US Elections

Over three thousand Americans have again gathered in Chicago. Many are white, middle-class college students in their teens and twenties. All are outraged. Their country is mired in an economic downturn that the protestors had no hand in creating, but which is making it difficult for them to find jobs, pay off student loans, and build a life similar to their parents’.

But here is the critical difference. Protestors in 1968 blamed the government; in 2011, they are blaming business, and looking to the government for solutions. This is not to say many don’t find both parties unpalatable — they do. But they fundamentally believe in the government’s ability to fix the inequality that they see around them, something that is manifest in each one of Occupy Chicago’s demands.

It is difficult to say exactly why this generation of protestors’ view of government is so different from that of the last, but one possible explanation lies in another event in Grant Park, three years ago: Barack Obama’s victory speech. Then, these same students rejoiced in their contribution. Now, they still believe politics can respond to their hopes: they’ve seen it happen.

Let's hope that their faith is not misguided.

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The ALL, like the Tea Party, built its ideology on the American creeds of local control and respect for the Constitution. One pamphlet called on Americans’ abiding localism in opposition to the National Recovery Administration (NRA), crying, “There can be no defense of the policies which seek by subterfuge to usurp the rights of the States!” ALL members also shared the Tea Party’s proclivity for appealing to the Constitution in their campaign against a growing government bureaucracy. These ideologies, among others, drew in a large number of supporters — registered American Liberty Leaguers numbered over 125,000 by mid-1936.

If the ALL successfully appealed to certain basic American political instincts, why did support for the organization wane?

The ALL failed to maintain its influence for one fundamental reason: its ideological rigidity led the organization to advocate against legislation that sought to help struggling Americans. The ALL opposed popular bills that sought to protect Americans and mitigate economic woes, from the creation of the NRA to a reformed and more flexible Federal Reserve.

It is to this fact, above all others, that the Tea Party must pay attention if it hopes to retain its sway in American politics. Reaction to the recent debate over the debt ceiling indicates future trouble for the Tea Party. The Tea Party-supported candidates’ inflexibility in the debt debate turned off many Americans. An early August New York Times/CBS News poll showed 40 per cent of Americans characterized their view of the Tea Party as “not favorable,” compared to only 18 per cent in April 2010. The debt ceiling debate was a political battle in which the Tea Party seemed willing to hurt Americans to conserve their own ideological purity. This time, the Tea Party averted disaster. But if the Tea Party continues to champion ideology over the common man, it may well go the way of the ALL — into the annals of American history as an extreme group that could not learn the American tradition of compromise.

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