Young: Making hate a civic virtue

Cathy Young is a regular contributor to Reason magazine and the website RealClearPolitics.

The occupy protests rocked Washington this week, while tea party activists battle against consignment to irrelevancy in the Republican primaries. The two movements -- which claim to represent the American people, yet in practice just deepen our divisions -- continue to draw scrutiny and inevitable comparisons. Are they mirror images of each other on opposite sides of the political spectrum?

Partisans on each side angrily reject the parallel. To commentators on the left, the occupy movement is about restoring opportunity for all and giving a voice to the disenfranchised, while the tea party is about bigotry and preservation of privilege. To those on the right, the tea party is about restoring constitutional norms and reining in state power, while the occupy protests are about fomenting lawlessness and grabbing other people's hard-earned wealth.

Yet, while the movements are very different in many ways -- demographics, beliefs, tactics -- they have some striking similarities.

Both tea partyers and occupiers see themselves as true representatives of the people -- "Middle America" or the "99 percent" -- and as defenders of the country's core values: liberty for the tea party; equality for the occupy protests. Both see themselves as anti-establishment rebels. Both direct their ire at a ruling class that has usurped power and corrupted politics: economic and corporate elites for occupy activists, cultural and intellectual elites for tea party supporters.

The truth, too, is that each movement reflects some legitimate concerns that attract the sympathy of many people who aren't activists. Bureaucratic bloat and the fattening of the welfare state do pose a danger not only to individual freedom but to creativity, innovation and wealth creation. Shrinking opportunities for the middle class do threaten the American dream, with upward mobility stalled for too many.

Unfortunately, it's equally true that each movement's dark side is far more than just a radical fringe. The activists' rhetoric and actions, on both the left and the right, give ample ammunition to their enemies.

Defenders of the occupy movement reject charges that it is anti-capitalist, claiming that it opposes only corporate irresponsibility and the political power of money. Yet you don't need to look very hard to find anti-capitalist screeds from occupy activists, some of whom regard money as so evil that they argue the movement should reject cash donations and accept only food and supplies. Occupy protests have shut down businesses and, leading up to the holidays, even targeted Christmas shopping.

Tea party supporters bristle at charges of racism, and it's true that some reports have relied on skewed poll data to assert that pro-tea party Americans are particularly prone to prejudice. But it's also true that many tea party protests have condoned racially offensive signs (such as ones depicting President Obama as a monkey or a witch doctor). The movement's obsession with the idea that Obama may be Kenyan-born also reflects a troubling focus on the president's racial identity.

Conservatives point out that, unlike tea party rallies, some occupy protests have turned violent. This may be partly due to tactical differences, with the occupiers' embrace of civil disobedience. But there's certainly been no shortage of violent rhetoric on both sides. In the acerbic words of a friend of mine, it's "angry old white people versus angry young white people."

It's too early to tell if either group will have a lasting effect on the nation's governance. But clearly, each has furthered political polarization, reinforcing the tendency to blame scapegoats and demonize opponents. Each has elevated hate to civic virtue. And in doing so, both movements have damaged the fabric of our public life.