggles that are gathered under a single umbrella. The wider and more able to cover the space of struggles, contradictions, and inadequiecies that politics has provided in recent times, the more potent the power of the movement will gain. In other words, if #Occupy does not open space for the Tea Party, Ron Paul'ies, alter-globalization activists, greenies, identity politics, anarchists, etc, then it will fail. No one struggle can define this movement, especially not entrenched institutional interests such as organized labor or MoveOn.org. From the standpoint of strategy, the #Occupy movement has expanded on the idea of following power to various summits and protesting physical space (IMF, World Bank, Seattle in 99′ etc) and has sought to directly occup

Confronting the MalefactorsBy PAUL KRUGMANThere's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people. When the Occupy Wall Street protests began three weeks ago, most news organizations were derisive if they deigned to mention the events at all. For example, nine days into the protests, National Public Radio had provided no coverage whatsoever. It is, therefore, a testament to the passion of those involved that the protests not only continued but grew, eventually becoming too big to ignore. With unions and a growing number of Democrats now expressing at least qualified support for the protesters, Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point. What can we say about the protests? First things first: The protesters' indictment of Wall Street as a destructive force, economically and politically, is completely right. A weary cynicism, a belief that justice will never get served, has taken over much of our political debate - and, yes, I myself have sometimes succumbed. In the process, it has been Closehttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/krug... the malefactors&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print (1 of 4) [10/7/2011 1:59:02 PM]Confronting the Malefactors - NYTimes.comeasy to forget just how outrageous the story of our economic woes really is. So, in case you've forgotten, it was a play in three acts. In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst - but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers' sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved

Occupy Wall Street: Beyond the Rhetoric Matthew Flisfeder One of the distinguishing features of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is its apparent lack of central leadership. Not only does the movement seem leaderless; it does not appear to be organized around any clearly defined 'demands.' This has been perceived as something quite positive for participants and supporters of the movement, while being the primary point of criticism from opponents, particularly the mainstream media. Clearly, OWS stands against the unfair balance of wealth distribution in the United States (and around the world, for that matter), the unfair neoliberal politics that have swept the globe over the last four decades, corporate greed (especially in the financial sector), and various forms of systemic violence resulting from structural inequalities built into the capitalist system of exploitation. But what media pundits are looking for is something that they can represent: something, that is, with a timeline, that defines when the protestors will be 'satisfied.' This makes OWS qualitatively different from the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings that took the world stage last winter, popularly touted as the 'Arab Spring.' These groups had clearly defined 'demands': first and foremost was the overthrow of their political leaders. OWS is distinguished from the Arab Spring to the extent that its definitive aims and goals have yet to be defined. Activists meet October 7th in Toronto, in a pre-October 15 General Assembly. The movement has gone beyond the various '-isms,' labels that media pundits and the corporate elite find easy to dismiss: 'communism,' 'socialism,' 'anarchism,' 'Leftism,' etc. Commentators outside the United States have started to take notice. CBC business personality, Kevin O'Leary made a mockery of himself last week during a live interview with the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Chris Hedges, by referring to him as a "Left-wi

Occupy Wall Street: lessons and opportunities Cas Mudde, 12 October 2011 Subjects:International politics Democracy and government United States north america democracy & power politics of protest The Occupy movement in the United States is both similar to and different from its Tea Party predecessor. The precise combination gives it political space to grow, says Cas Mudde.

