One thing that is especially irksome about their movement is its pleasure seeking. This protest, like countless others, has been described as having a “carnival atmosphere”. Doesn’t that seem a little less than revolutionary? During the Red Scare of 1919-1920, America was torn apart by union strikes and anarchist bombs. Clashes between labor and nationalist mobs in Cleveland, Ohio were only broken by mounted police. Two people died, forty were injured and 116 were arrested. Compare that grim, cheerless struggle for workers’ rights with this report from the Wall Street protests, which briefly swelled when it was announced that Radiohead would be playing in Zuccotti Park: “While hundreds of people have camped out overnight in the plaza during the two-week old sit-in for social change, an online announcement that Radiohead was en route jammed the plaza. “I actually think it’s kind of ridiculous,” said a dreadlocked 20-year-old who identified himself as Pigpen…

Compare the aimless Wall Street protesters with the folksy savvy of the Tea Party. The Tea Party was started by ordinary folks who hate the corporations just as much as they hate the government. They have experienced the nightmare of foreclosure, or of a chain store opening across the street and killing their trade. They know that the bailout was driven by financial lobbyists, and they hate every congressman who voted for it. They are what the novelist Chilton Williamson once called, “Country and Western Marxists”. What differentiates them from the Wall Street protesters is culture. They are recognisably American in their ideals and appearance. And they get that the American people don’t want to see the free market curtailed by yet another social democratic contract. Best of all, the Tea Party won’t take to the streets to get what they want. They understand that the path to reform of Wall Street begins at the ballot box. The Tea Party represents an American vision of the future. The Wall Street protesters are a horrible reminder of its past mistakes.