Who are the 99%?

I recently read Brian Stelter’s article, “We are the 99% Percent Joins the Cultural and Political Lexicon”.  He discusses how the catchy slogan of the Occupy movement has now made it’s way into modern vernacular as far more than just a rallying cry against the wealthiest of Americans.  While the slogan worked for the Occupy movement, Stelter’s point is that it works for more than just those protesters camped out in parks and before city hall.

 

 

Politicians, of course, were some of the first to seize on the phrase to promote their own agendas.  If there were ever a prime example of the 1%, our elitist political class would be it.  With the current debates in Congress over exemptions for politicians from Obamacare, and subsidies for themselves which wouldn’t be seen by anyone else making their salaries, the use of the whole “99%” quote is a bit hypocritical.  The one group who actually fights for the non-elites and who hasn’t seized on the slogan is the Tea Party. 

 

The Tea Party and the Occupy movement have many similarities.  Both are protesting government actions, they just happen to be on different sides of the coin.  And while the Occupy movement has fizzled out in recent months, the Tea Party moved into the political spectrum and got some of their own candidates elected into office.  In spite of both groups fighting for the well-being of the everyday American, the Tea Party is one of the few groups who hasn’t seized on the “we are the 99%” slogan, preferring old favorites like “Give me Liberty, or Give me Death” and “No Taxation without Representation”.

 

Stelter goes on in his article to describe some slogans that caught on from protests over the years.  All of us can think of a few from the Vietnam era, from the civil rights movement, even from the revolution.  While the 99% slogan is catchy and somewhat appropriate for the cause, the lack of follow through on the protesters part will probably cause it to die out in a few years.  The children today won’t remember “we are the 99%” the same way as other political slogans from the past, mostly because of the failure of the Occupy movement to organize and solidify what they were protesting.