Big Picture

Heilemann: Will Occupy Shake 2012?

Meditations on the imminent demise of Occupy Wall Street are everywhere, but New York political columnist John Heilemann thinks the movement may have only begun to shake up American politics. In a lengthy cover essay, Heilemann reports that Occupy leaders believe "after a brief period of retrenchment, the protests will be back even bigger and with a vengeance in the spring—when, with the unfurling of the presidential election, the whole world will be watching." Whether or not the movement has major political impact next year will "depend on which of two broad strains within OWS turns out to be dominant," the radical reformists or the Marxists.