The tea party movement and the occupy Wall Street movement are not necessarily as inflexible as many perceive. In fact, the two seemingly opposite ends of the political spectrum share some common ground. According to this article by Marc Fisher in The Washington Post, that, while the two populist movements sometimes see other as “misguided or even evil,” Marc found that “in interviews and online discussions they repeatedly share many of the same frustrations, as well as a classically American passion for fixing the system.”
“No one expects the tea party and Occupy movements to merge forces, but their adherents are discovering that their stories are often strikingly similar: They searched for jobs and came up empty. They found work, but their pay barely covered food and rent, with nothing left over even to buy an old car. They saw their towns empty out as young people moved away in search of money and meaning.”
In today’s paper, Jon Cohen shared the results of a Washington Post Pew Research Center poll that revealed “profiles of Occupy supporters and those who back the tea party expose traditional red-blue splits, not mainly a new divide.”
Still, there are similarities. Both movements are dominated by southern white males aged 30 to 64.
