An Occupy Wall Street protester joins a demonstration at Times Square, New York

Occupy vs. The Tea Party

CIC | October 19, 2011

The North American Autumn has arrived: throngs of disenchanted citizens taking to the streets to peacefully protest what they think is wrong with politics today. Though the Occupy and Tea Party movements boast very different political ties, some would argue that they are upset by the same vicious cycle: large corporations lobby to increase government power and government, in exchange, enacts legislation that favours large corporations. The CIC dissects where the analogies are valid – and where they are not.

	OCCUPY WALL STREET	THE TEA PARTY
Average Demographic	Young, white, skilled, but jobless	White, male, married, and over 45
Party affiliation	Unknown, but Obama supports the movement	10 per cent of Tea Partiers are Democrats. 62 per cent are conservative Republican, according to the last Gallup poll.
Initial popularity	The first protests drew 5,000 to 7,000 people around the U.S.	The first April 15 rallies drew 240,000 to 800,000 people.
Per cent of Americans who think favourably of the movement	56 per cent	27 per cent
Per cent of Americans who think the impact has been negative	23 per cent	65 per cent
Affiliated blog	We are the 99 per cent	We are the 53 per cent
Impact on elections	Fifty-six per cent of those familiar with the movement think it will not impact the presidential elections.	Seventy-three per cent of Americans believe that the movement increased political involvement.
The big day (in the U.S.)	An estimated 70,000 people around the U.S. demonstrated on Oct. 15, 2011.	Tax Day (Aug. 15, 2009) drew more than 300,000 people in 346 cities around the U.S.
Largest protest	The largest protest in the U.S. took place on Oct. 15, 2011 in New York, and drew almost 7,000 people. The same day, at least 200,000 people came out in Spain.	Tax Day 2009 protests in Atlanta, Georgia drew an estimated 15,000 people.
Going global …	‘Occupy’ protests have taken place in over 900 cities worldwide.	The movement has spread to Australia. There is also a Tea Party of Canada website.
Geography	The Oct. 15 ‘Occupy’ protests in the U.S. were concentrated in the West.	Tea Partiers are concentrated in “Boom Towns – places that enjoyed economic growth in the run up to the financial crash, but have been hard-hit since.”
Slogans	We are the 99 per cent.	T.E.A. – Taxed Enough Already

Photo Courtesy Reuters.