Shoring up the lines?

Earlier I had a shocking (to me) thought.

I am now wondering whether the OWS movement served to disrupt what had been the Tea Party’s burgeoning cross-cultural appeal. As I have noted in old and tedious posts, there is a great deal of overlap between class war and culture war. So much so that the distinctions blur. (And can be made to blur further, by skilled distinction-blurrers.)

The Tea Party in this area was loaded with libertarians, Ron Paul supporters, and bohemian type kids who sport tattoos and piercings — you know, the sort of people who’d be targeted by petition gatherers seeking to put Michigan’s latest marijuana legalization initiative on the ballot.

This must have been very threatening to the left, especially the movers, shakers and influence shapers who want to stereotype us all and tell us what we really think, harness our natural class hatreds, etc.

Anyway, I am wondering whether the OWS movement might have been a strategy cooked up by behavioral science schemers to help breathe new life into the very tired “culture war,” and shore up if not restore some of the most cherished “traditional” right-wing versus left-wing lifestyle stereotype memes. Very quickly, many rank-and-file Tea Party activists seemed to veer more sharply into social conservatism than ever before. Is there an OWS connection? Or is it just a coincidence?

(A more troubling question is whether I should be thinking out loud. Is that bad strategy?)

NOTE: This blog post was Sarah’s fault, for causing me to think about what makes people hate some cars more than others. These things are not entirely rational.


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3 responses to “Shoring up the lines?”

  1. Bram Avatar
    Bram

    Interesting thought. I kind of suspected that OWS was what we in the military would call a “spoiling attack.” It certainly put the conservative side on defense.

  2. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    I must make you think more. I confess that all the OWS did to me was make me hate Marxism more… (shrug) OUR OWS seemed mostly middle aged union thugs who looked like what they say the tea parties were (and in this area weren’t.)
    BUT I think you are right, though I think OWS backfired for them, too. You see, our poor president, a victim of brainwashing from the earliest age, EXPECTED them to ignite public revolt FOR the left. I’m SURE of it.

  3. latte island Avatar
    latte island

    I don’t know, because I never attended either Tea Party or OWS demos, but I did notice a sea change at Gates of Vienna a while ago, which caused my departure as well as that of a few other secular people. The comments seemed to become more and more hardline religious right, while before it had been more of a coalition. Regardless of what happened with the Tea Party, I do know that pro Tea Party bloggers and commenters (at GoV at least) parted ways on social issues long before OWS.