Occupy Wall Street vs. Jobs by Michael D. Tanner This article appeared on National Review (Online) on October 12, 2011. PRINT PAGE CITE THIS   Sans Serif   Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis The last week brought us a striking contrast that tells us much about the current debate over the direction of this country. On one hand were the perpetually aggrieved protestors of Occupy Wall Street. While much of the media, desperate to find a liberal counterpart to the Tea Party (remember coverage of the state-house takeover in Wisconsin?), tried to pretend that this was an organic and leaderless uprising by middle America, the reality was that most of the demonstrators were the same motley crew that regularly shows up to demonstrate against the World Bank or G8 meetings, their ranks bolstered by union activists, MoveOn.org, and the Obama front group Organizing for America - not to mention the usual collection of filthy-rich movie stars who flew in on private jets and then climbed into waiting limousines to show up to denounce the filthy rich. But while Roseanne Barr was suggesting that the rich should be beheaded and demonstrators were making such reasonable demands as the forgiveness of all debt, much of the rest of the world was mourning the death of Steve Jobs, the filthy-rich businessman who was responsible for all those iPhones and iPads that the iPod-sporting protestors used to organize their demonstrations. [W]hat government jobs program has created as many net new jobs as Jobs? Jobs certainly was rich. Estimates suggest he was worth more than $7 billion. But it's important to realize that he didn't start out that way. Jobs's story was a quintessential American one. Born poor (and out of wedlock), he achieved success through hard work and brilliance. Along the way he failed sometimes. But when he did, he didn't beg Washington for a bailout. Instead he frequently put his own capital at risk, taking chances, because entrepreneurship truly i

We Power From Zuccotti Park to Main Street, people's yearnings spark new possibilities for a shift from me to we BY JULIE RISTAU & ALEXA BRADLEYSHARE Print Occupy Wall Street and related actions across the country overturned the conventional wisdom that most Americans passively accept a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy. There's genuine surprise among journalists and other experts that thousands of people from all walks of life are camping out in the autumn chill to protest Wall Street greed. And there's shock that their actions are supported by a majority of Americans. A recent Time magazine poll found that 54 percent view the Occupy Wall Street protests favorably (23 percent do not). Compare that to the 27 percent in the same poll who view the Tea Party favorably. Until now, it's been easy to think that no cares what's happening because there were no protests in the streets. But the dynamics of social change are more complicated that that, as shown in this essay by On the Commons Co-director Julie Ristau and Program Director Alexa Bradley. Although written before the Wall Street occupation, it pinpoints the power of our yearnings to set the stage for future action. We live under the market paradigm today, they write, in which "people's social, political, and even personal consciousness is conditioned by their belief in the market as the only efficient system to organize society." That means it takes time for many people to respond to events like the economic crisis, and that when they do it comes out first as feelings, not as policy proposals. But three years after the crash, there's an upsurge in outrage about the richest one percent high-jacking the U.S. economy-and rising interest in the commons as a way to find our way of this mess. - Jay Walljasper Adapted from the On the Commons book All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons. Young and old together, we will not be moved. (Credit: By "David Shan

From Protest to Disruption Frances Fox Piven Frances Fox Piven has spent decades writing about and participating in social movements in the United States. She was gracious enough to sit down for an interview with Chris Maisano, a writer and activist in the New York local of Democratic Socialists of America, where this interview first appeared. They discuss the Occupy Wall Street protests, the complex interplay between social movements and electoral politics, and the future of the occupation movement. Chris Maisano [CM]: What have you thought of the Occupy Wall Street protests so far? Frances Fox Piven [FFP]: I think they've been pretty terrific. And I really am hopeful that it's the beginning of a new period of social protest in this country. I think a lot about the protest is absolutely on target, it's so smart. It was so smart to pick Wall Street because Wall Street looms so large not only in the reality of inequality and recession policy, but it looms so large in the minds of people now because everybody knows that they're stealing the country blind. So they picked the right place, they had somehow - I don't know how self-consciously, maybe self-consciously - absorbed a kind of lesson from Tahrir Square of staying there, because usually we have demonstrations and marches and parades and things, and they're over in a nanosecond. And all that the authorities have to do is wait, because they're gonna be over. So what they tried to do is take this classical form of the mass rally - they didn't do it alone, obviously it happened in Egypt too - and connected it with the disruptive potential of mass action because they said 'we're staying.' And 'we're staying' is more troublesome. Not only that, 'we're staying' makes it possible for them to organize and mobilize throughout the course of the action, which is what they do. So that part of it was pretty, pretty smart. Frances Fox Piven interveiwed by Democracy Now! (October 4, 2011). They are sm