To the extent that OWS had any influence at all, it was at the level of slogans: “one percenters,” “the 99 percent” and “occupy x” have entered our language. But as a populist left wing fight back against the biggest economic disaster since the 1930s, it was dismally lame. At its height it failed to match levels of popular mobilization and outreach that earlier movements achieved in past episodes in American history– and it fell quickly from that height.

To some degree, it was killed by its “friends.” The tiny left wing groups that exist in the country jumped all over the movement; between them and the deranged and occasionally dangerous homeless people and other rootless wanderers drawn to the movement’s increasingly disorderly campsites, OWS looked and sounded less and less like anything the 99 percent want anything to do with. At the same time, the movement largely failed to connect with the African American and Hispanic churchgoers who would have to be the base for any serious grass roots urban political mobilization. The trade unions picked up the movement briefly but dropped it like a hot brick as they found the brand less and less attractive….

The Tea Partiers by and large (not always or cleanly) escaped the fatal embrace of the nutters and the ranters on their side of the spectrum; OWS was occupied by its own fringe, and so died.

“OWS RIP” by Walter Russell Mead.