The election of Bernie Sanders would not just be a boom for democracy, it would be the ultimate and final victory of the Occupy movement.
The 2010s were a decade that was defined by Occupy, the camp beginning in 2010 and its effects carrying on well into 2011 as well as the beginning of the Arab Spring all laid the foundation for a decade to be defined by protest. In 2011 Time Magazine called “The Protester,” the person of the year.
Despite the collapse of Occupy due to structurlessness, police raids, and undercover police infiltration, the sentiment of Occupy has flourished.
The rhetoric of the 99% vs the 1% has carried into the 2020 race for the presidency.
The entire decade has been filled with revolt and revolution across the globe. Syria, Haiti, Chile, Zimbabwe, France, and several other countries have seen huge scale demonstrations of public dissent.
The election of Donald Trump was followed by a wave of people filling the streets chanting “Not my President,” and the number of different marches all rejecting his agenda, such as the March for Science, the Tax March, the Women’s March, and the Still Here Still Trans marches, all continued well into his first two years in office.
Occupy went from being a fringe protest to a global movement almost overnight, and sometimes it feels like the movement ended as quickly as it began. However the movement never really ended, it just shifted gears.
Now it has the chance to achieve it’s ultimate validation in a Bernie Sanders presidency.
Bernie Sanders was the only person serving in congress at the time to acknowledge Occupy Wall Street, not only was he the only one to acknowledge us, and he was the only one who would stand by us.
Bernie Sanders has also said he wants to be “the organizer in chief.” Which reminds me of the core sentiment of Occupy, we were not actually a “leaderless” movement, we were a movement of leaders.
The election of Bernie Sanders in 2020 would be the ultimate conclusion to the Occupy Decade. We will have gone from occupying Zuccoti Park to controlling the country. We cannot forsake this chance to over take the 1% masters of capital.
This is our decade, the time of the people, the decade of the 99%, the era of occupy, and we will conclude this era by taking what is ours.
James J Jackson 