The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is nothing like the Tea Party. Democrats ignore the differences at their peril.

Is Occupy Wall Street similar?

The only similarity between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party is that each has its sideline cheerleaders. Even that is a stretch. The Republican Party has never once aided the Tea Party in any way. But some Republican Party officeholders have allied themselves with the Tea Party since Rick Santelli’s famous rant two and a half years ago.

Over the weekend, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) openly declared her support for Occupy Wall Street. Christiane Amanpour held a mostly sympathetic interview with Pelosi. But even she had to ask Pelosi whether she risked “pitting Americans against Americans.” Pelosi’s reply:

Well, that’s the American system. It’s the democratic system. We don’t all agree. We’d have a king if we were all of one mind. We don’t. We have different views. And the part of the democracy of our country is the expression that people give, and the Constitution guarantees that.

That’s not what she said of the Tea Party two years ago.

This morning, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent an e-mail to its mailing list, asking readers to support Occupy Wall Street. The Daily Caller and Fox News Channel both reported on this. Here is an excerpt:

Protestors (sic) are assembling in New York and around the country to let billionaires, big oil and big bankers know that we’re not going to let the richest 1% force draconian economic policies and massive cuts to crucial programs on Main Street Americans.

To summarize: both groups have their sideline cheerleaders, and each group has its own “big” thing to protest. (In the Tea Party’s case, the “big” thing is big government.) There the similarity ends.

The differences

The differences between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party go much further than ideology:

Occupy Wall Street participants often receive a stipend, usually from a labor union, to appear. No one has ever shown that a Tea Party attendee received a stipend to show up.

Occupy Wall Street features pre-printed signs. Some of those carrying the signs cannot even read them. Tea Party folks, in contrast, make their own signs.

Occupy Wall Street has many people showing up to “score” free stuff—free food, or even free drugs. Tea Party folks bring their own food, or come prepared to buy food and/or merchandise.

Aside from this, Occupy Wall Street protesters often don’t know why they’re part of the movement or any given event. Tea Party people know what they fight for. They often hand out pocket Constitutions, read the Declaration of Independence aloud, and set up historical-education displays.

Occupy Wall Street protests can get messy—often disgustingly so, according to The Daily Mail. (This article contains a now-iconic picture of a protester “mooning” a police cruiser—and worse. But that is far from the only photograph to show the filthy conditions that protesters create for themselves.) Tea Party people pick up their own litter, and often leave their venue cleaner than they found it.

Let no one say—and say it to your shame—that all was beauty here until you came.

Occupy Wall Street protests have often resulted in arrests. Not so Tea Party and related events. The most strenuous part of Tea Party duty is keeping counter-demonstrators away from the main event.

Occupy Wall Street now has high-powered funding from unions, existing leftist fund-raisers, and (ironically) at least one billionaire, George Soros. The Tea Party’s detractors have repeatedly insisted that the business empire of Charles and David Koch does this honor for the Tea Party. And they adduce not one scintilla of evidence to support that charge.

The consequences

The Tea Party movement has moved away from regular rallies. Activists prefer conventional campaigns—or perhaps not-so-conventional.

If Occupy Wall Street continues much longer, more people will see the differences between these two movements. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is correct: these are mobs, and often violent ones. This might explain why Brit Hume, managing editor at Fox News Channel, said flatly this morning that Democrats “are playing with fire” if they support this movement.