General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "7.8 and the number is cooked" [View all]theKed
(1,235 posts)But ... it's not terribly shocking that the Tea Party and Occupy movements sprang up soon close together, chronologically. There are, observably, very distinct differences to their end desires and goals, but both bear striking similarities in their cores. Hear me out, before you launch the attack. Both are strongly emotionally-fuelled movements, both are 'grassroots' movements composed of great masses of 'lower' classes, both feel wronged and betrayed by governments and institutions that are seen to be no longer serving the people.
At both of their roots are large swaths of "the 99%" (whether disenfranchised socialists/anarchists in Occupy or the right wing equivalent in the Tea Party) with this simmering, undirected rage at the upper classes of society. How this rage gets filtered and directed, of course, is vastly different between the two, but it's that same anger at a society that has betrayed them.