A new poll shows a plurality of people now have an unfavorable view of the Occupy movement.
Boston Herald (“Thumbs down for Occupy, Tea Party in new nationwide poll“):
The Occupy Wall Street movement may be starting to lose its luster with the American public, with four in ten now saying they have an unfavorable view of the protests, a new nationwide UMass Lowell/Boston Herald poll shows.
The online poll of 1,005 American adults reveals that 35 percent still have a positive impression of the Occupy movement, but 40 percent now say they have an unfavorable opinion. About one quarter of the poll respondents had no opinion or were unsure.
The UMass Lowell/Herald poll, conducted Oct. 28 through Nov. 1, is the first to show negative sentiment tilting against the Occupy movement, which has now spread to hundreds of cities, including Boston. Several other comparable national polls conducted earlier in October showed slightly more positive than negative views of the protests.
[…]
Half of American adults say they have an unfavorable impression of the Tea Party, while just 29 percent hold a favorable view, according to the poll. A total of 31 percent say they have a “strongly unfavorable” view, indicating the intensity of feeling against the Tea Party movement is relatively high. Just 10 percent view the Tea Party movement in a “strongly favorable” light.
Just 13 percent have a “strongly favorable” impression of the Occupy movement, while 21 percent had a “strongly unfavorable” view. Surprisingly, lower-income voters have the least favorable opinion of the Occupy movement, while those making more than $100,000 are more supportive. And the strongest backing for the Occupy protesters comes from those living in the Northeast.
This isn’t really surprising. Both the Tea Party and Occupy tapped into popular resentments at the outset but gradually wore out there welcome as the protests became more associated with the yahoos who showed up than the legitimate complaints that spawned them. The Tea Party is of course less popular, having not only been around longer but now being strongly associated with one political party and a set of polarizing candidates.
As I’ve noted in several previous threads, it’s useful to distinguish between the movements and the grievances behind them on the one hand and the protests and protestors on the other. While the latter are losing public support, the former are not:
The poll does show one common thread between both movements, however — a strong dislike for both Wall Street and the federal government.
While 85 percent of those who support the Occupy movement say they have an unfavorable view of Wall Street and large corporations, 64 percent of Tea Party sympathizers share that negative view.
And feelings against government in Washington run even hotter. More than 71 percent of all American adults have an unfavorable impression of the federal government, including 72 percent of Occupy Wall Street supporters and 86 percent of Tea Party sympathizers. And about three-quarters of all Americans say that political action committees and large corporations have too much influence in politics.
The problem, of course, is that there isn’t 86 percent or 72 percent support for any particular public policy solution to these issues. That makes it easier for political action committees and large corporations to prevent action.
