If nothing else, the #occupywallstreet protests, happening in the heart of the world’s financial center, have forced elites to reckon with their own precarious position. The New York Times does the honors today, connecting the protests to other uprisings around the globe, and making a subtle (and also wrong) point that there’s something anti-democratic about popular protest.

Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.

Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. But from South Asia to the heartland of Europe and now even to Wall Street, these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.

They are taking to the streets, in part, because they have little faith in the ballot box.

“Our parents are grateful because they’re voting,” said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards’ decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. “We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.”

Whether or not you believe that voting is worthless, at least in this country, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are nominally protected in the Constitution. Protests and demonstrations are part of the history of America.  They’re as much a part of one’s civic participation as heading to the ballot box on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even-numbered years.

We’re experiencing a global recession and an historic level of income inequality that are both signs of an elite failure.  These elites should be frightened that the masses aren’t mollified by choosing between two members of their class every couple of years as elected representatives. Trust in government is at an all-time low for a pretty good reason: frustration with poor governmental performance.

Elites have been preparing for this for at least the last decade. They have Patriot Acts and terrorist watch lists you can never get off of and free speech zones and a general acceptance of police brutality on law and order grounds and gated communities and a host of other “security measures” that exist to pacify protest.

This is nothing new. We saw a decade of protest in the 1960s that ultimately generated a backlash and led to pacification. We could be on that trajectory again. However, we’ve also seen protests throughout American history, some of them wildly successful in bringing forward legitimate change. We could see that, too.