The right-leaning Rasmussen Reports returns from the field with what I think is the first poll about Occupy Wall Street.
The buried lead: At the moment, the protesters who’ve been mocked on CNN and Fox News, accused of class warfare by Mitt Romney, and handled delicately by the White House, have… decent favorable ratings.
Americans are divided on the protestors themselves.
Thirty-three percent (33%) have a favorable opinion, (and a plurality of)
Twenty-seven percent (27%) hold an unfavorable view,
Forty percent (40%) have no opinion one way or the other,
Fifty percent (50%) of Democrats have a favorable opinion. (while a plurality of )
Forty-three (43%) Republicans say the opposite.
Among those not affiliated with either major party, a solid plurality (45%) have no opinion. Most unaffiliateds are not following the story.
Will that number hold up as the movement gets more coverage? Who knows. It didn’t hold up for the Tea Party. But one way of looking at this is that the Occupy Wall Street movement is more than twice as popular as Congress. Because of that low engagement number, it’s technically more popular than the Tea Party.
In an August Rasmussen poll,
Forty-three percent (43%) of Americans considered “Tea Party” a negative label,
twenty-Nine percent (29%) considered it positive.
The message is more popular:
Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Americans “agree with the statement that the ‘The big banks got bailed out but the middle class got left behind.’” (The way I heard the chant on Friday: “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”) This is the context for the steady roll of Democratic endorsements; today, Russ Feingold.
The poll was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, with a sample of 1,000 adults.
The Tea Party. The Tea Party faded, I think for good reason that are easy to comprehend. First, the movement was ginned-up by people who by paradigm were concerned with government spending. One would be naïve if one did not acknowledged that powerful people found the Tea Party a most convenient vehicle for combating the newly elected non-traditional president. It was easy for the Kochs and other ‘uber’ wealthy via the likes of Dick Armey, FreedonWorks., and David Dukes Ku Klux Klan to deliver their anti-Administration messages. (For those who will question my inclusion of David Duke and the KKK, You Tube David Duke and take a listen to one of his most recent videos) If we add a taste of Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley’s ‘killing Grandma’, it was easy to incite the middle-aged to elderly. That very level of excitement facilitated the Tea Party takeover of he House of Representatives. The efforts to take over the Senate failed because of their whacked-out candidates. In any case, half the mission was accomplished. Once Tea Party politicians took office, those very protesters found out about conservative/GOP subterfuge and effective politicking. The need for the Tea Party outside of government could then ease with no real damage to the Tea Party backers. They got one half of what the money-backers wanted. How long did it take for those Tea party protesters to find out about their party’s focus on dismantling or reducing entitlement programs?
The Occupy Wall Street movement has a vastly different genesis. Rasmussen is correct in wondering how long the movement will survive. OWS will fade with time (weather, interest and the like) but I posit that it will leave a viable and living skeleton that will influence U.S politics. In fact the Occupy Wall Street movement is in part alive due to complete grid-lock and obstructionism in Washington D.C. True bi-partisan cooperation could have led to elimination of many grievances of the eventual OWS.
“The poll was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, with a sample of 1,000 adults.” how reliable is that to represent the 99% or the 1%… that isn’t even 0.1% of the 1%
An Alternative to Capitalism (if the people knew about it, they would demand it)
Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: “There is no alternative”. She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.
I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to an essay titled: “Home of the Brave?” which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John Steinsvold
Perhaps in time the so-called dark ages will be thought of as including our own.
–Georg C. Lichtenberg
It really shows how bright wall street is to think that a ceo is worth the money their paid.It is a total insult to the stock holders. Just think how much more the dividends would be if they were not giving millions of dollars to the ceo,s and exec.It boils down to the economy the stock holders would have more to spend and the employes would have more to spend and the economy would be much better.Instead they give it to a small hand of people who will hoard it or buy a 3rd or 4th home and give the GOP donations so they can buy more congressional seats to change the laws that were passed to make this country a nice place to live.May you all rot in hell with your give a shit attitude thinking only of me,myself and i counts nothing else. P.S Iam in the process of selling all of my stock and closing my banking accounts. 99% starts here.
If the Occupy Wall Street Movement stands against: corporate greed, one percent of the population making more than what the all of our middle class and poor class makes combined together, the CEO of the public corporation making more in one day what a common employee makes in a year, the fat bonus distribution to the corporate directors while the dividends to the stock holders are suspended, creation of financial instruments for trading on the stock market which investors cannot understand, packaging of mortgages into tradeable instruments to dump the mortgage risk on the unsuspecting investors, trading derivatives which no one can understand to this day, then I support the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.
I see this movement combing forces with the End The Fed movement, then Rasmussen should take another poll and release the results. I think you will find them very interesting.