What, Exactly, Was Occupy Wall Street The Beginning Of, If Anything?

Understanding how we went from a protest against the 1%, to a president from the 1%.

I was reminded while reading a recent issue of the New York Times Book Review this morning that it was just about 10 years ago that Occupy Wall Street — and the greater Occupy movement — was born. A former professor of mine from UC Berkeley, Todd Gitlin, notes this fact in his review of Generation Occupy: Reawakening American Democracy by Michael Levitin.

In the subtitle of his review, Gitlin asks the following question:

Was Occupy Wall Street the ‘beginning of the beginning?’

Levitin, as explained by Gitlin, credits the movement with everything from reinvigorating the political fortunes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to laying the groundwork for the Women’s March, the #MeToo movement, and Black Lives Matter, to creating space for the Green New Deal to gain traction. In short, Occupy is presented as having been the beginning of a great many important things.

I see things a little differently.

As I see it, Occupy marked the beginning of a new era of social-media-fueled performative activism that was—and still is—all…