Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Occupy à la mode


No doubt about it, those Occupy people have themselves a catchy battle cry -- "We are the 99%!" -- but no one really believes that a fragmented mob of idealists represents virtually all Americans. It's not even close to the truth, which makes the protesters an easy mark for ridicule well deserved.

Real numbers -- and by that I mean facts, backed up by polling or other research -- tend to make lousy slogans, even when the numbers themselves highlight something that may be, in one way or another, significant. To wit:

We are the 15%
...of Americans who profess no religion.

We are the 18%
...of Americans who believe that Pres. Barack Obama is a Muslim.

We are the 20%
...of Americans who admit to having peed in a swimming pool.

We are the 21%
...of Americans who pledge allegiance to the Republican Party -- coincidentally, the same percentage that identify their political ideology as "liberal."

We are the 24%
...of Americans who are unemployed.

We are the 32%
...of Americans who pledge allegiance to the Democratic Party.

We are the 36%
...of Americans who identify their political ideology as "moderate."

We are the 41%
...of Americans who identify their political ideology as "conservative."

We are the 46%
...of Americans who pledge allegiance to neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party.

We are the 55%
...of Americans who disapprove of the way that Pres. Obama is handling his job.

We are the 66%
...of likely Republican-primary voters who want the former Mayor of Wasilla to stay the hell out of the 2012 presidential campaign.

We are the 75%
...of likely Republican-primary voters who want someone other than Mitt Romney to be President of the United States.

We are the 77%
...of Americans who say that our country is on the wrong track.

We are the 81%
...of Americans who disapprove of the way that the U.S. Congress is handling its job.