Are the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street Two Sides of the Same Coin?

It's tempting to view the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements as popular responses to the mortgage crisis and its lingering aftereffects. Under this analysis, the movements differ most sharply in the targets of their rage: the Tea Party of course focused its ire at the government, which taxed them too much already yet failed to use its massive revenues responsibly, while Occupy Wall Street's anger is directed towards big business, especially the financial institutions which created the financial house of cards based on mortgages which came crashing down in 2008. There are certainly similarities in how the two movements have developed: in particular, it's interesting to watch mainstream Democratic politicians rush to express solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protesters just as many establishment Republicans were quick to declare themselves Tea Party supporters. I wouldn't be surprised to see the president and other prominent Democrats symbolically "occupy" Wall Street during the 2012 campaign, probably long after the original protests have petered out...but I have my doubts that the OWS supporters are really going to turn out to be loyal Obama Democrats, just as I'm skeptical that the Tea Party would rally around Mitt Romney if he were to gain the Republican nomination for president.

What the Tea Party meant politically going into the 2010 midterm elections was fairly clear: Tea partiers were fed up with the status quo and were as eager to primary out incumbent Republicans who didn't share their principles as they were to vote out incumbent Democrats in general elections. Policy-wise, the Tea Party wants the government to tax less and spend less. The political impact that Occupy Wall Street will have in 2012 and beyond is much less clear, though perhaps that will change as the movement matures. Indeed, since OWS is at this point directing protests against businesses rather than the government, perhaps its biggest impact will be to change how financial institutions operate and value their relationships with their customers. Could a Bank of America walk back on its proposed fees for debit card users, for instance? I think a lot of Americans want the big banks to show humility given that many of them would not exist today without taxpayer support and considering that the larger American economy is still struggling. Many may not realize that some of the banks that are raising fees are also struggling themselves: Bank of America has lost money (billions) in three of the last four quarters, while Regions Financial last made an annual profit in 2007. Still, it's not unreasonable to expect banks to make money from their core lending operations and not nickel and dime the customers who provide them the capital they need to make loans. The more banks view their customers and the taxpayers at large as prey, the more mass resentment their behavior will spur.

What kinds of political changes would Occupy Wall Street like to see? Increasing regulations on the banks might be one plank in an OWS platform, but it's hard to imagine another big change in finance regulation being implemented so soon after the passing of Dodd-Frank. Arguably, the protests on Wall Street stand as an indictment of Dodd-Frank -- the protesters don't seem to think it was sufficient. Some, for instance, would like to see criminal charges brought against people they perceive to have "engineered" the crisis. Personally, I've always felt the financial crisis had more to do with incompetence and shortsightedness than criminal intent, and BOA's current financial situation just reinforces that view: bad banks are bad banks even if you bail them out. While we may never a Bernie Madoff type duly chastised and sent away to prison, there are going to be lawsuits galore...Bank of America for one is facing a whopping $10 billion suit from AIG even after agreeing to an $8.5 billion settlement with other embittered investors. Whether the big banks should continue to exist in their current form is another issue (I for one don't think they should), but they are being punished for their bad behavior to a degree. Another policy change that OWS supporters might rally around is increased taxes on businesses and the wealthy. This will also be a difficult change to affect, particularly as it pits the Tea Party and OWS directly against one another -- whenever you have one energized group of people who believe something is an absolute good and another energized group that believes it to be an absolute evil, there is no common ground to be found.

So perhaps OWS won't rewrite the laws...they could at least shake up an election or two, right? After all, the success of the Tea Party in 2010 hasn't actually lead to lower taxes -- it just managed to strongly change the makeup of the House of Representatives. What President Obama and the rest of the Democratic establishment have to be hoping for is that Occupy Wall Street support will translate into more votes for Democrats. Tea Party supporters found many incumbent Republicans to be too tainted by the system to deserve their votes -- I suspect OWS supporters will similarly look askance at mainstream Democrats they perceived as being beholden to Wall Street. However, they may find their own insurgent Democrats or even third party candidates to support. I'm particularly interested in seeing whether a candidate like Elizabeth Warren is embraced by the OWS movement. Her message seems to fit the mood of the movement and the fact that her background isn't in politics is reminiscent of some Tea Party candidates, but at the same time she does have ties to the political establishment...but for Republican opposition to her being named head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, she'd be a part of the Obama administration right now, and she's already out-fundraising an incumbent Massachusetts senator. If people like Warren become the political face of Occupy Wall Street, I think this will bode well for President Obama and other prominent Democratic candidates in the next election cycle.