Occupy Wall Street Co-Founder: Our Marches Did “Nothing.”

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By Kody Fairfield

According to the Washington Examiner, Occupy Wall Street co-creator Micah White has had an epiphany, and now believes big protests are ineffective and sometimes even counterproductive.

“We could have large-scale marches for every year of Trump’s presidency. It would do nothing!” he told NPR’s Eric Westervelt.

“You would think that with the triumph of Trump there would be a fundamental re-assessment among activists. But there hasn’t been. They’ve just doubled down on the same behaviors!” he added.

The Examiner makes clear that the OWS leader’s politics have not changed. White still considers himself a progressive, but he has had a change of heart in how he views the affect of drum circles and shutting down traffic on political action. Admitting that OWS was a bust, and encourages those who protest President Donald Trump to learn from the organizations mistakes, reports the Examiner.

Running for office, and building from there is now how White suggests moving his politics forward, says the Examiner. He himself ran for Mayor of Nehalem, Oregon. Though he lost badly.

“It’s awkward and painful, and you’re a black guy living in rural Oregon talking about revolution and one out of five people really gets it and loves it. But 80 percent don’t,” White says and laughs. “And do they want you to leave? Yes, they want you to leave.”

Westervelt following the interview reported: “White now sees [protesting tactics] — including mass street protests and sit-ins — as almost futile. Protesters, he says, keep repeating the same mistakes: fetishizing the pageantry of protest and confusing online social marketing wins with real change.”

White himself added, “Success now has become something like getting a lot of people to hear about my meme. We have become obsessed with the spectacle of street protest and we have started to ignore the reality that we are getting no closer to power.”

White explained to the Examiner that while occupying City Hall was his previous goal, he is now focused on owning it.

“We could have activists take over small towns for the benefit of people who live there and the people who are going to move there, and actualize all of the grand ideas that we have on the left,” he said. “We have to do this. There is no other option. We could do protesting forever. And it would do nothing.”

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