United Liberty

If you ever wanted more fuel for the argument against Occupy Wall Street being the 99%, then look no further than Gallup.

In their polls, they’ve found that, while OWS has a slightly higher approval-disapproval mix than the Tea Party (26% support and 19% oppose for OWS, compared to 22% support and 27% oppose for the Tea Party), they also found that:

Half or more of Americans are neither supporters nor opponents of these movements. That underscores the point made by my colleague Jeff Jones in his analysis — namely that the majority of Americans are not highly caught up in these movements that occupy so much of the news media’s time.

In other words, neither the Tea Party nor the Occupy movement are representative of the American public. I think that’s a shame, for both groups, because there are so many points they both have right and need to be spread. The most crucial of these points is that “corporatism is not capitalism,” and that people need to earn their way to the top—not cheat by lobbying politicians and extracting favorable rules from regulatory agencies that put their competitors out of business.

As for why more people are against the Tea Party, while more support the Occupiers, I think it’s pretty simple. One of my friends questioned a free market supporter after a debate, as to why he “lost,” and the debater said simply: “The challenge of defending free markets and limited government is that you’re telling people there’s no Santa Claus.” On the contrary, what the Occupiers are mostly saying is “Give us more free stuff!” It’s really nothing to do with which group is right, but everything to do with human psychology.

And that psychology is right now looking at both groups and saying, “I don’t give a rat’s pajamas about you.” Guess we’re nowhere near the breaking point yet.