The protest looks like a cross between a street fair, a campground, and the most annoying college seminar you ever attended. That’s not meant as an insult, just a fact. Dewey Square is not dirty and smelly, as right-wing talk show hosts like to sneer. It’s impressively ordered, with wooden walkways between the tents, a structured system for dishwashing, and plenty of earnest people talking principle.

And it’s drawing a steady crowd of tourists. At lunchtime the other day, I met a 35-year-old lawyer from a nearby building, a 28-year-old librarian just off jury duty, a 49-year-old bank worker on disability who had come from a doctor’s appointment. I ran into a neighbor from the suburbs, passing through on the way to a meeting nearby. I saw at least a dozen people taking snapshots.

Most of them — even the ones in business suits — seemed to be sympathizing, not sneering. There are plenty of people who would love to overnight it in Dewey Square, but have bills to pay and family responsibilities. And there are plenty of people who have no desire to sleep in one of these tents, but share a sense that something has gone awry with the social contract. All of them owe thanks to “Occupy Boston’’ for giving voice and presence to a sentiment that has largely been drowned out in recent years, by money in politics and a vocal group of antitax absolutists.


But “Occupy Boston’’ owes something to the sympathizers, too. Nobody seems to want to talk about next steps; I’ve heard critiques of the very concept of channeling this movement into a political force, as if electoral politics were some bourgeois cliché that misunderstands the true purpose of the effort. Maybe it is. But if this party simply goes on, status quo, until the freeze sets in, then there’s a decent chance that all of this public sympathy will be wasted.


“Occupy Boston’’ reminds me of a Tea Party organizing meeting I attended two years ago, down to the catch-all list of demands, the scattered anarchists in dread-locks, the as-yet-unfulfilled promise. The Tea Party started out as a vague collection of frustrated and disaffected people, each with a particular pet peeve. Through some concerted effort by political hands - and, yes, some intervention by moneyed interests with agendas - it grew into a movement. It put up candidates, swayed elections, and, like it or not, had a demonstrable effect on Washington culture.

This is not a stated goal of the current core of “Occupy’’ protestors, in Boston and beyond. Some of them are too disaffected by the system to want to work within it. Some are so enamored with the concept of leaderless democracy that their meetings quickly devolve into arguments about the best method for arguing. On the ground in the tent city, I heard lamentations about “working groups’’ that meet for hours at night, incapable of agreeing on a list of grievances as varied as ending private prisons and using paper ballots. I witnessed a protracted fight over how to poll the crowd and truly gauge what the 99 percent are thinking.

News flash: 99 percent of the people aren’t going to agree on much. At some point, someone has to step in and take charge. Perhaps it will be someone from the unions, who have piggybacked onto the effort. Perhaps a few national politicians will end their tentative flirtation and dig in.


This is scary to the occupiers, and that’s understandable; if you’re listening to no one, that means everyone is in. “We’re an inclusive movement,’’ said one self-appointed spokesman from the media tent.

Of course, he also talked about eliminating corporate money from politics, and this could clearly be a signature issue, an analog to the Tea Party’s fixation on the debt. Here’s another lesson from the Tea Party: It’s time to find some candidates within this horde, and show that frustration can translate into votes. Representative democracy ain’t always so bad. Especially once there’s snow on the ground and the visitors go away.

Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @JoannaWeiss.