In the presidential race, it’s striking to note that the Republican and Democratic candidates’ campaigns contain only vague echoes of the two significant popular movements of the last few years: the “tea party”and Occupy Wall Street. In an attempt to tap some of the political momentum behind these movements, each party has pushed the idea most amenable to its base: the tea party’s anti-tax stand for Republicans; Occupy’s soak-the-rich attitude for Democrats. Yet both parties ignore what unites the two movements: their fundamentally anti-elite, anti-establishment attitude.
